Charles Acland

Charles Acland was a British chaplain and author active in India, remembered for A Popular Account of the Manners and Customs of India, published in 1847 after his death. Sources identify him as having served at Pooree, Cuttack, and Midnapore, and place his life in the early nineteenth century, with his death in 1845.

The prefatory material to his book says that he and his wife left England around the beginning of 1842, leaving several young children behind. The work grew out of the letters and observations he wrote during his time abroad, which helps give it a personal, immediate voice rather than the tone of a distant survey.

Today, Acland is mainly read for that single book, which blends travel writing, anecdote, and social description. For modern listeners, it can be valuable both as a vivid record of British life in India and as a revealing example of how nineteenth-century writers viewed the country and its people.