author
R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell
1873–1915
Best known for helping compile one of the major ethnographic surveys of central India under British rule, he was a civil servant whose work still draws attention from historians and readers of colonial-era scholarship. His life was short, but it left behind a substantial and often-cited record.
4 Audiobooks
The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 4
by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell
The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2
by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell
The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1
by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell
The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3
by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell
About the author
Born in Weymouth, Dorset, on August 8, 1873, he was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge before joining the Indian Civil Service. He became closely associated with the Central Provinces of British India and later served as Superintendent of Ethnography there.
He is chiefly remembered for The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, published in 1916 after his death and prepared with the assistance of Rai Bahadur Hira Lal. The work aimed to describe the communities, customs, and social life of the region, and it remains an important source for readers studying colonial ethnography and the history of British India.
Robert Vane Russell died on December 30, 1915, off the coast of Crete, at just 42 years old. Because his reputation rests mainly on this large documentary project, he is often remembered as both an administrator and a recorder of the people and institutions of central India.