author
W. H. Inglis
A little-known early 19th-century writer whose surviving work opens a window onto scandal inside the East India Company. His best-known publication is a sharply argued report on alleged rice frauds near Seringapatam, written for readers following a controversial colonial case.
1 Audiobook
A report of Major Hart's case, of rice-frauds, near Seringapatam
by W. H. Inglis
About the author
Very little biographical information about W. H. Inglis appears to survive in the standard sources available online. What can be confirmed is that he was active in print in the early 1800s and published A Report of Major Hart's Case, of Rice-Frauds, Near Seringapatam, With Notes; and an Appendix Addressed to the Proprietors of East-India Stock in London in 1818.
The title page of that work presents him as the author of another report on Mr. Sherson's case and trial at Madras, also connected to rice-fraud allegations. That suggests he wrote as a public commentator on legal and administrative disputes tied to British rule in India, addressing readers interested in East India Company affairs.
Because so little else can be verified, Inglis is best understood through this surviving publication: a polemical, documentary-style account that reflects the politics, bureaucracy, and controversy of the colonial period. For modern readers, his work is less a personal memoir than a vivid printed trace of how public argument was carried on in that world.