Charles Stuart (East India Company officer) - Revision history

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	{{Short description\|British East India Company general}}		{{Short description\|British East India Company general}}
	{{EngvarB\|date=October ~~2022~~}}		{{EngvarB\|date=October 2013}}
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	{{Infobox military person		{{Infobox military person

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	{{Infobox military person		{{Infobox military person
	\|name= Charles Stuart		\|name= Charles Stuart
	\|image=		\|image=Tomb of Hindoo Stuart in South Park Street Cemetery Kolkata (37610054874).jpg
	\|caption=		\|caption=Epitaph of Stuart at the [[South Park Street Cemetery]] in Kolkata
	\|birth_date= {{circa\|1758}}		\|birth_date= {{circa\|1758}}
	\|death_date = {{death date\|1828\|3\|31\|df=y}}		\|death_date = {{death date\|1828\|3\|31\|df=y}}
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	'''Charles Stuart''' ({{circa}} 1758 – 31 March 1828) was an officer in the [[East India Company]] Army and is well known for being one of the few British officers to embrace [[Hindu culture]] while stationed there, earning the nickname '''''Hindoo Stuart'''''. He also wrote books and several newspaper articles extolling Hindu culture and tradition and urging its adoption by Europeans settled in India, and deploring the attitudes and activities of the [[Utilitarians]] and missionaries who deprecated Indian culture. He is mentioned in [[William Dalrymple (historian)\|William Dalrymple]]'s book ''[[White Mughals]]'' (2002).		'''Charles Stuart''' ({{circa}} 1758 – 31 March 1828) was an officer in the [[East India Company]] [[Presidency armies\|Army]] and is well known for being one of the few British officers to embrace [[Hindu culture]] while stationed there, earning the nickname '''''Hindoo Stuart'''''.<ref>{{Cite book\|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2020-08/R2-Collecting-the-World_LPG.pdf\|title=Collecting the World\|publisher=British Museum\|pages=22}}</ref><ref>{{cite web\|author=Tamal Bandyopadhyay\|date=12 December 2021\|url=https://www.anandabazar.com/rabibashoriyo/column-on-charles-stuart/cid/1318164\|title=জনৈক সাহেব-হিন্দুর কাহিনী\|website=anandabazar.com\|publisher=Anandabazar Patrika\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211212063943/https://www.anandabazar.com/rabibashoriyo/column-on-charles-stuart/cid/1318164
			\|archive-date=12 December 2021\|access-date=12 December 2021\|url-status=live\|language=bn}}</ref> He also wrote books and several newspaper articles extolling Hindu culture and tradition and urging its adoption by Europeans settled in India, and deploring the attitudes and activities of the [[Utilitarians]] and missionaries who deprecated Indian culture. He is mentioned in [[William Dalrymple (historian)\|William Dalrymple]]'s book ''[[White Mughals]]'' (2002).

	==Background and family==		==Background and family==
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	==Legacy==		==Legacy==
	[[File:South-Park-Street-Cemetery-3.jpg\|thumb\|~~The tomb~~ of ~~Major General~~ Charles Stuart at [[South Park Street Cemetery]] at [[Kolkata]].]]		[[File:South-Park-Street-Cemetery-3.jpg\|thumb\|Tomb of Charles Stuart at the [[South Park Street Cemetery]] in [[Kolkata]].]]
	Though Stuart often spoke of his conversion to Hinduism he had not entirely rejected Christian doctrines as he held the [[Hindu deities\|Hindu deity]] [[Krishna]] to be the Spirit of God who descends upon earth for the benefit of mankind which he believed was "not very inconsistent with Christianity" and "he was content to be buried in an [[Anglican]] cemetery, albeit along with his favourite [[murti\|idol]]s".		Though Stuart often spoke of his conversion to Hinduism he had not entirely rejected Christian doctrines as he held the [[Hindu deities\|Hindu deity]] [[Krishna]] to be the Spirit of God who descends upon earth for the benefit of mankind which he believed was "not very inconsistent with Christianity" and "he was content to be buried in an [[Anglican]] cemetery, albeit along with his favourite [[murti\|idol]]s".

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	His remarkable collection of antiquities forms the basis of the [[British Museum]]'s ancient Hindu and Buddhist sculpture collection from the [[Indian subcontinent]], now known as the Bridge Collection.<ref>See [[Michael D. Willis]], 'Sculpture of India' in ''A. W. Franks: Nineteenth-century collecting and the British Museum,'' ed. M. Caygill and J. Cherry (London: British Museum Press, 1997), pp. 250–61. {{ISBN\|978-0-7141-1763-8}}</ref><ref>[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?people=136823&peoA=136823-3-18 British Museum Collection]</ref>		His remarkable collection of antiquities forms the basis of the [[British Museum]]'s ancient Hindu and Buddhist sculpture collection from the [[Indian subcontinent]], now known as the Bridge Collection.<ref>See [[Michael D. Willis]], 'Sculpture of India' in ''A. W. Franks: Nineteenth-century collecting and the British Museum,'' ed. M. Caygill and J. Cherry (London: British Museum Press, 1997), pp. 250–61. {{ISBN\|978-0-7141-1763-8}}</ref><ref>[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?people=136823&peoA=136823-3-18 British Museum Collection]</ref>

			==Published works==

			*{{cite book \|last1=Stuart \|first1=Charles \|title=Observations and remarks on the dress, discipline, etc. of the military. By a Bengal Officer \|date=1798 \|location=Calcutta \|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q6hgAAAAcAAJ}}

			*{{cite book \|last1=Stuart \|first1=Charles \|title=Vindication of the Hindoos from the aspersions of the Reverend Claudius Buchanan, M.A.: with a refutation of the arguments exhibited in his memoir, on the expediency of an ecclesiastical establishment for British India, and the ultimate civilization of the natives, by their conversion to Christianity: also, remarks on an address from the missionaries in Bengal to the natives of India, condemning their errors, and inviting them to become Christians : the whole tending to evince the excellence of the moral system of the Hindoos, and the danger of interfering with their customs or religion: by a Bengal officer. \|date=1808 \|publisher=R. and J. Rodwell \|location=London \|url=https://archive.org/details/VindicationOfTheHindoos}}

			*{{cite book \|last1=Stuart \|first1=Charles \|title=A Vindication of the Hindoos: Part the Second, in Reply to the Observations of The Christian Observer, of Mr. Fuller, Secretary to the Baptist Missionary Society, and of His Anonymous Friend: with Some Remarks on a Sermon Preached at Oxford by the Rev. Dr. Barrow, on the Expediency of Introducing Christianity Among the Natives of India \|date=1808 \|publisher=sold \|location=London \|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-XoOAAAAQAAJ \|language=en}}

			*{{cite book \|last1=Stuart \|first1=Charles \|title=The Ladies' Monitor: Being a Series of Letters, First Published in Bengal, on the Subject of Female Apparel, Tending to Favour a Regulated Adoption of Indian Costume, and a Rejection of Superfluous Vesture, by the Ladies of this Country ... \|date=1809 \|location=London \|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nI9eAAAAcAAJ \|language=en}}

	==References==		==References==
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	*V. C. P. Hodson (Major), ''List of Officers of the Bengal Army, 1758–1834'', Part IV (1947)		*V. C. P. Hodson (Major), ''List of Officers of the Bengal Army, 1758–1834'', Part IV (1947)
	*''Dictionary of National Biography'' – Stuart, Charles (Vol. 53, pp. 141–142)		*''Dictionary of National Biography'' – Stuart, Charles (Vol. 53, pp. 141–142)

			*{{cite journal \|last1=Fisch \|first1=Jörg \|title=A Solitary Vindicator of the Hindus: The Life and Writings of General Charles Stuart (1757/58-1828) \|journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland \|date=1985 \|volume=117 \|issue=1 \|pages=35–57 \|doi=10.1017/S0035869X00154930 \|jstor=25211769 \|s2cid=162107814 \|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25211769 \|access-date=27 February 2022 \|issn=0035-869X}}

			*{{cite web \|title=Major General Charles Stuart \|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG14534 \|website=British Museum \|access-date=27 February 2022}}

			*{{cite news \|last1=Dasgupta \|first1=Priyanka \|title=Heritage lotus symbol stolen from Charles 'Hindoo' Stuart's tomb at South Park Street Cemetery \|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/heritage-lotus-symbol-stolen-from-charles-hindoo-stuarts-tomb-at-south-park-street-cemetery/articleshow/65078182.cms \|access-date=27 February 2022 \|work=The Times of India \|date=July 21, 2018 \|language=en}}

	==External links==		==External links==
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	[[Category:Converts to Hinduism]]		[[Category:Converts to Hinduism]]
	[[Category:Irish Hindus]]		[[Category:Irish Hindus]]
	[[Category:~~People~~ from County Limerick]]		[[Category:Military personnel from County Limerick]]
	[[Category:18th-century Irish people]]		[[Category:18th-century Irish people]]
	[[Category:British East India Company Army generals]]		[[Category:British East India Company Army generals]]

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	'''Charles Stuart''' ([[circa~~\|c.]]~~ 1758 – 31 March 1828) was an officer in the [[East India Company]] Army and is well known for being one of the few British officers to embrace [[Hindu culture]] while stationed there, earning the nickname '''''Hindoo Stuart'''''. He also wrote books and several newspaper articles extolling Hindu culture and tradition and urging its adoption by Europeans settled in India, and deploring the attitudes and activities of the [[Utilitarians]] and missionaries who deprecated Indian culture. He is mentioned in [[William Dalrymple (historian)\|William Dalrymple]]'s book ''[[White Mughals]]'' (2002).		'''Charles Stuart''' ({{circa}} 1758 – 31 March 1828) was an officer in the [[East India Company]] Army and is well known for being one of the few British officers to embrace [[Hindu culture]] while stationed there, earning the nickname '''''Hindoo Stuart'''''. He also wrote books and several newspaper articles extolling Hindu culture and tradition and urging its adoption by Europeans settled in India, and deploring the attitudes and activities of the [[Utilitarians]] and missionaries who deprecated Indian culture. He is mentioned in [[William Dalrymple (historian)\|William Dalrymple]]'s book ''[[White Mughals]]'' (2002).

	==Background and family==		==Background and family==

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{{EngvarB|date=October 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}}
{{Infobox military person
|name= Charles Stuart
|image=
|caption=
|birth_date= {{circa|1758}}
|death_date = {{death date|1828|3|31|df=y}}
|birth_place= [[Kingdom of Ireland]]
|death_place= [[Calcutta]], [[British India]]
|placeofburial= [[South Park Street Cemetery]], Calcutta
|placeofburial_label=
|nickname= Hindoo Stuart
|allegiance= [[British Empire]]<br />[[British India]]
|branch=
|serviceyears=
|rank= Major General
|unit=
|commands=
|battles=
|awards=
|relations=[[Thomas Smyth (Limerick MP)]]<br />[[Robert Stuart (British Army officer)]]<br />[[James Stuart (artist)]]
|laterwork=
}}

'''Charles Stuart''' ([[circa|c.]] 1758 – 31 March 1828) was an officer in the [[East India Company]] Army and is well known for being one of the few British officers to embrace [[Hindu culture]] while stationed there, earning the nickname '''''Hindoo Stuart'''''. He also wrote books and several newspaper articles extolling Hindu culture and tradition and urging its adoption by Europeans settled in India, and deploring the attitudes and activities of the [[Utilitarians]] and missionaries who deprecated Indian culture. He is mentioned in [[William Dalrymple (historian)|William Dalrymple]]'s book ''[[White Mughals]]'' (2002).

==Background and family==
Stuart was said to be the son of [[Thomas Smyth (Limerick MP)|Thomas Smyth]], [[Limerick City Council|Mayor of Limerick]] and MP for [[Limerick City (Parliament of Ireland constituency)|Limerick City]]. His grandparents were [[Charles Smyth (politician)|Charles Smyth]] (1694–1783), also MP for Limerick, and Elizabeth, daughter of [[Sir Thomas Prendergast, 1st Baronet]].<ref>Spurrell, J. C. ''In Search of Thomas Smyth'', Mayor of Limerick, Irish Family History Journal, Vol. 25 (2009)</ref>

His nephews included the diplomat [[Robert Stuart (British Army officer)|Robert Stuart]] and the naturalist and surgeon [[James Stuart (artist)|James Stuart]]. The clergyman and footballer [[Robert King (footballer)|Robert King]] was his great-nephew.

==In India==
In his teens, Stuart left Ireland for [[India]], where he remained for the rest of his life. He served in the army and starting as a cadet, he rose through the ranks to become a Major-General. His last command was the Saugor Field Force.

Stuart enthusiastically embraced [[Hindu culture]] and championed the same in his writings and discourse, which earned him the nickname ''Hindoo Stuart.''<ref>[http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,835407,00.html Your country needs you. And your beard] Guardian UK – 9 November 2002</ref> V. C. P. Hodson's biography of Stuart mentions that he "had studied the language, manners and customs of the natives of this country with so much enthusiasm, his intimacy with them ... obtained for him the name of Hindoo Stuart".

Stuart took to Hinduism both in its religious aspects and as a way of daily life. He adopted many Hindu customs and routines of daily life, including bathing in the [[Ganges]] at [[Calcutta]] every morning. He amassed a collection of [[murti|Hindu deities]] and icons of worship. Archie Baron says, in his book ''An India Affair'':<ref>Baron A., ''An Indian Affair'', Channel 4 Books (2001)</ref>
:"It was far easier to break into Muslim society than the exclusive and mysterious world of brahminical Hinduism which makes 'Hindoo Stuart' a rarity even among White Moghuls.... His Hinduism was on open display to the whole of Calcutta. As far as one can tell, this does not seem to have set back his career".

He quickly took to wearing Indian clothes, and this became his normal garb when off the parade ground. He encouraged his Indian [[sepoys]] to wear full moustaches in the Indian style on parade. His commander-in-chief "ticked him off" due to his partiality towards [[sepoys]] sporting "[[Rajput]] moustaches or brightly coloured [[Tilaka|caste marks]] on their foreheads". Declaring Indian garments best suited to the weather of India, he actively promoted their adoption by Europeans settled in India. He wrote newspaper articles on this subject frequently ("frequent and vigorous" contributions to the [[Daily newspaper|daily]] ''Calcutta Telegraph'' in the year 1800) and strongly encouraged European ladies in India to adopt the [[sari]].

Stuart published his letters extolling the virtues of "elegant, simple, sensible, and sensual" Indian saris vis-a-vis "the prodigious structural engineering Europeon (sic) women strapped themselves into, in order to hold their bellies in, project their breasts out and allow their dresses to balloon grandly up and over towards the floor" along with some replies by "outraged" white women in a "deliciously silly volume" entitled ''The Ladies Monitor, Being A Series of Letters First published in Bengal on the Subject of Female Apparel Tending to Favour a regulated adoption of Indian Costume And a rejection of Superfluous Vesture By the Ladies of this country With Incidental remarks on Hindoo Beauty, Whale-Bone Stays, Iron Busks, Indian Corsets, Man-Milliners, Idle Bachelors, Hair-Powder, Waiting Maids, And Footmen''. Some of the reasons he cites for European women to give up iron busks are: Firstly wearing iron busks makes women highly susceptible to lightning strikes (exhorting them with sentences such as "This is no laughing matter ladies for I am absolutely serious"). Secondly by discarding iron busks from their wardrobes, European women would immensely enhance the supply of iron in [[Bengal]] for farmers who desperately need new wagon wheels. Archie Baron says, in his book ''An India Affair'':"For all this lubriciousness, Stuart should not be regarded as some dirty old man or prototype sex tourist....<ref>Baron A., ''An Indian Affair'', Channel 4 Books (2001)</ref>

In his book ''Vindication of the Hindoos'' (1808), Stuart criticised the work of European [[missionaries]] in India, claiming that:
:"[[Hinduism]] little needs the meliorating hand of Christianity to render its votaries a sufficiently correct and moral people for all the useful purposes of a civilised society." In this book. Stuart defends Hinduism from assaults by missionaries explaining:
:"Wherever I look around me, in the vast ocean of Hindu mythology, I discover Piety....Morality...and as far as I can rely on my judgement, it appears the most complete and ample system of Moral Allegory that the world has ever produced."

Throughout this book Stuart, warns of the dangers of the "obnoxious" missionaries and of attempts to convert Indians to Christianity, a process he describes as "impolitic, inexpedient, dangerous, unwise and insane". He asks "if their religion is insulted what confidence can we repose in the fidelity of our Hindu soldiers?" presaging, it is said, some of the causes of the [[Mutiny of 1857]].

==Legacy==
[[File:South-Park-Street-Cemetery-3.jpg|thumb|The tomb of Major General Charles Stuart at [[South Park Street Cemetery]] at [[Kolkata]].]]
Though Stuart often spoke of his conversion to Hinduism he had not entirely rejected Christian doctrines as he held the [[Hindu deities|Hindu deity]] [[Krishna]] to be the Spirit of God who descends upon earth for the benefit of mankind which he believed was "not very inconsistent with Christianity" and "he was content to be buried in an [[Anglican]] cemetery, albeit along with his favourite [[murti|idol]]s".

Stuart died on 31 March 1828 and was buried with his deities at the [[South Park Street Cemetery]] in Calcutta,<ref>''The South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta'', published by the Association for the Preservation of Historical Cemeteries in India, 5th ed., 2009</ref> in a tomb which took the form of a Hindu temple.

His remarkable collection of antiquities forms the basis of the [[British Museum]]'s ancient Hindu and Buddhist sculpture collection from the [[Indian subcontinent]], now known as the Bridge Collection.<ref>See [[Michael D. Willis]], 'Sculpture of India' in ''A. W. Franks: Nineteenth-century collecting and the British Museum,'' ed. M. Caygill and J. Cherry (London: British Museum Press, 1997), pp. 250–61. {{ISBN|978-0-7141-1763-8}}</ref><ref>[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?people=136823&peoA=136823-3-18 British Museum Collection]</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*W. Dalrymple, ''White Mughals'' (2002)
*V. C. P. Hodson (Major), ''List of Officers of the Bengal Army, 1758–1834'', Part IV (1947)
*''Dictionary of National Biography'' – Stuart, Charles (Vol. 53, pp. 141–142)

==External links==
*[http://www.rangan-datta.info/parkstreetcemetery.html Article on Hindoo Stuart's Grave and other graves of South Park Street Cemetery]

{{Stuart-King family tree}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stuart, Charles}}
[[Category:1758 births]]
[[Category:1828 deaths]]
[[Category:Converts to Hinduism]]
[[Category:Irish Hindus]]
[[Category:People from County Limerick]]
[[Category:18th-century Irish people]]
[[Category:British East India Company Army generals]]