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{{Infobox academic
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| name = Gerard Anstruther Wathen
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| birth_date = 28 December 1878
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| death_date = 9 August 1958 (aged 79)
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| spouse = [[Melicent Wathen]]
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| education = [[St Paul's School, London|St Paul's School]]<br>[[Peterhouse, Cambridge|Peterhouse]], [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]]
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| workplaces = [[Tonbridge School]], Kent<br>[[Government College University, Lahore|Government College]], [[Lahore]]<br>[[Khalsa College, Amritsar|Khalsa College]], [[Amritsar]]<br>[[The Hall School, Hampstead|Hall School]], [[Hampstead]]
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'''Gerard Anstruther Wathen''' [[Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire|CIE]] (28 December 1878 – 9 August 1958) joined the [[Indian Education Service]] in 1905 and became professor of education and Principal of the [[Khalsa College, Amritsar|Khalsa College]], [[Amritsar]].

==Early life and education==
Gerard Anstruther Wathen was born on 28 December 1878,<ref name=C&MG1958>{{cite news |title=Prof Wathen dead |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003221/19580816/041/0003 |access-date=9 September 2025 |work=Civil & Military Gazette |date=16 August 1958 |location=Lahore |page=3|via=British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription}}</ref> in [[Bexley]], [[Kent]], the youngest child of William Hulbert Wathen.<ref name=Venn>{{cite book |last1=Venn |first1=John |last2=Venn |first2=John Archibald |title=Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900 |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-03616-0 |page=364 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MWSiYp0-AGEC&pg=PA364 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=Johal2018>{{cite news |last=Johal |first=Vikramdeep |date=5 September 2018 |title=A century later, remembering Khalsa College’s gutsy Principal |url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/punjab/a-century-later-remembering-khalsa-college-s-gutsy-principal-647876/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250907170728/https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/punjab/a-century-later-remembering-khalsa-college-s-gutsy-principal-647876/ |archive-date=7 September 2025 |access-date=7 September 2025 |work=The Tribune |language=en}}</ref> He completed his early education from [[St Paul's School, London|St Paul's School]] in 1898 and subsequently gained admission to [[Peterhouse, Cambridge|Peterhouse]], [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] to study the [[classics]].<ref name=Venn/> Between 1899 and 1902, after a period of study at Bonn and Paris, he completed [[palaeography|paleographic]] and [[archaeology|archeological]] research in the [[Balkans]] and [[Anatolia]].<ref name=Venn/> He received his Bachelors degree in 1902 and Masters in 1905.<ref name=Venn/><ref name=Dewey1993>{{cite book |last1=Dewey |first1=Clive |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t-7UAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 |title=Anglo-Indian Attitudes: Mind of the Indian Civil Service |date=1993 |publisher=The Hambledon Press |isbn=1-85285-097-3 |location=London |page=180 |language=en |chapter=7. Experiments with friendship}}</ref>

==Career==
From 1903 to 1905 Wathen was assistant master at [[Tonbridge School]].<ref name=Venn/> That year he left to join the [[Indian Education Service]] and take up a post at the [[Central Model School, Lahore|Central Model School]], Lahore, as headmaster.<ref name=Venn/><ref name=Johal2018/><ref name=Forster2008>{{cite book |last1=Forster |first1=Edward Morgan |title=The BBC Talks of E.M. Forster, 1929-1960: A Selected Edition |date=2008 |publisher=University of Missouri Press |isbn=978-0-8262-1800-1 |chapter=My debt to India|pages=199-201 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e8nUIRSdJhcC&pg=PA199 |language=en}}</ref> He then taught at [[Government College University, Lahore|Government College]], [[Lahore]], later becoming professor there.<ref name=Johal2018/><ref name=Forster2008/><ref name=Wagner2>Wagner, pp. 39-40</ref>

Wathen moved to India with his wife [[Melicent Wathen|Melicent]] in 1909.<ref name=Wagner2/><ref name=Wagner2018>{{cite journal |last1=Wagner |first1=Kim A. |title=Fear and Loathing in Amritsar: an Intimate Account of Colonial Crisis |journal=Itinerario |date=April 2018 |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=67–84 |doi=10.1017/S0165115318000086 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/fear-and-loathing-in-amritsar-an-intimate-account-of-colonial-crisis/3E9032CFEE54F3B2ED7A062216EE5EB6 |language=en |issn=0165-1153}}</ref> Prior to the [[First World War]], his social circle included [[Malcolm Lyall Darling]] and [[E. M. Forster]], who in 1912 delivered a talk to Wathen's class at Government College.<ref name=Wagner2/> He then became inspector of schools, and in 1915 was appointed Principal of [[Khalsa College, Amritsar|Khalsa College]], [[Amritsar]], with 700 students.<ref name=Johal2018/><ref name=Forster2008/><ref name=Wagner2/> There, he established the 'Coats-off Society', that encouraged students to take time out to perform manual labour.<ref name=Forster2008/><ref name=Brunner2018>{{cite journal |last1=Brunner |first1=Michael Philipp |title=Teaching development: Debates on ‘scientific agriculture’ and ‘rural reconstruction’ at Khalsa College, Amritsar, c. 1915–47 |journal=The Indian Economic and Social History Review |date=1 January 2018 |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=77–132 |doi=10.1177/0019464617745924 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019464617745924?int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.4 |language=EN |issn=0019-4646|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==Amritsar 1919==
After the [[First World War]], Wathen re-visited England with his wife and children, and upon return to India in early 1919, found his students preoccupied with politics and the then recent [[Rowlett Act]].<ref name=Wagner2/> According to historian [[Kim A. Wagner|Kim Wagner]], Wathen’s dealings with Khalsa College's students were unusually progressive for the period and frowned upon by some Anglo-Indians.<ref name=Wagner2/> Wagner further argues in ''Amritsar 1919'' that Wathen’s actions between 10 April and 12 April 1919 helped prevent "the idea of bombing Amritsar" by air.<ref name=Johal2018/><ref name=Wagner6>Wagner, pp. 123-126</ref> He was not called to testify before the Hunter Commission, the official inquiry following the [[Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre]], and in Wagner's words "was more or less written out of the official history of the events of April 1919".<ref name=Wagner13/>

Historian [[Nigel Collett]] notes that five years after the Punjab disturbances, Wathen was the only Englishman ready to defend [[C. Sankaran Nair]] at the ''[[O'Dwyer v. Nair Libel Case]]'' (1924), held in London, by which time he had moved back to England.<ref name=Collett2022.180>Collett, p.180</ref><ref name=Collett2011>{{cite journal |last1=Collett |first1=Nigel A. |author-link=Nigel Collett |date=2011 |title=The O'Dwyer v. Nair Libel Case of 1924: New Evidence Concerning Indian Attitudes and British Intelligence During the 1919 Punjab Disturbances |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41490046 |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=21 |issue=4 |pages=469–483 |doi=10.1017/S1356186311000435 |jstor=41490046 |issn=1356-1863 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Wagner notes that almost 16 years later in 1940, following the death of [[Michael O'Dwyer]], Wathen reflected on 1919 and wrote to ''The Times'' concluding his letter with "He was right and I was wrong".<ref name=Wagner13>Wagner, pp. 248-249</ref> The letter read;

<blockquote>It fell to me to be the first to tell Sir Michael O'Dwyer of the shooting in the Jalliwala Bagh. I reached Government House at Lahore from Amritsar at 3 am that night and urged Sir Michael to go at once to Amritsar and replace in the hands of the civil authorities the power being vested then under martial law in the hands of General Dyer. I told him that I feared intense bitterness among the Sikhs and probably a rising. He took a different view, said that the shooting, however horrible, would mean an end of rioting, and besides, he added, I always trust the man upon the spot.<ref name=Wagner13/></blockquote>

==Later career==
From 1924 to 1955, Wathen served the [[The Hall School, Hampstead|Hall School]], [[Hampstead]], as its headmaster.<ref name=C&MG1958/><ref name=Hall>{{cite web |title=Hall School |url=https://hallschool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/The-Hall-The-Wathen-Society.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250907171000/https://hallschool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/The-Hall-The-Wathen-Society.pdf |archive-date=7 September 2025 |access-date=7 September 2025}}</ref> There, he established financial aid to boys who arrived as refugees from [[German-occupied Europe]].<ref name=Hall/>

==Death and legacy==
Wathen died on 9 August 1958, after being hit by a taxi on 24 July that year.<ref name=C&MG1958/><ref>{{cite news |title=Man of 79 died after accident with taxi |work=Middlesex Independent |date=22 August 1958 |page=3}}</ref> Khalsa College awards the Prof GA Wathen Scholarship. The Wathen Society is named for him.<ref name=Johal2018/> Wathen believed that the character of Cyril Fielding in [[E. M. Forster]]'s ''[[A Passage to India]]'' was modelled on him, though according to Indian historian [[Vishwa Nath Datta|V. N. Datta]], it was [[Malcolm Lyall Darling]] that Forster was referring to.<ref name=Collett2022.163>Collett, p.163</ref><ref name=Datta2005>{{cite journal |last1=Datta |first1=V. N. |title=General Dyer and Jallianwala Bagh |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |date=2005 |volume=40 |issue=47 |pages=4911–4913 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4417425 |issn=0012-9976|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book |last1=Brunner |first1=Michael Philipp |title=Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab: Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of Knowledge, 1880-1947 |date=2022 |publisher=Springer |location=Switzerland |isbn=978-3-030-53514-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wwcLEAAAQBAJ |language=en}}
*{{cite book |last1=Collett |first1=Nigel |title=Developing the Heart: E.M. Forster and India |date=2022 |publisher=City University of HK Press |isbn=978-962-937-590-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abFYEAAAQBAJ |language=en}}
*{{cite book |last1=Wagner |first1=Kim A. |title=Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear & the Making of a Massacre |date=2019 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-24546-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bziIDwAAQBAJ|language=en}}

[[Category:People from Kent (before 1965)]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Khalsa College, Amritsar]]
[[Category:1878 births]]
[[Category:1958 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire]]
[[Category:People from Bexley]]

Gerard Anstruther Wathen - Revision history

Avdhut Kamble: Created Initial Details More To Come