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<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Short description|British historian of modern South Asia}}<br />
'''Thomas George Percival Spear''' {{Post-nominals|post-noms=[[OBE]]}} (1901&ndash;1982) was a [[United Kingdom|British]] historian of modern [[South Asia]], in particular of its colonial period. He taught at both [[Cambridge University]] and [[St. Stephen's College, Delhi]].<br />
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== Personal life and education ==<br />
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Born in Bath in 1901, Percival Spear attended [[Monkton Combe School]] and later [[St Catharine's College, Cambridge]], where he studied History. He spent some of his time there rowing in the [[Cambridge University Boat Club|Cambridge rowing team]]. He thereafter went to India and taught European and English history at [[St. Stephen's College, Delhi]] from 1924 to 1940.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Spear, Thomas George Percival.|title=A history of India, volume 2|date=1979|publisher=Penguin Books|isbn=0-14-020770-8|location=Harmondsworth, Eng.|oclc=7222798}}</ref><br />
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In 1943 Spear became a deputy secretary to the [[government of India]] in the department of information and broadcasting.<ref name=":0" /> He also served for a time in 1944 as a government whip in the Federal Assembly, the precursor to independent India's [[Parliament of India|Parliament]]. <br />
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After the war, Spear returned to Cambridge, becoming a Fellow and Bursar of [[Selwyn College, Cambridge|Selwyn College]] and later a university lecturer in South Asian History. He spent a year at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] on a visiting professorship.<ref name=":0" /> <br />
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Percival Spear was awarded the [[Order of the British Empire|Order of Merit]] (OBE) in the [[1946 New Year Honours]].<br />
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==Writings==<br />
In his book ''Master of Bengal: [[Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive|Clive]] and his India'', Percival Spear wrote, "The dominion of [[Bengal]] was not desired in itself, but only as a safeguard for peaceful commercial operations ... [[Government|Rule]] by [[legal fiction]] and by deputy was both safer and cheaper in the conditions of the time."<br />
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=== Selected bibliography ===<br />
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* A History of India Volume 2, 1956, {{ISBN|0140207708}}<br />
* The Nabobs, 1932<br />
* India, Pakistan and the West<br />
* The Twilight of the Mughals<br />
* India, a Modern History<br />
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==References==<br />
{{Reflist}}<br />
* [[Kenneth Ballhatchet]], [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31705 ‘Spear, (Thomas George) Percival (1901–1982)’], rev., ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 9 Sept 2008<br />
* Percival Spear, Master of Bengal : Clive and his India (London, Thames and Hudson, 1975, p 145)<br />
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==External links==<br />
*{{worldcat id|lccn-n50-21242}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Spear, Percival}}<br />
[[Category:Historians of India]]<br />
[[Category:1901 births]]<br />
[[Category:1982 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:People educated at Monkton Combe School]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century English historians]]<br />
[[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire]]<br />
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