Rev. James Long

Comments

Login or register to add a comment

Lovely watercolour portrait Pratim

They don't make them like this man any more; and they don't make beards like that any more, either! Strong, characterful portrait.

Thanks Ros Patterson... Thanks Robert Jones ..... for the thought ....

BORN TO BE REMEMBER AFTER 200 YEARS.... REV. JAMES LONG...... WATERCOLOUR ..... A4.... James Long (1814–1887) was an Anglo-Irish priest of the Anglican Church. A humanist, educator, evangelist, translator, essayist, philanthropist and a missionary to India, he resided in the city of Calcutta, India, from 1840 to 1872 as a member of the Church Mission Society, leading the mission at Thakurpukur. Long was closely associated with the Calcutta School-Book Society, the Bethune Society, the Bengal Social Science Association and The Asiatic Society. James Long was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland in 1814, when Ireland was still a part of the United Kingdom, to John Long and his wife Anne. At the age of twelve he was enrolled at the newly opened Bandon Endowed School, where he learnt "Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French and English languages; Euclid, Algebra, Logic; Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Reading, Writing, History and Geography". He proved an excellent student, distinguishing himself especially in theology and the classics. Long's application to join the Church Mission Society was accepted in 1838 and he was sent to the Society’s training college in Islington. Following two years's training at Islington the Reverend Long was sent to Calcutta to join the CMS mission there. He arrived in Calcutta in 1840, briefly returning to England in 1848 to marry Emily Orme, daughter of William Orme. From 1840 to 1848, Long taught at the school for non-Christian students run by the CMS at its premises located on Amherst Street. In 1861, at the height of the Indigo revolt by the ryots in Bengal, Long received a copy of the Bengali play Nil Darpan (also transcribed as Neel Darpan or Nil Durpan) from its author Dinabandhu Mitra, one of Long's former students at the CMS school on Amherst Street. Long brought it to the notice of W.S. Seton-Karr, Secretary to the Governor of Bengal and ex-President of the Indigo Commission. Seton-Karr, sensing its importance, mentioned Nil Durpan in conver