Editing Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet

{{Short description|British army officer, politician and Orientalist (1810–1895)}}
{{Similar names|Henry Rawlinson (disambiguation)}}
{{expand Russian|topic=cult|date=July 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2014}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix    = [[Sir]]
| name                = Henry Rawlinson
| honorific-suffix    = {{postnominals|size=100%|Bt|GCB|FRS}} [[Order of the Lion and the Sun|KLS]]
| image               = Henry Rawlinson (crop).jpg
| office1             = [[RGS president|President of the {{nowr|Royal Geographical Society}}]]
| term1               = 1871–1873; 1874–1876
| predecessor1        = Sir [[Roderick Murchison]]
| successor1          = Sir [[Henry Bartle Frere|Henry Frere]]
| office2             = [[Frome (UK Parliament constituency)|Member of Parliament for Frome]]
| term_start2         = [[1865 United Kingdom general election|1865]]
| term_end2           = [[1868 United Kingdom general election|1868]]
| predecessor2        = [[Lord Edward Thynne]]
| successor2          = [[Thomas Hughes]]
| office3             = [[Reigate (UK Parliament constituency)|Member of Parliament for Reigate]]
| term_start3         = February
| term_end3           = October 1858
| predecessor3        = [[William Hackblock]]
| successor3          = [[William Monson, 1st Viscount Oxenbridge|William Monson]]
| birth_name          = Henry Creswicke Rawlinson
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1810|04|05|df=yes}}
| birth_place         = [[Chadlington]], England
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1895|03|05|1810|04|11|df=y}}
| death_place         = [[London, Middlesex]], England
| resting_place       = [[Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey]]
| party               = [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]]
| relatives           = [[George Rawlinson]] (brother)
| blank1              = Employer
| data1               = [[British East India Company]]
| blank2              = Awards
| data2               = {{indented plainlist|
* [[Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal]] (1840)
* [[Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath]] (1889)}}
| allegiance          = {{flagu|United Kingdom|size=20px}}
| branch_label        = Branch
| branch              = [[British Army]]
| rank                = [[Major-general (United Kingdom)|Major-general]]
| battles_label       = Wars
| battles             = [[First Anglo-Afghan War]]
}}

'''Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet''', {{postnominals|GCB|FRS}} [[Order of the Lion and the Sun|KLS]] (5 April 1810 – 5 March 1895) was a [[British East India Company]] army officer, politician, and [[Oriental studies|Orientalist]], sometimes described as the Father of [[Assyriology]]. His son, also [[Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson|Henry]], was to become a senior commander in the British Army during the First World War.

==Early life and army service==
Rawlinson was born on 5 April 1810 at the place now known as [[Chadlington]], [[Oxfordshire]], [[England]].<ref>{{cite journal|author=Goldsmid, Frederic J. |title=Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Bart., G. C. B., etc.|journal= The Geographical Journal|volume= 5|issue= 5 |year=1895|pages= 490–497|jstor=1773861}}</ref> He was the second son of Abram Tyack Rawlinson and elder brother of the historian [[George Rawlinson]]. In 1827, having become proficient in the [[Persian language|Farsi]], he was sent to [[Iran|Persia]] in company with other British officers to drill and reorganize the [[Shah]]'s troops. Disagreements between the Persian court and the British government, also [[Great Game|involving Russia]], ended in the departure of the British officers.

Rawlinson began to study Persian inscriptions, more particularly those in the [[cuneiform (script)|cuneiform]] character, which had been only partially deciphered by [[Grotefend]] and [[Antoine-Jean Saint-Martin|Saint-Martin]]. For two years from 1836, he was in [[Kermanshah]] in western [[Iran]], near the great cuneiform [[Behistun Inscription|inscription at Behistun]], written in Old Persian, [[Elamite]], and [[Akkadian language|Babylonian]] (a later form of [[Akkadian (language)|Akkadian]]) by [[Darius the Great]] between 522 and 486 BC. Standing on a shaky ladder, Rawlinson was the first Westerner to transcribe the [[Old Persian]] portion of the text. With his knowledge of Old Persian, he set about deciphering the Elamite and Babylonian sections.<ref>{{cite book | last=Harari | first=Y.N. | title=Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | publisher=HarperCollins | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-06-231610-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FmyBAwAAQBAJ | chapter=15. The Marriage of Science and Empire<!-- in subsection "Rare Spiders and Forgotten Scripts" -- pageno unknown -- info is from the e-book-->}}</ref>

==Political career==
Rawlinson was appointed political agent at [[Kandahar]] in 1840, serving for three years. In 1844, for his service to the [[British Empire]] in the course of the [[First Anglo-Afghan War|Afghan War]], he was made Companion of the [[Order of the Bath]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=928}}

A chance encounter with the governor-general resulted in his appointment as political agent in [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] [[Arabia]]. Settling in [[Baghdad]], he devoted himself to cuneiform studies, and in 1847 he was able to send to Europe a full and accurate transcript of the Behistun inscription, which he was also successful in deciphering and interpreting. Having collected a large amount of antiquarian and geographical information in the pursuit of various explorations, including visits with Sir [[Austen Henry Layard]] to the ruins of [[Nineveh]], he returned to England on leave of absence in 1849.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|pp=928–929}}

He was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]] in February 1850, praised as "''The Discoverer of the key to the Ancient Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian Inscriptions in the Cuneiform character. The Author of various papers on the philology, antiquities, and Geography of Mesopotamia and Central Asia. Eminent as a Scholar"''.<ref>{{cite web|title = Library and Archive Catalogue|publisher= The Royal Society|access-date= 4 October 2010|url = http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27rawlinson%27%29}}</ref>

Remaining at home for two years, in 1851 he published his memoir on the Behistun inscription and was promoted to lieutenant-colonel. The [[British Museum]] took custody of his valuable collection of [[Babylon|Babylonian]], [[Sabaeans|Sabaean]] and [[Sassanid dynasty|Sassanian]] antiquities, and made him a considerable grant to continue Layard's [[Assyria|Assyrian]] and Babylonian excavations. In 1851, he returned to Baghdad, where his archaeological finds contributed greatly to the final decipherment and interpretation of the cuneiform character.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=929}} Rawlinson's greatest contribution was the discovery that individual cuneiform signs had multiple readings depending on their context.<ref name="MeyerBrysac1999" /> Rawlinson worked with the younger [[George Smith (Assyriologist)|George Smith]] at the British Museum.

An equestrian accident in 1855 hastened his determination to return to England, and in that year, he resigned his post in the East India Company.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=929}} Prior to his return, Rawlinson was involved in the [[Qurnah disaster|ill-fated French mission]] to ship over 200 cases of antiquities to Europe, which were mostly lost at [[Al-Qurnah]].<ref>Namio Egami, "The Report of The Japan Mission For The Survey of Under-Water Antiquities At Qurnah: The First Season," (1971–72), 1-45, also see footnote 6 and 7, https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/orient1960/8/0/8_0_1/_pdf.</ref><ref>Larsen, M.T. (1996). The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land (1st ed.). Routledge. {{doi|10.4324/9781315862859}}</ref>

On his return to England, he received the distinction of [[Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath]], and he was appointed a crown director of the [[British East India Company|East India Company]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=929}}

The remaining forty years of his life were full of activity (political, diplomatic and scientific) and were spent mainly in London. From February to September 1858, he sat as [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Reigate (UK Parliament constituency)|Reigate]], and he was appointed a member of the first [[India Council]]. He left again in 1859, when he was sent to Persia as envoy plenipotentiary, but returned after a year owing to his dissatisfaction with the position. He was MP for [[Frome (UK Parliament constituency)|Frome]] from 1865 to 1868, and again served on the Council of India from 1868 until his death.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=929}}

== Attitudes concerning Russia ==
[[File:&quot;Our Eastern Policy&quot; (BM 1954,1103.304).jpg|thumb|upright|"Our Eastern Policy", a caricature by "[[Leslie Ward|Spy]]", published in ''[[Vanity Fair (UK magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', July 1873]]

Rawlinson was one of the most important figures arguing that Britain must [[Great Game|check Russian ambitions]] in South Asia. He was a strong advocate of the [[Forward Policy]] in [[Afghanistan]] and counselled the retention of [[Kandahar]]. He argued that [[Russian Empire|Tsarist Russia]] would attack and absorb [[Khanate of Kokand|Kokand]], [[Emirate of Bukhara|Bukhara]] and [[Khanate of Khiva|Khiva]] (which [[Russian conquest of Central Asia|occurred]], and the regions are now parts of [[Uzbekistan]]) and warned that it would invade Persia ([[Iran]]) and Afghanistan as springboards to [[British India]].<ref name="MeyerBrysac1999" />

==Later life==
He was a trustee of the British Museum from 1876 to his death. He was appointed a [[Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath]] in 1889, and created a [[baronet]] in 1891; he was president of the [[Royal Geographical Society]] from 1874 to 1875 and of the [[Royal Asiatic Society]] from 1869 to 1871 and 1878 to 1881; and received honorary degrees at [[Oxford University|Oxford]], [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], and [[Edinburgh University|Edinburgh]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=929}}

He married Louisa Caroline Harcourt Seymour, daughter of Jane (née Hopkinson) and [[Henry Seymour (Knoyle)|Henry Seymour]], on 2 September 1862, with whom he had two sons: [[Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson|Henry]] and [[Sir Alfred Rawlinson, 3rd Baronet|Alfred]]. He was widowed on 31 October 1889 and died in London of influenza five years later. He is buried in [[Brookwood Cemetery]] in [[Surrey]].

==Published works==
[[File:Henry Creswicke Rawlinson Grave.jpg|thumb|upright|Rawlinson's grave at [[Brookwood Cemetery]]]]
Rawlinson's published works include four volumes of cuneiform inscriptions, published under his direction between 1870 and 1884 by the trustees of the British Museum; ''The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun'' (1846–1851) and ''Outline of the History of Assyria'' (1852), both reprinted from the Asiatic Society's journals; ''A Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Babylon and Assyria'' (1850); ''Notes on the Early History of Babylonia'' (1854); and ''England and Russia in the East'' (1875). He also made a variety of minor contributions to the publications of learned societies. He contributed articles on Baghdad, the Euphrates and Kurdistan to the ninth edition of the [[Encyclopædia Britannica]], together with several other articles dealing with the East; and he assisted in editing a translation of ''[[The Histories of Herodotus|The Histories]]'' of [[Herodotus]] by his brother, Canon [[George Rawlinson]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=929}}

==Works==
* {{cite journal |last1=Rawlinson |first1=H. C. |title=The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun, Decyphered and Translated; With a Memoir on Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions in General, and on That of Behistun in Particular |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland |date=1848 |volume=10 |pages=i–349 |jstor=25581217 |issn=0035-869X}}

==References==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name="MeyerBrysac1999">{{cite book|last1=Meyer|first1=Karl Ernest |last2=Brysac|first2=Shareen Blair |title=Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c_ZtAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA154|year=1999|publisher=Counterpoint|location=New York|isbn=978-1-58243-028-7|page=154}}</ref>}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin}}
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Rawlinson, Sir Henry Creswicke|volume=22|pages=928–929}}
* {{Hansard-contribs | sir-henry-rawlinson | Sir Henry Rawlinson }}
* {{cite book|last=Adkins|first=Lesley |title=Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bqgWAQAAIAAJ|year=2003|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-00-712899-0}}
* {{cite book|last=Rawlinson|first= George|title=A Memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson|location= London|publisher=Longmans, Green and Co|date=1898| url=https://archive.org/details/amemoirmajorgen00rawlgoog|via=[[Internet Archive]]}}
{{refend}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-par|uk}}
{{succession box
 |title  = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Reigate (UK Parliament constituency)|Reigate]]
 |years  = [[February 1858 Reigate by-election|February 1858]] – [[October 1858 Reigate by-election|October 1858]]
 |before = [[William Hackblock]]
 |after  = [[William Monson, 1st Viscount Oxenbridge|William Monson]]}}
{{succession box
 |title  = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Frome (UK Parliament constituency)|Frome]]
 |years  = [[1865 United Kingdom general election|1865]] – [[1868 United Kingdom general election|1868]]
 |before = [[Lord Edward Thynne]]
 |after  = [[Thomas Hughes]]}}
{{s-reg|uk-bt}}
{{s-new|creation}}
{{s-ttl|title = [[Rawlinson baronets|Baronet]]<br />'''(of North Walsham)'''|years = 1891–1895}}
{{s-aft|after = [[Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson|Henry Rawlinson]]}}
{{s-end}}

== External links ==
* {{commons category-inline}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book
 | last =Adkins
 | first = Lesley 
 | title =Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon
 | publisher = [[St. Martin's Press|Thomas Dunns Books]]
 | date = 2003
 | pages = 440+
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=bX7Mj2yXB9oC&q=Sir+Henry+Rawlinson
 | isbn =9781466838383}}
*{{cite book
 | last = Rawlinson
 | first = Henry
 | title = The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun, Deciphered...
 | via = [[Internet Archive]]
 | series =  Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
 | volume = 10
 | date = 1841
 | pages = 400+
 | publisher = Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
 | url = https://archive.org/details/jstor-25581217/page/n27/mode/2up
 }}

{{Presidents of the Royal Geographical Society}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rawlinson, Henry Creswicke}}
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