Colonel John Biddulph was a British soldier, author and naturalist who served in the government of British India.

Biddulph was born in 1840, and was the third son of Robert Biddulph

Robert Biddulph (MP)

Robert Biddulph was a British Whig Member of Parliament.Biddulph was the son of John Biddulph, of Ledbury, Herefordshire, and his wife Augusta . He sat as Member of Parliament for Hereford between 1832 and 1837 and also served as a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of Herefordshire...

. He was educated at Westminster School

Westminster School

The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...

, and at the age of 18 joined the 19th Lancers and proceeded to India where he served in Awadh

Awadh

Awadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...

 during the Indian Rebellion of 1857

Indian Rebellion of 1857

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...

. Afterwards, he joined the political department of the government of British India. Between 1873 and 1874 he accompanied Douglas Forsyth and Ferdinand Stoliczka

Ferdinand Stoliczka

Ferdinand Stoliczka was a Moravian palaeontologist who worked in India on paleontology, geology and various aspects of zoology. He died of high altitude sickness during an expedition across the Himalayas.-Early life:Stoliczka was born at the lodge Zámeček near Kroměříž in Moravia...

 on the Second Yarkand Mission – an expedition across the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

 to Chinese Turkestan. During this voyage, Biddulph collected numerous specimens of birds and mammals, including an unknown species of Podoces which was later named in is honour by Allan Octavian Hume

Allan Octavian Hume

Allan Octavian Hume was a civil servant, political reformer and amateur ornithologist in British India. He was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, a political party that was later to lead the Indian independence movement...

 as Podoces biddulphi

Xinjiang Ground-jay

The Xinjiang Ground-jay or Biddulph's Ground Jay is a species of bird in the Corvidae family.It is endemic to China.It is threatened by habitat loss.-References:...

.

In 1877 Biddulph was posted at Gilgit

Gilgit

Gilgit is a city in northern PakistanGilgit may refer to other terms related with the area of the city:* Gilgit River* Gilgit Valley* Gilgit District* Gilgit Agency * Gilgit Airport...

, in the extreme north-western corner of Kashmir

Kashmir

Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

, and remained there until 1881. During this period he corresponded on ornithology with Hume and his observations and research in this region were published in two papers in the Ibis

Ibis (journal)

Ibis, subtitled the International Journal of Avian Science, is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the British Ornithologists' Union. Topics covered include ecology, conservation, behaviour, palaeontology, and taxonomy of birds. The editor-in-chief is Paul F. Donald. The journal is published by...

. After holding many posts as British Resident at various princely state

Princely state

A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entitity of British rule in India that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy.-British relationship with the Princely States:India under the British Raj ...

s and serving for four years on the staff of the Viceroy of India, Lord Northbrook

Thomas Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook

Thomas George Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook PC, GCSI, FRS , was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

, Biddulph retired from the service in 1896. He died on 24 December 1921 in Grey Court, London, aged 81.

Writings

Biddulph wrote several works about India and about the history of the British presence there including biographies of Stringer Lawrence

Stringer Lawrence

Major-General Stringer Lawrence was an English soldier, the first Commander-in-Chief, India, sometimes regarded as the "Father of the Indian Army"....

 and Joseph François Dupleix

Joseph François Dupleix

Joseph-François, Marquis Dupleix was governor general of the French establishment in India, and the rival of Robert Clive.-Biography:Dupleix was born in Landrecies, France...

. These books and his Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh are listed as references for several articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time...

.

• Tribes Of The Hindoo Koosh, 1880
• The Nineteenth And Their Times, 1899
• Stringer Lawrence, The Father Of The Indian Army, 1901
• The Pirates Of Malabar, and An Englishwoman In India...,1907
• Duplieix, 1910

External links

• Duplieix by Colonel John Biddulph, 1910