Henry Whitelock Torrens
Henry Whitelock Torrens (1806–1852), son of Major Henry Torrens, was born on May 20, 1806. He received his B. A. at Christ Church, Oxford and entered the inner temple. After a short service under the Foreign Office, he obtained a writership from the Court of Directors of the East India Company and arrived in India in Nov. 1828 and held various appointments at Meerut. In 1835 he joined the Secretariat, in which he served in several departments under Sir W. Macnaghten. In 1839 he assisted in the editing of the Calcutta Star, a weekly paper, which became a daily paper called the Eastern Star. He was secretary (1840–1846) and a Vice-President (1843–1845) to the Asiatic Society of Bengal(now the Asiatic Society). In December 1846, he was appointed Agent to the Governor-General at Murshidabad. Here in his endeavors to improve the Nizamat administration, his relations with the Nawab Nizam and his officials became greatly strained.[1]
He was a clever essayist as well as a journalist and scholar, and his scattered papers were deservedly collected and published at Calcutta in 1854.[2]
He died of dysentery at Calcutta, while on a visit to the Governor-General on August 16, 1852 and was buried in the Lower Circular Road Cemetery.