Syed Abdoollah

1851–3, 1855–unknown

Born in Pushkar, Rajasthan, Syed Abdoollah followed in the footsteps of his father as an official in the service of British administrators in India. By 1851 he had been promoted to the role of translator of Urdu, Persian, Hindi and English in the service of the Board of Administration for the Affairs of the Punjab.

Syed Abdoollah arrived in Britain in 1851, accompanying Peer Ibrahim Khan, who held the title Bahadur and was an official at the court of the Nawab of Bahawalpur. Whilst Khan did not remain in Britain, returning to India in January 1852, Abdoollah settled and engaged in a number of professional activities. Soon after his arrival, Abdoollah sought employment with the East India Company as teacher of Persian, Urdu and Hindi at Haileybury and Addiscombe. He did not succeed in these endeavours, in spite of having held previous positions at Hanwell College and Grove, Blackheath where he taught Hindustani. On 13 December 1852 Abdoollah had married Margaret Wilson Henderson, daughter of Captain John Henderson, first in a civil ceremony then at St James Parish Church, Paddington. He and his wife lived at 11 Bedford Street. In 1853 he tried again to gain a teaching position at Haileybury but after another rejection decided to return to Jabalpur, India, accompanied by his wife. They left Britain in 1854, but they returned in August 1855.

On his return, Abdoollah continued in his endeavours to establish himself as an expert in ‘oriental’ culture and languages. His efforts to persuade Mountstuart Elphinstone to grant him permission to translate his History of India into Urdu failed. Finally, in 1859, he was successful in seeking employment at University College, London, where he was appointed Professor of Hindustani, a position he held until 1866. He was a colleague of Dadabhai Naoroji, who was Professor of Gujarati from 1856 to 1866. Abdoollah used his position to lobby for other Indians living in Britain at the time. For example, in 1856 he delivered a speech for the inauguration of the Strangers’ Home and in 1869 lobbied for the reintroduction of deposits for employers who brought their Indian servants with them to protect them from poverty upon dismissal.