Home
People
Organizations
Events
Themes
Oral Histories
Learning Resources
Samuel Satthianadhan
‐
Writer and educator who was educated at Cambridge
Place of birth
Location(s)
CB2 1RH
United Kingdom
About
Samuel Satthianadhan was born into a Christian family in Madras, the son of Reverend W. T. Satthianadhan. At the end of the 1870s, Satthianadhan went to Cambridge to study law. He wrote a number of articles and sketches about English university life for Indians.
In 1881 Satthianadhan returned to Madras and married Krupabai. Her father was a convert to Christianity. At the time of his marriage, Satthianadhan was headmaster of a school in Madras and then Ootacamund. In 1886 he became assistant to the Director of Public Instruction and then later Chair of Logic and Moral Philosophy at Presidency College, Madras. Krupabai had been educated at Madras Medical College and despite arrangements to go to England in 1877 was unable to because of ill-health. She wrote Saguna, which is considered to be the first autobiographical novel in English by an Indian woman. Krupabai died in 1894.
Following Krupabai's death, Samuel married Kamala. Kamala was also a writer and wrote several stories about Indian Christians. Samuel died in 1906. Their daughter, Padmini, was educated in London after Samuel's death and was a writer and historian.
Six Months in England (Madras: C. K. S. Press, 1881)
Four Years in an English University (Madras: Lawrence Asylum Press, 1890)
Rev. W. T. Satthianadhan: A Biographical Sketch (Madras: Satthianadhan, 1893)
History of Education in the Madras Presidency (Madras: Srinivasa, Varadachari & Co., 1894)
(Introduction to) John Murdoch, Sketches of Indian Christians (London: Christian Literature Society for India, 1896)
Holiday Trip to Europe and America (Madras: Srinivasa, Varadachari & Co., 1897)
(with Kamala Satthianadhan) Stories of Indian Christian Life (Madras: Srinivasa, Varadachari & Co., 1898)
De Souza, Eunice (ed.) The Satthianadhan Family Album (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2005)
Jackson, E. M., 'Glimpses of a Prominent Indian Christian Family of Tirunelveli and Madras, 1863–1906: Perspectives on Class, Culture and Conversion', in Robert Eric Frykenberg (ed.) Christians and Missionaries in India: Cross-Cultural Communication since 1500 (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), pp. 315–35
Puri, Tara K., 'Kamala Satthianadhan and the Indian Ladies’ Magazine: Women’s Editorship and Transnational Print Networks in Late Colonial India', Victorian Periodicals Review 55.3&4 (2023), pp. 340–72
Satthianadhan, Krupabai, Saguna: The First Autobiographical Novel in English by an Indian Woman, ed. by Chandani Lokugé (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998)
Sen Gupta, Padmini, The Portrait of an Indian Woman (Calcutta: YMCA Publishing House, 1956)
For image and copyright details, please click "More Information" in the Viewer.
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
