Charles Philip Brown

Charles Philip Brown Biography

Charles Philip Brown was a British official of the East India Company, best known for his research works in Telugu literature. He prepared a Telugu dictionary. He was a Telugu scholar who lived in India for many years. He lived in the 19^th century during the period, 10 November 1798 – 12 December 1884. A library in Kadapa has been established in his memory by well-known linguist Janamaddi Hanumath Sastri.

Charles Philip Brown was born in Kolkata, British India on 10 November 1798. He was born as the son of David Brown (East India Company chaplain) who was the founder of the Calcutta Bible Society. Charles lost his father during his early teens, and moved back to England in 1812. Then he obtained training in civil service from Haileybury College. He returned back to Chennai in 1817. When Thomas Munro, governor of Madras ordered that every official should learn a local language, Brown chose Telugu and passed a Telugu examination.

He was transferred to Machilipatnam in 1822 and then to Rajahmundry in 1825. He also worked in Guntur. He was associated with civil service till 1834, stayed in London for a brief period and returned back to Madras in 1837 as a translator of Persian for the East India Company. He retired in 1854 and moved back to London because of his health issues. He later worked at London University as Telugu Professor for some time.

During his stay in south India, he deeply researched on Telugu language. He was also a polyglot who knew Greek, Latin, Persian and Sanskrit languages as well. He collected rare manuscripts of Telugu poems, and also essays, stories, and poems that existed as an oral literature. During his stay in London from 1835, he worked on south Indian manuscripts in detail as a part of the job assigned to him. He later authored a few books such as A Dictionary, Telugu and English, A Grammar of the Telugu Language, Dialogues in Telugu and English and many more.

Published: January 28, 2019

Updated: January 28, 2019