Background
Born at Dresden on 8 January 1838, he was the son of Ernest Ehrenfried Blochmann, printer, and nephew of Karl Justus Blochmann.
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Heinrich Blochmann
Edit Profiletranslator university professor
Education
He was educated at the Kreuzschule and the University of Leipzig (1855), where he studied oriental languages under Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer, and then (1857) was in Paris.
Career
He is also remembered for one of the first major English translations of Ain-i-Akbari, the 16th-century Persian language chronicle of Mughal emperor Akbar, published in 1873. In 1858 Blochmann came to England, intent on visiting India, and enlisted in the British Indian Army in 1858 as a private soldier. Soon after his arrival in Calcutta he was set to do office-work in Fort William, and gave lessons in Persian.
After about a year he obtained his army discharge, and for a time entered the service of the Peninsular and Oriental Company as an interpreter.
He was befriended by William Nassau Lees, the principal of the Calcutta Madrasa (now Aliah University), and Blochmann obtained, at the age of 22, his first government appointment (1860) as assistant professor of Arabic and Persian there. In 1861 he graduated Master of Arts and Doctor of Laws at the University of Calcutta, choosing Hebrew for the subject of his examination.
In the following year he left the Madrasa to become pro-rector and professor of mathematics, at Doveton College. But returning to the Madrasa in 1865, he remained there for the rest of his life, and was principal when he died.
Blochmann made archæological tours in India and British Burma, but generally resided in Calcutta.
In 1868 he became philological secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. He died on 13 July 1878, and was buried in the Circular Road cemetery, Calcutta. Blochmann married an Irish woman, who survived him, and left three children.
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Born
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Died
July 13, 1878 (aged 40) -
Nationality
Germany