Background
Henry Creswicke Rawlinson was born on April 11, 1810 at Chadlington, Oxfordshire, England. He was the second son of Abram Tyack Rawlinson, and elder brother of the historian George Rawlinson.
Orientalist politician Soldier
Henry Creswicke Rawlinson was born on April 11, 1810 at Chadlington, Oxfordshire, England. He was the second son of Abram Tyack Rawlinson, and elder brother of the historian George Rawlinson.
In 1827 he went to India as cadet under the East India Company; and after six years' life with his regiment as subaltern, during which time he had become proficient in the Persian language, he was sent to Persia in company with some other English officers to drill and reorganize the Shah's troops. It was at this time that he was first attracted to the study of inscriptions, more particularly those in the hitherto undeciphered cuneiform character. In the course of the two years during which he was in its immediate neighbourhood he transcribed as much as he was able of the great cuneiform inscription at Behistun; but the friction between the Persian court and the British government ended in the departure of the British officers. He was appointed political agent at Kandahar in 1840. In that capacity he served for three years, his political labours being as meritorious as was his gallantry during various engagements in the course of the Afghan War. Serendipitously, he became known personally to the governor-general, which resulted in his appointment as political agent in Ottoman Arabia. Thus he settled in Baghdad, where he devoted himself to cuneiform studies. He was now able, with considerable difficulty and at no small personal risk, to make a complete transcript of the Behistun inscription, which he was also successful in deciphering and interpreting. Having collected a large amount of invaluable information on this and kindred topics, in addition to much geographical knowledge gained in the prosecution of various explorations (including visits with Sir Austen Henry Layard to the ruins of Nineveh), he returned to England on leave of absence in 1849. Rawlinson remained at home for two years, published in 1851 his memoir on the Behistun inscription, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He disposed of his valuable collection of Babylonian, Sabaean, and Sassanian antiquities to the trustees of the British Museum, who also made him a considerable grant to enable him to carry on the Assyrian and Babylonian excavations initiated by Layard. During 1851 he returned to Baghdad. The excavations were performed by his direction with valuable results, among the most important being the discovery of material that contributed greatly to the final decipherment and interpretation of the cuneiform character. Rawlinson's greatest contribution to the deciphering of the cuneiform scripts was the discovery that individual signs had multiple readings depending on their context. An equestrian accident in 1855 hastened his determination to return to England, and in that year he resigned his post in the East India Company. On his return to England the distinction of K. C. B. was conferred upon him, and he was appointed a crown director of the East India Company. The remaining forty years of his life were full of activity—political, diplomatic, and scientific—and were spent mainly in London. In 1858 he was appointed a member of the first India Council, but resigned during 1859 on being sent to Persia as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. The latter post he held for only a year, owing to his dissatisfaction with circumstances concerning his official position there. Previously he had sat in Parliament as Member of Parliament (MP) for Reigate from February to September 1858; he was again MP for Frome, from 1865 to 1868. He was appointed to the Council of India again in 1868, and continued to serve upon it until his death. He was a strong advocate of the forward policy in Afghanistan, and counselled the retention of Kandahar. Rawlinson was one of the most important figures arguing that Britain must check Russian ambitions in South Asia. He argued that Tsarist Russia would attack and absorb Khokand, Bokhara and Khiva (which it did) and would invade Persia (present-day Iran) and Afghanistan as springboards to British India.
He married Louisa Caroline Harcourt Seymour on September 2, 1862, with whom he had two sons: Henry and Alfred. He was widowed on October 31, 1889
