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James Thomason Edit Profile

founder lieutenant Colonial governor

James Thomason was a British colonial governor.

Background

The son of a British clergyman stationed in Bengal, Thomason was educated in England, but he returned to India in 1822.

Career

He held numerous positions there, including magistrate-collector and settlement officer in Azamgarh (1832-1837) and foreign secretary to the government of India (1842-1843). In 1843 he was named Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, a post he held for ten years. He was appointed as governor of Madras by Queen Victoria, but did not survive to assume the post.

Thomason proposed that a civil engineering college be established at Roorkee.

The college, now the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, was founded in 1847. lieutenant gained university status in 1949 and was declared an institute of national importance in 2001 by then Human Resource Development minister Mr.

Murli Manohar Joshi. The main building was renamed to James Thomason Building in his honor by an act of the Board of Governors of the institute in December 2013, and a road on campus also bears his name.

Achievements

  • He was British Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces in India and founder of a system of village schools.