COLVIN, JOHN RUSSELL (1807-1857), lieutenant governor of the North-West Provinces of India during the mutiny of 1857, was born in Calcutta on May 29, 1807. Passing through Haileybury he entered the service of the East India Company in 1826. In 1836 he became private secretary to Lord Auckland, and his influence over the viceroy has been held partly responsible for the first Afghan war of 1837; but it has since been shown that Lord Auckland's policy was dictated by the secret committee of the company at home. In 1853 Colvin was appointed lieutenant governor of the North-West Provinces by Lord Dalhousie. On the outbreak of the mutiny in 1857 he had with him at Agra only a weak British regiment and a native battery, too small a force to make head against the mutineers. A proclamation which he issued was censured at the time for its clemency, but it followed the same lines as those adopted by Sir Henry Lawrence and subse quently followed by Lord Canning. Exhausted by anxiety and mis representation he died on Sept. 9, just before the fall of Delhi.
His Son, SIR AUCKLAND COLVIN (1838-1908), followed him in a distinguished career in the same service, from 1858 to 1879. He was comptroller-general in Egypt (188o-82), and financial adviser to the khedive (1883-87), and from 1883 till 1892 was back again in India, first as financial member of council, and then, from 1887, as lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces and Oudh. He was created K.C.M.G. in 1881 and K.C.S.I. in 1892, when he retired. He published The Making of Modern Egypt in 1906, and a biography of his father, in the "Rulers of India" series, in He died at Surbiton on March 24, 1908.