1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Martin, Claud

MARTIN, CLAUD (1735–1800), French adventurer and officer in the army of the English East India Company, was born at Lyons on the 4th of January 1735, the son of a cooper. He went out to India in 1751 to serve under Dupleix and Lally in the Carnatic wars. When Pondicherry fell in 1761, he seems, like others of his countrymen, to have accepted service in the Bengal army of the English, obtaining an ensign’s commission in 1763, and steadily rising to the rank of major-general. He was employed on the building of the new Fort William at Calcutta, and afterwards on the survey of Bengal under Rennell. In 1776 he was allowed to accept the appointment of superintendent of the arsenal of the nawab of Oudh at Lucknow, retaining his rank but being ultimately placed on half pay. He acquired a large fortune, and on his death (Sept. 13, 1800) he bequeathed his residuary estate to found institutions for the education of European children at Lucknow, Calcutta and Lyons, all known by the name of “La Martinière.” That at Lucknow is the best known. It was housed in the palace that he had built called Constantia, which, though damaged during the Mutiny, retains many personal memorials of its founder.

See S. C. Hill, The Life of Claud Martin (Calcutta, 1901).