1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lyall, Sir Charles James

LYALL, SIR CHARLES JAMES (1845–1920), English orientalist, was born in London March 9 1845 and educated at King’s College, London, and Balliol College, Oxford. He entered the Bengal civil service in 1867 and had a distinguished career as an administrator, becoming secretary to the Home Department of the Government of India in 1889, chief commissioner of Assam in 1894 and of the Central Provinces from 1895 to 1898, whence he was transferred to the India Office at home as secretary to the Judicial and Public Department, a post which he held until his retirement in 1910. But his greatest claim to distinction lay in his studies in Arabic literature. He published two volumes of translations of Arabic poetry (1885 and 1894), a translation of two ancient Arabic Diwāns (1913), as well as articles on Hindustani and Arabic literature in the E.B. 9th and 11th editions. He was made K.C.S.I, in 1897, and was elected a fellow of the British Academy, and he received hon. degrees from the universities of Oxford, Edinburgh and Strassburg. He died in London Sept. 2 1920.