A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Kaye, Sir John William
Kaye, Sir John William (1814-1876).—Historian and biographer, s. of a London solicitor, was ed. at Eton and Addiscombe. After serving for some time in the Bengal Artillery, he succeeded J. S. Mill as sec. to the political and secret department in the East India Office. His first literary work was a novel pub. in 1845, and he then began his valuable series of histories and biographies illustrative of the British occupation of India, including The War in Afghanistan (1851), and The Sepoy War in India, which he did not live to finish, and which was completed by G.B. Malleson as The History of the Indian Mutiny (6 vols., 1890); also histories of the East India Company and of Christianity in India, and Lives of Sir John Malcolm and other Indian soldiers and statesmen. All his writings are characterised by painstaking research, love of truth, and a style suited to the importance of his subjects. He was made K.C.S.I. in 1871.