Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Temple, Richard
TEMPLE, Sir RICHARD, first baronet (1826–1902), Anglo-Indian administrator, born at Kempsey, near Worcester, on March 1826, was elder son of the six children of Richard Temple (1800–1874) of the Nash, Worcestershire, a country squire, by his first wife Louisa (d. 1837), youngest daughter of James Rivett Carnac, governor of Bombay, and sister of Sir James Rivett Carnac [q. v.]. From a private school at Wick near his home Temple proceeded to Rugby under Thomas Arnold in August 1839. His contemporaries included the headmaster's son, William Delafield Arnold [q. v.] (1828–1859), Lord Stanley, afterwards the fifteenth earl of Derby [q. v.], M. W. D. Waddington, subsequently prime minister of France, and John Conington [q. v.]. In 1844 his education at Rugby was cut short by the offer and acceptance of a writership in the East India Co.'s service. Passing out head of Haileybury College, he reached Calcutta in January 1847.
Transferred to the North West Provinces, he was sent to Muttra and thence to Allahabad, where he gained some experience of settlement work, and came under the favourable notice of the lieutenant-governor, James Thomason [q. v.]. On 27 Dec. 1849 he married the sister-in-law of his collector, Charlotte Frances, daughter of Benjamin Martindale. History was then in the making in the adjoining province of the Punjab, and he secured in 1851 a second transfer to that newly annexed province in which, under the immediate eye of Lord Dalhousie [q. v.], the board, including the brothers Henry and John Lawrence [q. v.], was reducing chaos to order and establishing a settled government. From 1851 Temple laboured as the disciple, the assistant, and the official reporter of the views and work of John Lawrence, who was appointed chief commissioner in February 1853, unfettered by any colleagues. At first Temple was entrusted with settlement work, and at the close of the period he had executive charge of a division as commissioner. But the appointments which enabled him to assimilate the unrivalled experiences of Lawrence, and win his patronage, were those of special assistant to the board (1852-3), and then secretary to the chief commissioner from July 1854. The historic reports on Punjab administration were penned by him, and Lord Dalhousie so appreciated his strenuous activities that, when it was proposed in 1853 to take Temple into the government of India's secretariat from Lahore, he remarked that 'it would be setting an elephant to draw a wheelbarrow,' So Temple worked on, until the death of his first wife in 1855 and the strain of public duties compelled him to take furlough in the following year. Everything seemed quiet, and there was 'not the faintest sound of warning, not the slightest breath of suspicion regarding the storm about to burst' (Temple's Story of My Life, i. 78). When he returned at the end of 1857, it was the 'White mutiny,' and not the rebel Sepoys, with which he was confronted as commissioner.
Soon after his return to duty an unexpected opportunity of gaining a new experience presented itself. In November 1859, when James Wilson [q. v.], the finance minister, was sent out to inaugurate a new system of financial administration. Temple accepted Wilson's invitation to aid him, and remained with him until Wilson's untimely death, 11 Aug. 1860. The assistant not only profited by his master's experience, but by this appointment he became known to Lord Canning [q.v.], who deputed Temple to visit and confer with the authorities in Burma and Hyderabad. On 25 April 1862 he was promoted to act as chief commissioner of the central provinces, in which post with some brief interludes he remained until April 1867. This was Temple's first independent essay in the responsibilities of high administration. Everything was new to him in the province, but by persistent inquiry and verification he acquired local knowledge, and visited every part of his large charge. He poured out a stream of comprehensive reports, which attracted notice at Calcutta, and indulged to his heart's content his favourite relaxation of sketching and painting in water-colours. The district entrusted to him had only lately, 11 Dec. 1861, been constituted into a chief commissioner's province, and the foundation of its future administration had to be laid. The American civil war, fortunately for all parties, created a brisk demand for cotton and other agricultural produce, which benefited the rural population. An education department was organised. and more than a thousand schools brought under it. From 1863 the cadastral survey of village lands was pushed on, and long-term settlements of revenue for thirty years in thirteen of the districts were introduced. Lease-holding tenants were converted into freehold proprietors. A municipality was established in Nagpur in 1864, leading the way for smaller bodies elsewhere. District local boards were created, but in all cases under the fostering and necessary care of officials. Eighteen dispensaries broke the ground for the hospitals which his successors were to build. His Punjab experience had taught him the value of picked subordinates, and no chief commissioner was ever served by better assistants than Alfred Lyall, Charles Elliott, and Charles Bernard. The connection at length established with Bombay by the Great Indian Peninsula railway system in 1867 enabled Temple to leave Nagpur in full confidence to his successor, upon whom frowning times of famine were to fall. The belated honour of C.S.I, was conferred upon him in 1866, and he was made K.C.S.L next year.
A brief interval was filled up by short appointments as resident at Hyderabad, 5 April 1867, where the relations between the Nizam and his able minister, Sir Salar Jung, were strained, and then as foreign secretary to the government of India. In April 1868, on the resignation of William Nathaniel Massey [q. v.]. Temple became financial member of council and undertook the financial business of the supreme government. From 1868 to 1874 he thus served first as a colleague of his old chief, Sir John Lawrence, then throughout the administration of Lord Mayo, 1869-72, and for a time with Lord Northbrook. The shock given by the Mutiny to the credit of India had not been spent, and the needs of administrative progress were increasing. Naturally, therefore, the period was one of experiment, sometimes premature, and of recourse to unpopular measures to maintain solvency. In 1867 a tax on profits from professional trades and offices had been imposed, being followed in 1868 by the certificate tax, assessed at a lower rate but more productive. In 1869 came the income tax with a duty of one per cent, on companies and a sliding scale on private incomes. In November the rates were increased, and the zeal of collectors stimulated. Much indignation was expressed, and for the next two years the rates were restored to a point below that of 1869, the limit of exemption being also raised. Temple showed firmness in a critical time, and preserved the direct tax, while in the management of provincial assignments and in discussions about a gold standard and state insurance he left valuable suggestions for his successors. During his tenure of the office of financial member he married on 28 Jan. 1871 his second wife, Mary Augusta, daughter of Charles R. Lindsay of the chief court in the Punjab, a lady of great personal attractions and intellectual gifts.
From charge of the finances of India, Temple was sent in January 1874 to conduct the campaign against famine in Behar which embarrassed and almost overtaxed the powers of the government of Bengal. He averted a catastrophe by his personal energy in providing transport and supplying food for the famished, but his expenditure was on too liberal a scale — a mistake which he avoided in later years. Having performed this task, he was lieutenant-governor of Bengal from 9 April 1874 to 8 Jan. 1877. His term of office was uneventful, but his literary and administrative activity was proved by the minutes which he penned and printed. He was made a baronet in 1876, and at the close of the year, owing to the grave anxiety felt by Lord Lytton [q. v.] in regard to the severe famine prevailing in southern India, he was appointed special commissioner to inspect and suggest measures of relief to the governments concerned. Although the scale of expenditure was less lavish than in Bengal, the operations entailed an expenditure and a remission of taxes aggregating eleven millions sterling. Having completed his task. Temple proceeded to Bombay and took over charge of the government from Sir Philip Wodehouse [q. v. Suppl. I] on 30 April 1877. He was promoted G.C.S.I., and was created C.I.E. when that order was instituted on 1 Jan. 1878.
At Bombay he was assisted in the government by a council of three members, and, as he admitted, he found a progressive administration in excellent order. But there was work to be done for which a single head was needed, and Temple provided the driving power. The despatch of Indian troops to Malta in 1878, and the Afghan war which followed, 1878-80, involving the employment of 65,000 British and 135,000 native troops. required strenuous exertions. Sailing ships had to be adapted for the work of transports, and stores despatched in the former case, while in the latter the Kandahar force was supplied from Bombay, and the railway aligned and constructed after careful inspection of various routes. Temple was equal to the occasion, and received the thanks of government. On the civil administration he left his mark not only by improving the port of Bombay but also by extensive, indeed almost excessive, additions to the forest area. His frequent tours and conferences with the local officials soon made him familiar with the special conditions of the presidency. But his thoughts had constantly of late been turned towards England, and calculating on the probable fall of Lord Beaconsfield's government he, without awaiting the arrival of his successor. Sir James Fergusson [q. v.], hurried home on 13 March 1880, to stand for parliament. Disappointment awaited him. Contesting East Worcestershire in the conservative interest, he was defeated. Thereupon he took to literature, producing 'India in 1880,' of which a third edition was published in 1881, 'a vivid picture of the condition of India as he left it' {Quarterly Review, No. 303). This was followed by 'Men and Events of My Time' (1882) and several contributions to reviews and magazines, some of which were republished in 'Oriental Experience' (1883) and others as 'Cosmopolitan Essays' (1886). He gratified his insatiable desire for travel and his taste for painting by the publication of 'Palestine Illustrated' (1888), and performed a pious duty to his three chief patrons by writing monographs on 'James Thomason' (1893) for the Clarendon press series of Rulers of India, and 'John, Lord Lawrence' (1889) for Macmillan's 'English Men of Action,' and by delivering a panegyric on 'Bartle Frere' at the Mansion House (1884). The universities conferred upon him the hon. degrees of D.C.L., 1880 (Oxford), LL.D., 1883 (Cambridge), and LL.D., 1884 (M'Gill University, Montreal), when he visited Canada as president of the section of economic science and statistics of the British Association. But he longed for a more active part in affairs, and in 1884 he joined the London school board, of which he remained a member till 1894, serving as vice-chairman for four years and for many years a£ chairman of its finance committee. In 1885 he waa returned as conservative member for Evesham, in which division of Worcestershire his own property lay. He sat for the constituency until 1892, when he was elected for the Kingston division of Surrey, which he represented until 1895. Although he knew more about India than any other member, he was heard with impatience by the House of Commons, and did not take there the place to which his abilities entitled him. On retiring from parliament he was sworn a member of the privy council on 8 Feb. 1896, an honour which led to his election in March following as a fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1896 he published 'The Story of My Life.' 'Character Sketches from the House of Commons 1886–7' appeared posthumously in 1912. He died at Heath Brow, Hampstead Heath, on 15 March 1902, and was buried at Kempsey on 19 March. His second wife. Lady Temple, C.I., survived him, with two sons by his first marriage. Colonel Richard Carnac Temple, C.I.E., formerly chief commissioner Andamans, who succeeded him in the baronetcy, and Colonel H. M. Temple, consul-general at Meshed, and one son by his second marriage. Temple's personal appearance was ungraceful and lent itself to caricature, which he accepted with characteristic good temper. A cartoon portrait by ’Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1881. A statue of him, executed by Sir Thomas Brock, was erected in Bombay, shortly after he left that presidency.
[Temple, Story of My Life, 1896, and his other books mentioned above; Proceedings of Royal Society, 1902, p. 115; Times, 18 March 1902; Official Administration Reports of India, Bengal, and Bombay; Sir Henry Cotton, Indian and Home Memories, 1911; Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, 1883, 2 vols.; Lee-Warner, Life of Marquis of Dalhousie, 1904; H. W. Lucy, Salisbury Parliament, 1892, and Balfourian Parliament, 1906.]