The New International Encyclopædia/Prinsep, James

PRIN′SEP, James (1799-1840). An English architect and Orientalist, who studied under Pugin, the celebrated architect. Owing to impaired eyesight, he gave up for a time his studies, and went out to India (1819), where he became in turn assistant assay-master in the Calcutta mint, assay-master in the Benares mint, and eventually assay-master in the Calcutta mint (1832). At Benares he designed the mint, built a bridge over the Karamasa and took down and restored the minarets of the Mosque of Aurungzebe. At Calcutta he constructed a canal between the Hugli and the Sunderbands. In numismatics he won distinction by Useful Tables Illustrative of Indian History. At Calcutta he edited Gleanings in Science, afterwards the journal of the Asiatic Society, of which he became secretary. Giving his attention to antiquities, he succeeded in deciphering inscriptions which had hitherto baffled scholars. Weakened in health, he returned toEngland in 1838, and died two years later. Consult the Essays on Indian Antiquities, Historic, Numismatic, and Palæographic, of the Late James Prinsep . . . with Memoir by Henry Thoby Prinsep, edited by Thomas (London, 1858).