George Uglow Pope

Statue of G U Pope in Triplicane, Chennai

George Uglow Pope (1820–1908) popularly known as "Pope Iyer" [1] or Rev. G.U. Pope or G.U. Pope was a Christian missionary and Tamil scholar who spent 40 years in Tamil Nadu and translated many Tamil texts into English. His popular translations include Tirukkural and Tiruvachagam. He was the head of the Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore and a Lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford. A statue on the Chennai waterfront recognizes him for his contribution to the understanding and promotion of Tamil culture.

Biography

George Uglow Pope was born on 24 April 1820 in Bedeque, Prince Edward Island in Canada. His father was John Pope (1791–1863), of Padstow, Cornwall, a merchant who became a missionary, who emigrated to Prince Edward Island in 1818, and Catherine Uglow (1797-1867), of Stratton, north Cornwall. The family moved to Nova Scotia, St. Vincent's before returning to England in 1826.[2] George Uglow Pope's younger brother William Burt Pope also (1822–1903) became a noted Wesleyan Methodist preacher and theologian.[3]

He left for South India in 1839 and arrived at Sawyerpuram near Tuticorin. Pope started studying Tamil as a teenager in England and Pope turned into a scholar of Tamil, Sanskrit and Telugu. He set up several schools and taught Latin, English, Hebrew, Mathematics and Philosophy.

In 1849, Pope and his second wife Henrietta Van Sommeran returned to England, and stayed mainly at Oxford, where he developed relationships with leading Anglo-Catholic figures of the Oxford Movement, such as Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop Trench, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop John Lonsdale, E. B. Pusey, and John Keble.[4] Pope returned to India in 1851 and worked in Tanjore, where he taught at St Peter's School, founded by pioneering Lutheran missionary Christian Friedrich Schwartz, where he taught for six years.

He completed his translation of Tirukkural on September 1, 1886. His Sacred Kural contains introduction, grammar, translation, notes, lexicon and concordance. It also includes the English translation of F. W. Ellis and the Latin Translation of Constanzo Beschi (வீரமாமுனிவர்) with 436 pages. He had, by February 1893, translated Naaladiyaar (நாலடியார்), a didactic work of moral sayings in quatrains (வெண்பா), 400 in number in 40 chapters, each by a Jain ascetic, according to a Tamil tradition.

His magnum opus, the translation of Tiruvachakam(திருவாசகம்) appeared in 1900. Of this he said: "I date this on my eightieth birthday. I find, by reference, that my first Tamil lesson was in 1837. This ends, as I suppose a long life of devotion to Tamil studies. It is not without deep emotion that I thus bring to a close my life's literary work".

Rev. George Uglow Pope was one of the founding members of the Bishop Cotton's School, Bangalore, and also served as its warden. He was also the first pastor of the All Saints Church, Bangalore.[5] He also founded Holy Trinity Church in Ooty, and founded and ran a grammar school from 1859 to 1870, which is on the site of the current Government Arts School and the Stone House.

The much coveted Gold Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society was awarded to him in 1906. He died on 12 February 1908. He delivered his last sermon on May 26, 1907. Rev. Pope was buried at St Sepulchre's Cemetery, located in Jericho, central Oxford, England.

Bibliography

His Last Letter

In his last letter he mentions about Tiruvachagam .

My dear friend,
In the heart of this my last sermon, lie truths that harmonize with all that is best in Tiruvachagam and Siva-nyanam(Siva-gnana bodham).

   Iam very old. May the Father bless you and yours.

[6]

Works contributed to Tamil

References

  1. ↑ http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/17924/11/11_chapter%205.pdf
  2. ↑ "Uglow Family History". www.kent.ac.uk. Retrieved 2015-12-31.
  3. ↑ "The Dictionary of National Biography - William Burt Pope".
  4. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35572?docPos=16.
  5. ↑ Rizvi, Aliyeh (29 December 2014). "Resident Rendezvoyeur: A natural state of grace". Bangalore Mirror. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  6. ↑ http://www.angelfire.com/planet/shivasevagan/gupope.html

External links

Project Madurai

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