'Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service' [‎1r] (1/156)

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MEMOIRS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF
AN OFFICER OF THE INDIAN POLITICAL SERVICE The branch of the British Government of India with responsibility for managing political relations between British-ruled India and its surrounding states, and by extension the Gulf, during the period 1937-47.
BY
SIR JOHN COTTON, K.C.M.G., O.B.E.
CHAPTER 1: SERVICE IN THE INDIAN ARMY 1929 - 1934
The branch of the Cotton family from which I am descended has had a continuous
and uninterrupted connection with the Indian service in the direct line for more
than one hundred and seventy years. There is reason to suppose that this record
is without parallel.
Joseph Cotton (son of Nathaniel Cotton, an eminent mental specialist and poet)
was born in 1746 and, as a youth, joined the mercantile service of the East India
Company. He was for twenty-eight years a Director of the Company, and became a
Deputy Master of Trinity House and an FRS. He was also one of the founders of the
East India Docks, being the first Chairman of the Docks Company. His second son
John, my great great grandfather, went to India in 1801 as a member of the Madras
Civil Service. He served for fifteen years as Collector of the Tanjore District
until his retirement in 1830. He then became a Director of the East India Company,
and was its Chairman in 1845. His second son, Joseph John Cotton, entered the
Indian Civil Service in 1831 and also served in Madras, retiring in 1862. His
second son, Henry James Stedman Cotton (my Grandfather who was born in India in
1845) passed high into the Indian Civil Service in 1865 and served in India from
1867 to 1902, initially in Bengal where he rose to be Chief Secretary to Government
and subsequently as Chief Commissioner of Assam from 1896 to 1902 during the
Viceroyalty of Lord Curzon. He was awarded the K.C.S.I. on his retirement. He
subsequently entered Parliament as Liberal M.P. for Nottingham, and died in 1911.
His second son, my Father, Julian James Cotton, was also in the I.C.S. and served
in the Madras Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. from 1893 to 1927. He died in Madras in that year, and is
buried there. He was a notable and erudite historian of the British Connection
with India and was the author of "The List of Inscriptions on Tombs and Monuments in
Madras (and neighbouring territories) possessing Historical or Archaeological Inter
ests", which was published in 1901 and which still remains the primary authority
on the subject. Like all my predecessors, I too was a second son. It had always
been my Father's wish that I should follow him into the I.C.S., thereby prolonging
the long connection with India of our branch of the Cotton family into the sixth
generation in direct descent from father to son.