APPENDIX A

Pioneer Biographies
of the British Period to 1947 

Frederic John Mouat (1816-1897)

Born at Maidstone 1816 into a family of army surgeons, Frederic John Mouat was educated at universities in London, Paris. He received his MD at Edinburgh in 1839 and entered the Indian Medical Service (Bengal) in 1840. He was to remain its faithful and distinguished employee for 30 years.

Mouat made an impressive academic career: Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica at the Bengal Medical College 1841-1845, of Medical Jurisprudence 1841-1849, of Medicine and Clinical Medicine 1849-1853, of Medicine 1853. In 1853 he became first Physician to the Medical College Hospital at Calcutta and in 1855 Inspector-General of Jails of the Lower Provinces. His interest in furthering contact between British and Indian people in 1851 lead him to found the Bethune Society "for closer cooperation between educated natives and Europeans."

After the unhappily brief episode of Dr. Helfer, Dr. Mouat was the earliest academic observer of the Andamanese. Although his participation in Andamanese affairs did not last long, it had historical consequences. In 1857 Mouat was appointed president of a government commission charged with the task of finding a suitable location for a penal colony in the Andamans. The government of British India had decided that the prisoners made following the Great Mutiny of 1857 in northern India as well as many dangerous common criminals had to be found an escape-proof place. The Andamans seemed to be an eminently suitable place for the purpose. The investigation of the islands under Dr. Mouat lasted from November 1857 until January 1858 and was thorough. Dr. Mouat was a keen amateur photographer and first President of the Photographic Society of Bengal 1856-1857. He and his friend and companion Oscar Malitte, took photographs of the Andamans during this expeditions.

The Mouat commission recommended Port Blair as the only suitable place for a settlement and was so impressed by Blair's sound judgment in choosing this harbour for his own settlement 70 years earlier that it was one of the recommendations of the commission to make the name of Port Blair official. It had until then been officially known only as the Old Harbour.

Among the matters Dr. Mouat's commission had to look at was the possibility of establishing friendly intercourse with the Andamanese. In this it failed. The Andamanese rejected all overtures and on several occasions tried to ambush members of the commission. Arrows were aimed at the visitors who returned fire. There were three injuries on the British side and at least three known fatalities among the Andamanese. One Andamanese adult male was captured during a skirmish at the southern tip of Interview island. He was taken to Calcutta in the hope that friendly contact could eventually be established through him. The same method was subsequently tried many more times but it never worked. In this case, the man fell sick in Calcutta and was hurriedly returned to the place where he had been captured. Nothing was ever heard of him again and when, 23 years later, Interview islanders were questioned they did not remember the incident.

The commission's report was said to have been perfectly straightforward and accurate apart from a few minor errors. After returning to England the good doctor became the author of the first major book written about the Andamanese. It enjoyed a high reputation for some decades until more reliable accounts based on closer contact with the Andamanese appeared. This is what one source, two years after Mouat's death, had to say about it:

In this book, subsequently published, the errors are, however, numerous. I have been told on good authority that this book was written in England, partly from his Report, and partly from information supplied after the Settlement had been opened, by officials whose stories of the aborigines were derived from convicts and Naval Brigade men; and Dr. Mouat, who was in India and much engaged in official work, was not responsible for many of the statements in it. This appears to be very probable, and would account for much which is told in the book, but which Dr. Mouat did not see and would not have been likely to imagine.

During retirement in England Dr. Mouat kept himself busy as Medical Inspector of Local Government Boards 1870-1887 and as President of the Royal Statistical Society 1890-1892. He died in London 12th January 1897. 

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