Indian Antiquary Vol 53

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 28

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(FEBRUARY, 1924
addition he had finished editing Ball's edition of Tavernier's Travels, which I understand is in the hands of the Oxford Press, and must now be issued as a posthumous work. Quite lately also he added a valuable note on the Folklore in Sir George Grierson's edition of Sir Aurel Stein's Hatim's Tales (of Kashmir).
Crooke did not by any means confine himself to editing, but produced his invaluable Rural and Agricultural Glossary, North-West Provinces and Oudh, and a whole series of works since his retirement from Government service. In 1896 he published his well known Tribes and Castes of the North-West Provinces, and his Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, following these up with a very well-known book, Things Indian, in 1906 and Natives of Northern India. He also wroto with Mr. H. D. Rouse The Talling Thrush, a collection of Folktales for the Folklore Society. It will be seen that though he was never in the public eye he lived a very busy lifo all his days, bent on forwarding a real knowledge of the people among whom he worked as an official to their benefit and to that of the Government which he had served. He was a sound scholar and in every way a learned man, and on many an occasion I have found him willing to let others share the knowledge he had laboriously acquired and ever ready to cooperate in the solution of the conundrums constantly arising about the people of India and their ideas : & very useful life that was a crodit to bimself and of great advantage to the nation. And it may be added that his work cannot bnt be a solace to his widow and the sons he has left behind him.
Crooke married in 1884 Alice younger daughter of Lieut.-Col. George Carr of the 2nd Madras Native Infantry and had five sons. The eldest died as a child. The third son, Capt. E.H. Crooke, a scholar of Brasenose, Oxford, was killed in Franco in 1916 and his fourth son, Lt. W. H. Crooke, R.E., was also killed in France in the same year. His second and fifth sons survive him. The former, Mr. R. H. Crooke, & scholar of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, has been in the Home Civil Service since 1912 (Ministry of Health) and his fifth son, Mr. R. L. Crooke, is still at Cheltenham College where his three other brothers were brought up, Dr. Crooke having spent all his retirement at Charlton Kings near Cheltenham. Crooke's articles for this Journal were Notes on the Gipsy Tribes of the North-West Provinces and Oudh in Vol. XVII: (2) A Version of the Guga Legend in Vol. XXIV: (3) Folk-Tales from the Indus Valley in Vol. XXIX: (4) Folk-Tales from Northern India in Vol. XXV: (5) Religious Songs from Northern India in Vol. XXXIX: (6) Mendicants' cries from Northern India in Vol. XXIX : (7, 8, & 9) Songs about the King of Oudh, from Northern India, and of the Mutiny in Vol. XL: and (10) a long series of Folk Tales of Hindustan in Vols. XXI, XXII, XXIII, & XXIV. He also wrote interesting miscellanea in other volumes and a valuable review of Campbell's Santal Folk Tales in Vol. XXI.