ColonelMark WilksFRS (1759 – 19 September 1831) was aMadras Army officer, historian and colonial administrator who worked in southern India principally in the princely state of Mysore. He was the acting Resident at the Wodeyar Court.
He was born atKirk Michael vicarage in theIsle of Man, the son of Rev. James Wilks and Elisabeth Christian, and came from a lineage of Manxlanded gentry. He was named after his godfather, BishopMark Hiddesley.[1]
He purchased cadetship throughSir Henry Fletcher, in the court of the Directors of the East India Company in 1781 at the age of 18, joining theMadras Army. He was commissioned an officer in 1782 and like others, he was trained at Fort St. George, he picked up Persian. He translated the Persian poetNasir-ud-din's workAklak-i-Naseri into English. Wilks served as a secretary to the Military Board in 1787, accompanying SirBarry Close on a diplomatic mission to Mysore. His early education included Greek and Latin classics which and he would later in life promote its study by his nephewMark Cubbon. He served as the Town Major atFort Saint George around 1788, the capital of Madras Presidency. After a furlough in England Wilks became a private secretary toLord Edward Clive. Wilks served alongsideGeneral James Stuart during the storming ofSrirangapatna resulting in the death ofTipu Sultan in May 1799. He was sent to Basra and returned in 1803 to India to be appointedResident atMysore.
He wrote several historical works including,Report on the Internal Administration of Mysore. This was a continuation of a report on the survey of theKingdom of Mysore undertaken by Lieut. Col.Colin Mackenzie. He also wrote the bookHistorical Sketches of the South of India in an attempt to trace the History of Mysoor.[2][3] This also relates to the works of Lieut. Col. Colin Mackenzie. Mark Wilks was the uncle ofMark Cubbon who was the Commissioner of Mysore and after whom the Cubbon Park in Bangalore is named.
After his return from India, Mark Wilks, with the active help and co-operation ofJames Kirkpatrick, theEast India Company (EIC) Resident atHyderabad, wrote one of the first histories of medieval South India:Historical Sketches of the South of India. This volume examined the rise of the MysoreWodeyar dynasty in the confusion following the fall ofVijayanagara in 1565. Wilks denounced the reign of Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan in his historical enquiries and sought to find the causes for the decline of the Vijaynagar Empire.
In 1813 he was appointed Governor for three years ofSaint Helena where the exiled former French EmperorNapoleon is said to have found Wilks a highly engaging and affable man. Saint Helena was chiefly a center for slave trade and as Governor he did not outlaw it. He engaged the services of Samuel Ally, a freed slave, who returned with Wilks to the Isle of Man and took employ as his servant.[4][5] Wilks invitedWilliam Roxburgh to study the possibility of cultivating cinchona. After the British government took temporary control of St Helena from the EIC during Napoleon's time on St Helena, Wilks return to England in 1816 and was elected to the Manx parliament, theHouse of Keys. In 1826, after the death of his father-in-law, he becameSpeaker of the house. A portrait of Mark Wilks still hangs in theTynwald building in Douglas.
In February 1826, as Colonel Mark Wilks, he was elected aFellow of the Royal Society.[6]
He married twice. In 1813 he married his second wife, Dorothy Taubman, daughter of his predecessor as Speaker. He had a son John Barry (named after Barry Close) who died young and a daughter, Laura, who married Gen. Sir John Buchan KCB ofKelloe House, Berwickshire, where Wilks died on a visit in 1839.
Sir Mark Wilks Collet, 1st Baronet was his great-great nephew. Their papers are held together at the Manx National Heritage Library and Archives.[7]
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