Proby Thomas Cautley

Sir Proby Thomas Cautley (1802-1871)

Known for having conceived and supervised the construction of the Ganges Canal in India

Born the son of Thomas Cautley and his wife Catherine Proby

1871 Died. 'We regret to announce the death of Colonel Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, K.C.B., who has been since 1858 one of her Majesty’s Council for India. He was the son of the late Rev. Thomas Cautley, rector of Roydon and Stratford St. Mary, near Hadleigh, Suffolk, and was educated at the Charterhouse, whence he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, with view to taking holy orders in connexion with the Church of England. His views, however, underwent change, and he entered the East India Company’s Military College at Addiscombe, for the purpose of joining the Bengal army. In 1820-21 he was actively employed in the field in reducing numerous forts in Oude, and served in 1825-26 the siege of Bhurtpore. For some time afterwards he was employed as a civil engineer on the Eastern Jumna Canal in the north-western provinces of India, and was ultimately the projector and designer of the Ganges Canal works which were opened in 1854. In that year he received the honour of knighthood, and retired with colonel’s full pension. He became first lieutenant in 1821, captain in 18144, major in 1845, lieut.-colonel in 1841 and colonel in 1854. He was the author of large number of military and scientific papers, amongst the most remarkable of which is one on "The Paleontology of the Sewalik Hills in the North-western Provinces,” and has been the donor the British Museum of a very extensive collection of fossil mammalia from the Sewalik Hills. Sir Proby was married in 1808 to daughter of Mr. P. Bacon, of Elcott, Suffolk, and was divorced in 1850. His family was descended from a junior branch of the Probys, afterwards Earls of Carysfort.'

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