APPENDIX A

Pioneer Biographies
of the British Period to 1947 

Henry Fisher Corbyn (1833-1903)

Born at Calcutta 1833 the son of a member of the Bengal Medical Service and with two older brothers, all of the Bengal Medical Service, Henry Corbyn chose the Church rather than the Bengal Medical Service for his career. He was educated at King's William College on the Isle of Man and at Cheltenham College. In 1852 he was admitted to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he made his BA in 1856 and his MA in 1859. He was ordained deacon of the Anglican church 1857 and priest a year later.

The Reverend Corbyn was Chaplain on the Ecclesiastical Establishment of India 1859-1893. He was chaplain of Port Blair when he was put in charge of the native Andamanese in 1863. Colonel Tytler, Haughton's successor as Superintendent of Port Blair, disliked and distrusted the Andamanese. He felt he needed a stern disciplinarian to keep a close eye on the aborigines and Corbyn was his choice. It was not an inspired appointment.

The Rev. Corbyn was full of good will but brought little else to his new post. It was with the intention of helping his charges that he founded what was to become known as the Andamanese Home on Ross island. This was a place where (in theory) the Andamanese could come to be fed, looked after in times of troubles, taught English or Hindi, or to socialize with other Andamanese and be cured of anything that the medical profession of the time could cure. The idea was that all this would take place under the watchful eye of the colonial administration, strengthening the control exercised over the aborigines and further the "civilizing influences" on them.

It was a classic case of well-meant theory turning into vicious practice. The Home became the main venue for spreading death and disease and its inmates were little more than forced labour. Corbyn was a believer in strict discipline and not too subtle about it. He claimed that the Andamanese at the Home were there of their own free will. In fact, they were kept under strict guard and had no freedom of movement. Their labour was used for forest clearance while the Home was nothing more than a cow shed that the Andamanese had to share with Corbyn's cattle. They also had to wear clothes and were fed rice, a food that they were not at all used to. Andamanese suspected of misbehaviour or of plotting their escape from Ross Island were actually clapped in irons. Understandably, they also resented the sternly Victorian education that was forced down their throat. Corbyn's repressive policy was not entirely his own as he had Colonel Tytler's instructions and full support.

One night in March 1864 there was a mass escape of 40 Andamanese including women and children from Ross island. The woman Topsy (see the chapter "The Place of Women") was among them; she drowned that night. Corbyn was furious and in all seriousness proposed military force in recapturing the escapees (which, it should be remembered, were all officially "free"). A new Superintendent, Ford, had just taken over and would not hear of it. Relations between Ford and Corbyn deteriorated rapidly thereafter. Every time Ford requested the Corbyn to make some improvement to the Home or asked pointed questions about its administration, the Reverend responded by threatening to resign.

Portman has summarized Corbyn's conduct and incidentally gives a revealing insight into the way the colonial mind worked even in a basically humane person such as Portman:

With regard to the effects his repressive measures had on the Andamanese, they were certainly excessive, and terrified the savages, but his ideas on the subject were correct, and these same measures, however objectionable and illegal they may have been, overawed them, and gave them a sense of our power, making Mr. Homfray's subsequent successful dealings with them easier. The Andamanese, on the whole, seem to have liked Mr. Corbyn, and did not resent his treatment of them as much as might have been expected.

Corbyn was personally brave, zealous and earnest, but also stupid, opinionated and narrow-minded. By his own lights he meant well, but he was the wrong man in the wrong position. He could only see his own point of view. Although he must have had considerable dealings with the Andamanese, he left us no account of them. After financial irregularities in the administration of the Home had come to light, an exasperated Ford in 1864 suddenly accepted the latest of Corbyn's many offers of resignation - much to Corbyn's consternation. The difficult Reverend did not immediately disappear into well-deserved obscurity but stayed on at Port Blair where he remained a painful thorn in the side of Ford and Homfray. Corbyn finally left the islands in 1866 and we can well imagine a number of faces lighting up as the vessel carrying him disappeared over the horizon.

In 1868 the Rev. Corbyn became chaplain to the Abyssinian Field Force. He is last heard of residing at Abbottabad in the Punjab at the turn of the century where he died on 25th November 1903. 

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