Sir Arthur Upton Fanshawe, KCIE, CSI, CVO (1848-1931) was a British civil servant in India during the British Raj. He served primarily in the Indian Post Office.

Arthur Upton Fanshawe
Sir Arthur Upton Fanshawe in 1898
Born(1848-12-18)18 December 1848
Died1931, aged 82
NationalityBritish

Life and career

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Fanshawe was born in Essex on 18 December 1848,[1] the son of Rev. John Faithfull Fanshawe and elder brother of Herbert Charles Fanshawe, and was educated at Repton School. He passed the Civil Service entrance exam in 1869.[2] He took a post with the Bengal Civil Service in 1871, and was appointed to the position of postmaster for Bombay in 1882.[3] After a stint serving in the Finance and Commerce Department, in 1889 he became the Governor of the Indian Post Office,[4] a position he held until 1906.

In 1893, Queen Victoria announced the creation of a Royal Commission on Opium to regulate the British opium trade in the Far East. Fanshawe, a supporter of the opium trade, was nominated to the Commission by the Indian Government.[3] The Commission's report found that opium use in Asia was not a major problem in Asia[5] and its conclusions effectively removed the opium question from the British public agenda for another 15 years.[6]

Fanshawe was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) in the 1903 Durbar Honours.[7][8]

References

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  1. ^ Sir Bernard Burke (1925). A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry. Burke Pub. Co. p. 605.
  2. ^ The Cyclopedia of India: biographical, historical, administrative, commercial. The Cyclopedia Publishing Co. 1907. p. 156.
  3. ^ a b Paul C. Winther (2005). Anglo-European Science and the Rhetoric of Empire: Malaria, Opium, and British Rule in India, 1756-1895. Lexington Books. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-7391-1274-8.
  4. ^ Dictionary of Indian Biography. Ardent Media. p. 143. GGKEY:BDL52T227UN.
  5. ^ Brook, T and Wakabayashi, B; Opium Regimes: China, Britain and Japan 1839-1952, University of California Press 2000, ISBN 978-0-520-22236-6 p39
  6. ^ Baumler, Alan (2007). The Chinese and Opium under the Republic: Worse Than Floods and Wild Beasts. State University of New York. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-7914-6953-8.
  7. ^ "The Durbar Honours". The Times. No. 36966. London. 1 January 1903. p. 8.
  8. ^ "No. 27511". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 1903. p. 3.