H. E. BUSTEED (1832 - 1912)
BRIGADE-SURGEON HENRY ELMSLEY BUSTEED, Madras Medical Service (retired), died in London on February 1st, aged 79. He was born on December 4th, 1832, took the M.D., Queen's University, Ireland, in 1854, and the M.R.C.S. in 1855, and entered the Indian Medical Service as Assistant Surgeon on August 4th, 1855. He served with the Horse Artillery in the Indian Mutiny, and took part in the relief of Lucknow, the relief of Cawnpore, and the operations against the Gwalior contingent, receiving the medal with a clasp. In 1861 he was appointed Civil Surgeon of Cuddalore, the civil station attached to the ancient Fort St. David, and in 1865 entered the Madras Mint as Assistant Assay Master, and in the Mint he spent the rest of his service. In 1870 he was transferred as Deputy Assay Master to Calcutta, and in 1872 was appointed Assay Master, a post which he held, occasionally acting as Master of the Mint, until his retirement, with a step of honorary rank, on June 1st, 1886. He became Surgeon on August 4th, 1867, and Surgeon-Major on July 1st, 1873, but rose no higher in the service, as medical officers employed in the Mint were then not eligible for further promotion. Even now, they are debarred from promotion to the administrative grades. He received the C.I.E. on January 1st, 1887, after his retirement.
He will be best remembered, however, as the author of that charming book, as Lord Curzon called it, Echoes of Old Calcutta. First published in 1882, subsequent editions were issued in 1888 and 1897, and a fourth, rewritten and considerably enlarged, in 1908. He also published, in 1903, a pamphlet, The Serampore Portrait: Is it Madame Grand ? Afterwards incorporated in the fourth edition of Echoes, in which he conclusively proved that the famous picture in the Baptist Mission, Serampur, long supposed to be a portrait of the lady known successively as Mdlle. Noel Werlee, Madame Grand, and Princesse de Talleyrand, was in reality a picture of a Danish princess. from Obituary published in The British Medical Journal, 6th March, 1912 |