Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, 1860/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 03:34, 17 August 2012.

Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, 1860

 * Nominator(s): BencherliteTalk 22:56, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Back in the early part of the 19th century, a British army officer who had served in India left a small fortune to the University of Oxford to create a professorship in Sanskrit, of all things. His plan was that the professor would help convert the heathen masses of India to Christianity by teaching Sanskrit to would-be missionaries and administrators of British India. The 1860 election (and, yes, it was a proper election, with manifestos, bitching and adverts in newspapers appealing to the 3,700 electors) was a clash of two philosophies: one candidate represented scholarship for the sake of scholarship, the other represented evangelical Christian zeal. The Times supported one, other papers backed his rival. Special trains had to be laid on to cope with the number of graduates returning to cast their ballot. The defeat of the better scholar in the election has been held up as an example of all that was wrong with Oxford at that time. It's a topic about which I knew nothing until I stumbled across it writing Boden Professor of Sanskrit for WP:FLC, but there's a surprising amount of material out there in contemporary sources and modern analyses.

Canadian Paul reviewed it for GA, and Brianboulton commented at the peer review; both helped improve the article. I've not been to FAC for some years so will be due a spotcheck on sources: some are accessible through JSTOR or online newspaper archives etc, and I can provide PDF scans of others if needed – hurrah for 1p + postage Amazon offers and Paul Barlow who had access to a book that I needed. So, what do you think? BencherliteTalk 22:56, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Support on prose and comprehensiveness.
 * Lede
 * " The election came at a time of public debate about Britain's role in India particularly after the Indian Rebellion of 1857"  I think this phrasing needs a tweak, somewhere around "particularly".
 * "Although generally regarded ..." this sentence could use dividing.
 * Background
 * " Christian missionaries required a licence to operate. In practice, most could work without a licence, " Perhaps "prosthelytize" for either "operate" or "work".
 * "There was also a debate about the potential role of Sanskrit studies in assisting the administration and conversion of India within the Empire." It is difficult to understand what this means, and it doesn't seem to be tied in fully to the rest of the paragraph.
 * Candidates
 * "Sanskrit–English dictionary " too clunky to use twice in a sentence.
 * "as chiefly a means to the missionary conversion of the Hindus rather than as an end in itself" Is this Williams saying this or is this someone else?
 * Subsequent events
 * "He published more translations of plays and grammatical works." More?  What is the comparison to?
 * "Revisions to the statutes of Balliol College at the same time provided that the Boden professor was to be a fellow of the college." Does this mean that he is to be appointed from among the fellows of Balliol or that he becomes one upon appointment?  And why Balliol in particular?  There seems to be no previous relevance mentioned to the Boden professorship.

Very nicely done.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:09, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick support and comments. Just one response: "Sanskrit–English" dictionary isn't used twice; the first instance is "English–Sanskrit dictionary", so they are two different beasts. If you can think of a better phrasing I'll gladly take it.  Apart from that, I've split a couple of my long sentences (spot the lawyer!) and tried to reword other points to meet your comments: diff of my changes for your reference.
 * As to why Balliol in particular, my recollection is that the commissioners wanted to make sure that the professorships were all attached to colleges so divided them up. The current professor commented in his inaugural lecture that "the college affiliation of the professorship was captured by Balliol, when that college was at the height of its imperial ambitions, under its master Benjamin Jowett"; I've not found anything else along these lines. I can try and work this in but it seems like a little too much detail for this article at least. BencherliteTalk 10:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. The only other thing I can think of is that you might want to make it clearer who presently (or at least, subsequently to the 1880s), elects the Boden Professor.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * And one more. Your pipe from Indian Office is to, not surprisingly a US department that deals with Native American affairs, perhaps India Office?--Wehwalt (talk) 10:43, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Both done and a hatnote added to the top of Bureau of Indian Affairs for good measure. BencherliteTalk 11:19, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Support subject to image and source clearance: Another of my peer reviews. I really enjoyed this article, which broke new ground and was a pleasure to read. Brianboulton (talk) 19:14, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done
 * Evison or Evision? Van der Veer or Van Der Veer?
 * FN72: work and publisher are backwards
 * Check for minor inconsistencies like doubled periods. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Done, done, done and checked (there aren't any that I can find, that is). Damn!  I was hoping for a clean bill of health from you first thing, but those three minor typos eluded my eagle eyes (though not yours). BencherliteTalk 06:53, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Oppose for now on images. Several files require US tags, including File:Monier Monier-Williams.jpg. FA nominators would be wise to check this because it comes up so much. The tag on that particular file is non-standard (but acceptable for the UK). PD-old-100 and PD-1923 are typical US tags for older works. File:Samuel Wilberforce by Mowbray of Oxford.jpg on the other hand, needs a tag for the UK if made here - and I don't see a reason why it wasn't (a trip to America or something). Moving to en.wikipedia is an option if not. If you get a second, and I know you're interested in Oxford, File:Oxford - Balliol College - geograph.org.uk - 1329613.jpg needs some categories. This is obviously not an FA thing. (I suggest you ping me once this is done, I might not notice replies.) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:34, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Categories added to the Balliol image; beyond that, you've lost me, so I've asked on your talk page for more detailed instructions! BencherliteTalk 06:53, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Update: only File:Max Muller.jpg is still problematic as no author for the photograph has been identified. If the file were just hosted on en.wikipedia, you'd have a good PD-1923 shout. Unfortunately, it isn't and the country of origin is unlike to be the US, meaning knowing the author is essential. If you cannot identify the author then I suggest nominating it for deletion on Commons and uploading it locally. (There might be a way to automatically request this on Commons.) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help. The picture appears at page 268 of Muller's autobiography (published 1901), and in the portrait index it is said to be Muller aged 30 (ie 1853 or 1854); his ODNB entry says that that particular picture was taken by Walker & Cockerell.  I have added this information to the Commons page.  Will this do? BencherliteTalk 12:41, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think Walker and Cockerell are Emery Walker and Sydney Cockerell, so they couldn't have taken the original photograph as Walker was 3 and Cockerell wasn't born yet. They are presumably the printers or engravers or the creators of a derivative work from an earlier work. If my identification is correct, and they really did own the copyright (which is unlikely), this introduces a complication since Cockerell died in 1962, less than 70 years ago. There is no doubt in my mind that the work is public domain as it is clearly published in New York before 1923, however, you might like to consider using File:Max Muller taken by Lewis Carroll.jpg. Showing both candidates in photos taken by the same photographer has a kind of appealing symmetry. DrKiernan (talk) 14:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think the ODNB can be right in crediting Walker and Cockerell, then - perhaps they took over the studio that took the original photo? Anyway, now that you've found a date (thank you!) for the Lewis Carroll photo of 1857, which puts it slightly closer in time to the election than the other one, I've swapped the images per your suggestion. Thanks. BencherliteTalk 11:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm off on holiday for a week / ten days on Saturday, though I might be able to pop in from my iPhone if I have a signal where I'm going. I hope this nomination can tick along in my absence. Thanks. BencherliteTalk 19:38, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Back. BencherliteTalk 20:42, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Support Very nice; nothing to say for once. Johnbod (talk) 14:55, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the time you've taken to read and comment, it's much appreciated. As you can tell, alumni JSTOR access is coming in very useful now - must remember to download shedloads of stuff before the trial year runs out or it'll be back to WP:REX for me... BencherliteTalk 22:30, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Delegate note -- as the nominator noted above, spotcheck of sources required. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:11, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Source spotcheck I've examined 16 out of 80 (20%) of the footnotes:
 * 2: fine for all information in the paragraph preceding the footnote identifier.
 * 7: fine.
 * 14: fine in all particulars, though "closed in the wake of the Indian rebellion" might be considered too close to "closed in the wake of the Indian mutiny" by some (but not me).
 * 17: personally, I would move the footnote identifier for 17b to after the semi-colon in "..after three years as the deputy professor;" as the final sentence of that section is not covered by the source (it's presumably covered by the other one).
 * 52: fine.
 * 55: covers the quote from the ODNB; the earlier quote in the sentence is presumably from the other work; again, personally I would separate the identifiers so that they are next to the individual clauses.
 * 60: fine.
 * 61: fine after my correction.
 * 70: fine.
 * 71: fine.
 * 72: fine for everything except the parenthetical comment, which is supported by reference 7.
 * 73: fine.
 * 74: fine.
 * 76: fine, but it can assume other roles assigned to it by the Congregation
 * 79: fine.
 * 80: fine. DrKiernan (talk) 13:20, 15 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the check. As per your suggestions, I have reworded #14 to "closed following the Indian rebellion" out of an abundance of caution, moved the footnote identifiers to mid-sentence for 17 and 55, and added ref 7 alongside ref 72 for clarity.  BencherliteTalk 11:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.