Francis Cunningham

Francis Cunningham (1820 – 3 December 1875) was an officer in the Madras Army, member of the Mysore Commission as secretary to Mark Cubbon, and a literary editor. He published a three volume revised edition of Gifford's Works of Ben Jonson in 1871. Cunningham road in Bangalore is named after him.

Life

Francis Cunningham was the son of the poet Allan Cunningham and the younger brother of historian Joseph Davey (1812–1851, who wrote on the History of the Sikhs), (1816–1869), author and literary editor and archaeologist Sir Alexander Cunningham (1814–1893, who founded the Archaeological Survey of India), who also spent most of their working lives in India.

Cunningham returned to England and settled at 18 Clarendon Road, Kensington, where his house was filled with books and rare pictures including four 1798 pencil drawings of Charles Lamb, S. T. Coleridge, Robert Southey, and William Wordsworth. These later went to the British Library. He pursued his literary activity, editing the works of Kit Marlowe in 1870 and Philip Massinger and Ben Jonson in 1872. His obituary in The Athenaeum by A.H. Bullen praised him for revising and reissuing William Gifford's 1816 text of Ben Jonson. Later editors C.H. Herford, Percy and Evelyn Simpson however found fault in Cunningham's text. Cunningham had made corrections but simply reprinted Gifford's errors of 1875 and added a list of supplementary notes. He was also accused of not reading the manuscripts carefully and getting them in the wrong sequence. Cunningham however received praise for including William Drummond's Conversations with Ben Jonson.

A marble bust of Francis Cunningham by the sculptor Francis Leggatt Chantrey (who was assisted by Francis Cunningham's father. ) exists in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Cunningham Road in Bangalore is named after him. Given the significant roles that the Cunningham siblings have played in Indian history, this road might well be considered a tribute to the entire family.