Frederick Danvers

Frederic Charles Danvers (1833–1906), often Frederick, was a British civil servant and writer on engineering. The Superintendent of the India Office Records between 1884 and 1898, he was also a historian and wrote works on India.

Life Born at Hornsey on 1 July 1833, he was second son of Frederick Samuel Danvers of Hornsey, an officer in the East India Company's service, and his wife Mary Matilda Middleton, daughter of H. Middleton of Wanstead, Essex. After education at the Merchant Taylors' School, London, King's College, London, and Addiscombe College, he studied for two years as a civil and mechanical engineer. Then he became, on 26 January 1853, a writer in the old East India House.

Plans by Danvers for a tunnel under the Hugli River to continue the East India railway into Calcutta were forwarded by Sir Stafford Northcote to India in 1868. In 1877 he was transferred as assistant secretary to the revenue department of the India Office, and was in January 1884 made registrar and superintendent of records. Work on the archive continued into the 1930s, but the scale was large, and projects, even though selective, were left incomplete. Another scholarly effort began in the 1960s.

Danvers was sent to Lisbon in 1891 to study records of Portuguese rule in the East. His report, based on research in the Torre do Tombo archives and the public libraries in Lisbon and Evora, was published in 1892. He retired from the India Office in July 1898.

Danvers died on 17 May 1906 at Broad Oaks, Addlestone, Surrey, and was buried at All Saints' Church, Benhilton.

Danvers also wrote:

Family Danvers married in 1860, at Hove, Louisa (b. 2 November 1837), daughter of Elias Mocatta. She died at Sutton, Surrey, on 29 May 1909, and was buried beside her husband. They had three sons and five daughters. Lilian, the youngest daughter, married in 1901 Charles William Danvers-Walker and was mother of Bob Danvers-Walker. The eldest son, Alan, was also honoured by Carlos I of Portugal in 1893, as Baron Danvers, Knight (Cavaleiro) of the Order of Christ; he was a telephone engineer, manager in Lisbon of the Edison Gower-Bell Telephone Company of Europe, Ltd. He was born in 1861, and married in 1885 Alice Isabel Bowerbank.