R W Frazer

By BARBARA GODFREY
HIS GRANDDAUGHTER

Robert Watson Frazer LLB (1854-1921) was a renowned authority on India, where he worked as an administrator in the Madras Civil Service until ill-health forced him to return to England. It was in India that he met his first wife, Hannah Maria Wilson, who was known as Lally. The couple had three children – Kathleen, who became a nun; May, who remained unmarried; and Robert Alexander.

Frazer had an intimate knowledge of Sanskrit literature, spoke the Dravidian languages Tamil and Telugu and was author of a number of books on India, including A Literary History of India, British India (in The Story of the Nations series), Indian Thought, Past and Present, and the beautiful and poetic Silent Gods in Sun-Steeped Lands.

It was one of the stories, The Cloud Messenger, in the latter book which instigated two handwritten letters from Gustav Holst, profoundly apologising for unwittingly having used, in his ode for chorus and orchestra The Cloud Messenger, some material from Frazer’s version which was based on an ancient Sanskrit poem. One of the letters included the following: ‘I am sure that you realise that I did not know how much I had taken from your book so I will not waste your time by further explanation. The only sensible thing I can do is to wait until somebody treats me as badly as I have treated you and then endeavour to treat him as kindly as you have treated me.’

Holst expressed his thanks to R W Frazer on the title page of his work, sent tickets for the first performance and asked to be introduced to Frazer after the concert.

Frazer’s career in India came to an end when he was obliged for health reasons to return to England, where he took up a post at the London Institution. It was he who was largely instrumental in initiating and carrying through the subsequent transfer of the building to the School of Oriental Studies, where he became lecturer in Tamil and Telugu and served on the governing body. He had previously been lecturer in these languages for more than 30 years at University College, London.

Frazer remarried after Hannah Maria died of cancer in 1917. He himself died four years later, after which his widow, Charlotte Stanley Hughes, and his younger daughter May built up a lifelong close relationship, carrying out charitable work together in India and later adopting a British child, Paul Smythe. Charlotte had by now adopted the name Simon, her stepdaughter taking the name Peter – nicknames they had first been given at a fancy dress party.

R W Frazer’s father was Dr William Frazer, of Dublin, an eminent authority on skin diseases.