Tamil Nadu Timeline

ReligionEast India Company rule

Robert Caldwell arrives in Madras

· Chennai

Robert Caldwell arrives in Madras
Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Robert Caldwell, who would go on to write the Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian languages, reached Madras as a missionary.

On 8 January 1838 Robert Caldwell, then a young London Missionary Society missionary, landed at Madras. He afterwards moved to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and was posted to Idaiyangudi in Tirunelveli district. His methodical study of Tamil resulted in 1856 in the Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages. Caldwell also investigated the history of Tirunelveli, and in 1877 he was made Bishop of Tirunelveli.

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