JAMES

See also:

• SILK

SILK

See also:

• BUCKINGHAM
• BUCKINGHAM, EARLS, MARQUESSES AND DUKES OF
• BUCKINGHAM, FIRST DUKE
• BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VILLIERS, 1ST DUKE 0E1
• BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VILLIERS, 2ND DUKE 0E1 (1628-1687)
• BUCKINGHAM, HENRY STAFFORD, 2ND DUKE OF3 (1454-1483)
• JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM (1786-1855)

BUCKINGHAM (1786-1855)  , English author and traveller, was born near Falmouth on the 25th of August 1786, the son of a farmer . His youth was spent at sea . After years of wandering he established in 1818 the Calcutta Journal . This venture at first proved highly successful, but in 1823 thepaper's outspoken criticisms of the East India Company led to the expulsion of Buckingham from India and to the suppression of the paper by John Adam, the acting governor-general . His case was brought before parliament, and a pension of zoo a year was subsequently awarded him by the East India Company as compensation . Buckingharn continued his journalistic ventures on his return to England, and started the Oriental Herald (1824) and the Athenaeum (1828) which was not a success in his hands . In parliament, where he sat as member for Sheffield from 1832-1837, he was a strong advocate of social reform . He was a most voluminous writer . He had travelled much in Europe, America and the East, and wrote a great number of useful books of travel . In 1851 the value of these and of his other literary work was recognized by the grant of a civil list pension of 200 a year . At the time of his death in London, on the 3oth of June 1855, Buckingham was at work on his autobiography, two volumes of the intended four being completed and published (1855) . His youngest son, Leicester Silk Buckingham (1825-1867), achieved no little popularity as a playwright, several of his free adaptations of French comedies being produced in London between 186o and 1867 .