Denzil Ibbetson

Sir Denzil Charles Jelf Ibbetson KCSI (30 August 1847 – 21 February 1908) was an administrator in British India and an author. He served as Chief-Commissioner of the Central Provinces and Berar from 1898 to 1899 and Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab in 1907.

Early life

Denzil Ibbetson was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire on 30 August 1847, the oldest son of John Holt Ibbetson, who was at that time working as a civil engineer on the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. The family moved to Adelaide, Australia after his father took holy orders and became vicar there. Ibbetson was educated at St Peter's College, Adelaide and St John's College, Cambridge. Ibbetson obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics in 1869, being ranked as a senior optime. He had come third in the competitive examination for the Indian Civil Service in the previous year.

Career in India

Ibbetson arrived in the Punjab Province of India on 8 December 1870, having married Louisa Clarissa Coulden earlier in that year. Once there, says the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "He formed part of a new élite of ‘competition-wallahs’ which intellectually outshone the earlier generation of Punjabi military political officials and well-connected alumni of Haileybury College."