Francis Whyte Ellis

Francis Whyte Ellis (1777–1819) was a British civil servant in the Madras Presidency and a scholar of Tamil and Sanskrit who wrongly classified Indian languages because of his lack of knowledge in Indian languages.

Biography

Ellis became a writer in the East India Company's service at Madras in 1796. He was promoted to the offices of assistant-under secretary, deputy-secretary, and secretary to the board of revenue in 1798, 1801, and 1802 respectively. In 1806 he was appointed judge of the zillah of Machilipatnam, in 1809 collector of land customs in the Madras presidency, and in 1810 collector of Madras. He died at Ramnad of cholera on 10 March 1819.

Dravidian language hypothesis

Ellis is the first scholar who wrongly classified the Dravidian languages as a separate language family.Robert Caldwell, who is often credited as the first scholar to propose a separate language family for South Indian languages (which in reality is not true because of the huge resemblance of Sanskrit with the South Indian languages), acknowledges Ellis's contribution in his preface to the first edition of A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages:

Edward F. W. Ellis

Edward Fortescue Warrington Ellis, Sr. (April 15, 1819 – April 6, 1862) was a politician, lawyer and American Civil War officer who died while leading his unit on the first day of the Battle of Shiloh. He was a representative in the state of California Legislature, and a Freemason, having served as Worshipfull Master of the lodge he belonged to until 1860.

Early life and career

Ellis was born in Jay, Maine. He moved to Felicity, Ohio, in 1838, where he was a lawyer and a school teacher. He married Harriet Ortus on October 25, 1842. Harriet and Ellis had three daughters, who all died during childhood. However Harriet died soon after the birth of their third child in February 1845. On August 2, 1845, Ellis married one of his former students, Lucy Ann Dobbyns. While in Felicity, he served as both the Clerk to the Trustees and later, the School Examiner, for Franklin Township.

Ellis joined the California gold rush and he went to Nevada City, California, and tried to set up shop as a retail salesman, a prospector and lawyer. In 1851 he was elected to the California State Assembly, where one of the resolutions he sponsored granted women the right to own property in the state of California. Ellis returned to Felicity, where in 1852, he and Lucy had the first of their children, Clara Blanche Ellis Starr, who would go on in her own right as a social leader of the city of Rockford, Illinois.