Frederick John Shore, a British civil servant and judge for the East India Company and an outspoken critic of British colonial rule, died on this day. He is buried in the North Park Street Cemetery in Calcutta.

He joined the Bengal civil service in 1818 and went on to hold several important administrative and judicial posts in north India, including Dehradun and Fatehgarh.

He is best remembered for his two-volume Notes on Indian Affairs, in which he castigated the British colonial government for a “sordid system of misrule to which the interests of millions have been sacrificed for the benefit of the few”. He would dress in Indian (Mussalman) clothes to the court. He considered the British system of justice inappropriate in India and criticised the British for their ignorance of Indian languages.

He was a keen hunter and bird-watcher. His bird illustrations are remarkable. He was wounded in a skirmish between the Gurjar community and the British in Roorkee. He did not regain his health after that and died suddenly in Spence’s Hotel in Calcutta 13 years later.

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