{{Short description|British educator, journalist and historian}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Sir George William David Stark Forrest''' (1845–1926) was a British educator, journalist and historian, in India from 1872 to 1900.<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|id=33206|first=Katherine|last=Prior|title=Forrest, Sir George William David Stark}}</ref>
==Life== He was the second son of George Forrest VC, born at Nasirabad, Ajmer. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge in 1866, graduating B.A. in 1870.<ref name="IBD">{{cite IBD1915|wstitle=Forrest, George William}}</ref><ref name="acad">{{acad|id=FRST866GW|name=Forrest, George William David Starck}}</ref> He entered the Inner Temple in 1872, but was not called to the bar. He began to write for periodicals including the ''Saturday Review''. As a journalist, he was known for work published in ''The Times'', particularly a scoop in 1880 with the Battle of Maiwand.<ref name="acad"/>
Forrest was appointed to Bombay Educational Department, late in 1872. He was Census Commissioner at Bombay in 1882. He was seconded to work on the Bombay Records, 1884-8, becoming Professor of English History, Elphinstone College, in 1887. He was Director, Bombay Records, in 1888, Assistant Secretary, Government of India, and Director, Government of India Records, 1894–1900.<ref name="IBD"/>
In bad health, Forrest returned to the United Kingdom in 1900.<ref name="ODNB"/> He went in 1904 to Iffley Turn House just outside Oxford, was knighted in 1913, and died there on 28 January 1926.<ref name="acad"/>
==Works== Forrest published books:<ref name="IBD"/>
*''Selections from the Official Writings of Mountstuart Elphinstone'' (1884)<ref name="ODNB"/> *''Selections from the State Papers in the Foreign Department'' (1890)<ref name="ODNB"/> *''The Administration of the Marquis of Lansdowne as Viceroy and Governor'' (1894)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forrest |first1=Sir George |title=The Administration of the Marquis of Lansdowne as Viceroy and Governor-general of India, 1888-1894 |date=1894 |publisher=Office of the Superintendent of Government Print. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R_cOAAAAQAAJ |language=en}}</ref> *''Sepoy Generals'' (1901)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forrest |first1=George W. |title=Sepoy Generals: Wellington to Roberts |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-02853-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7ZdzWPDFdwC |language=en}}</ref> *''Cities of India Past and Present'' (1903)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forrest |first1=Sir George William |title=Cities of India Past and Present |date=1903 |publisher=Constable |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3bc2AAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref> *''History of the Indian Mutiny'' (1904–1912, 3 vols.), a documentary history.<ref name="ODNB"/> John Laband wrote in 1976 of historiography of the Indian rebellion of 1857 in terms of "the voluminous literature of British historians such as Kaye, Holmes and G. W. Forrest."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Laband |first1=J. P. C. |title=The Nature of the Indian Mutiny: A Changing Concept |journal=Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory |date=1976 |issue=46 |page=32 |jstor=41801598 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41801598 |issn=0040-5817}}</ref> Rudrangshu Mukherjee, writing in 2008, stated that "Much of what we write and say today about 1857 is possible because of the work of [Surendra Nath Sen, Ramesh Chundra Majumdar and S B Chaudhuri] and of the great narratives produced in the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century by Charles Ball, John Kaye, G W Forrest and others."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mukherjee |first1=Rudrangshu |title=Two Responses to 1857 in the Centenary Year |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |date=2008 |volume=43 |issue=24 |pages=51–55 |jstor=40277566 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40277566 |issn=0012-9976}}</ref> *''Selections from the Travels and Journals Preserved in the Bombay Secretariat'' (1906)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forrest |first1=George William |title=Selections from the Travels and Journals Preserved in the Bombay Secretariat |date=1906 |publisher=Printed at the Government central Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a-g-AAAAYAAJ |language=en}}</ref> *''Life of Field-Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, G.C.B., G.C.S.I.'' (1909),<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forrest |first1=George William |title=Life of Field-Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, G. C. B., G. C. S. I |date=1909 |publisher=Edinburgh and London, W. Blackwood and Sons |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeoffieldmarsh00forrrich}}</ref> on Neville Bowles Chamberlain. *''Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General of India: Warren Hastings'' (2 vols., 1910)<ref name="ODNB"/> *''Life of Lord Roberts'' (1914)<ref name="ODNB"/> *''The Life of Lord Clive'' (2 vols., 1918)<ref name="ODNB"/> *''Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General of India: Lord Cornwallis'' (2 vols., 1926)<ref name="ODNB"/>
Other works were:
*''The Famine in India'' (1897), pamphlet<ref name="ODNB"/> *Articles on the deforestation of India in the ''Bombay Gazette''.<ref name="IBD"/>
==Family== In 1877 Forrest married Emma Georgina Viner, daughter of Thomas Viner of Crawley, Sussex. They had a son and a daughter.<ref name="ODNB"/>
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forrest, George William David Stark}} Category:1845 births Category:1926 deaths Category:19th-century British historians Category:English journalists Category:20th-century British historians Category:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge