{{Short description|British civil servant, colonial administrator and classical scholar}} {{Use Indian English|date=April 2015}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2015}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = | name = Sir William Sinclair Marris | honorific_suffix = KCSI, KCIE | image = Sir-William-Sinclair-Marris2.jpg | caption = Photographic portrait, bromide print, by Bassano Ltd. (13 November 1933) | office1 = Governor of Assam | term_start1 = 1921 | term_end1 = 1922 | predecessor1 = | successor1 = | office2 = Governor of United Provinces | term_start2 = 1922 | term_end2 = 1928 | predecessor2 = | successor2 = | office3 = Member of Council of India | term_start3 = 1928 | term_end3 = 1929 | birth_date = {{birth date text|9 October 1873}} | birth_place = Aston,<ref>Registration District now part of Birmingham</ref> Warwickshire, England | death_date = {{death date and age|12 December 1945|9 October 1873}} | death_place = Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England }}
'''Sir William Sinclair Marris''', {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|KCSI|KCIE|sep=,|size=100}} (9 October 1873 – 12 December 1945<ref>{{cite book|last1=Marris|first1=William Sinclair|title=Narrative of an ex-British governor|date=2011|publisher=Dr. B. C. Pandey}}</ref>) was a British civil servant, colonial administrator, and classical scholar. He was a member of the Indian Civil Service during the British Raj, and later became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Durham.
==Education and life== Born on 9 October 1873, Marris was educated at Wanganui Collegiate School and Canterbury College in New Zealand, and later studied at Christ Church, Oxford. He passed first in the Indian Civil Service (open) examination in 1895.
He married Eleanor Mary Fergusson, in 1905, who died a year later in 1906. After retirement from the Indian Civil Service, Marris returned to Northern England and remarried to Elizabeth Wilford in 1934, whom he had known from his childhood in New Zealand.
In 1921, he laid Murari Chand College's foundation stone in Thackeray Hills, Sylhet alongside Syed Abdul Majid.<ref>{{cite book|title=Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh|first=Sayeda|last=Shamsunnahar|chapter-url=http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Murari_Chand_College|chapter=Murari Chand College|publisher=Asiatic Society of Bangladesh}}</ref>
Following his return from India he resigned as a member of the Council of the Secretary of India to take a principalship at Armstrong College in Newcastle upon Tyne, and he was Vice-Chancellor of Durham University from 1932 to 1934.<ref name="times-obit" /> During this period, he published translations of Greek and Roman Literature. He retired in 1937 and settled in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, where at Dollar House he died on 12 December 1945.<ref name="times-obit" />
==Indian Civil Service==
Sir William Sinclair Marris served in the Indian Civil Service in several positions<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.upgovernor.gov.in/marrisbio.htm|title=Sir William S. Marris, Governor of UP |publisher=National Informatics Centre, UP State Unit|date= |accessdate=2010-08-11}}</ref>
* Assistant Magistrate, U.P. 1896 * Under Secretary to Government, U.P. 1899 * Under Secretary to Government of India. 1901 * Deputy Secretary to Government of India, 1904 * Magistrate and Collector; Aligarh, 1910 * Member Executive Committee Coronation Durbar, 1912 * Acting Secretary to Government of India, Home Department, 1913 * Inspector-General of Police, U.P. 1916 * Joint Secretary to Government of India 1919–21 * Reforms Commissioner, 1919–20 * Governor of Assam, 1921–22 * Governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, 1922–28 * Member of Council of India, 1928–29
==Publications==
Sir William Marris authored and translated several publications including<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-nr98-2369|title=Marris, William Sinclair Sir 1873– |publisher=© 2010 OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. |date= |accessdate=2010-08-11}}</ref> * ''The Odes of Horace.'' By Horace, ''(translated Sir William Marris).'' Published London, New York [etc.]: H.Frowde, 1912 (books I-IV and the Saecular hymn translated into English verse) * ''The Iliad of Homer.'' By Homer, ''(translated Sir William Marris).'' Published London, New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press, 1934 * ''The Odyssey of Homer.'' By Homer, ''(translated Sir William Marris).'' Published London, New York [etc.]: Oxford University Press, 1925 {{further|English translations of Homer#Marris}} * ''Catullus.'' By Catallus, ''(translated Sir William Marris).'' Published Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924 * ''India: the political problem'' By Sir William Marris. Published Nottingham, 1930?
==Vice-Chancellor of the University of Durham== From 1929 to 1937, Marris was Principal of Armstrong College in the Newcastle division of the University of Durham (now Newcastle University), in which role he held the position of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Durham from 1932 to 1934.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/exhibitions/current-and-past-exhibitions/so/university_halls.php|title=So Thats Why Its Called!|website=Newcastle University|accessdate=20 March 2016|archive-date=28 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150128111753/http://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/exhibitions/current-and-past-exhibitions/so/university_halls.php|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==References== <references>
<ref name="times-obit"> {{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Sir William Marris - Administrator and Educationist |author= |department=Obituaries |date=14 December 1945 |page=8 |pages= |issue=50325 |column=E }}</ref>
</references>
==External links== * [https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw51462/Sir-William-Sinclair-Marris Portrait of Sir William Sinclair Marris] from the National Portrait Gallery{{s-start}} {{s-aca}} {{succession box | title = Vice-Chancellor of the University of Durham | years = 1932–1934 | before = The Revd Prof Henry Ellershaw | after = The Revd Stephen Moulsdale }} {{s-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marris, William Sinclair}} Category:1873 births Category:1945 deaths Category:People educated at Whanganui Collegiate School Category:University of Canterbury alumni Category:Vice-chancellors and wardens of Durham University Category:Indian Civil Service (British India) officers Category:Governors of Assam Category:Members of the Council of India Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India Category:Translators of Homer