Thomas Williamson

Who was Thomas Williamson?

Captain Thomas Williamson was a Captain in the Bengal army and at some point was living near Cawnpore as well as clearly having lived in Calcutta. He is also known as the author of four books. His most famous work was his Oriental Field Sports, or The Wild Sports of the East which was published in 1809 and includes plates of tiger hunting. He also wrote the preface and descriptions of the plates in The Costume and Customs of Modern India from a Collection of Drawings by Charles Doyley, Esq. which was published in London by Edward Orme in 1813 and The Anglers Vade-Mecum. From 'The East-India Vade-Mecum' we can see that he was a keen hunter and one of the more grisly aspects of his account of the sea voyage to India is his description of hunting whales and turtles while on the voyage.