OBITUARY NOTICES OF FELLOWS DECEASED. 



John Theophilus Boileau, son of Thomas Boileau, at one time a 

 well-known solicitor in Calcutta, and afterwards Chief Magistrate of 

 that city, was born there May 26th, 1805. His maternal grandfather, 

 Colonel Jessnp, was an American Loyalist who suffered severely for 

 the snpport he gave to the King's cause. The Boileau family are of 

 Huguenot descent. 



In 1819, when still much under fifteen, he was nominated a cadet 

 to Addiscombe by Charles Marjoribanks of the E.I. Direction. 

 Among his contemporaries were several whose names are more or less 

 prominent in modem Indian history, such as Henry Lawrence and his 

 elder brother George, James Abbott (of Khiva), with his brother Sir 

 Frederick. Boileau, aged 15f, passed out of Addiscombe for the 

 Engineers, December 19, 1820, and after a short practical training on 

 the Trigonometrical Survey, and at Chatham under Colonel Charles 

 Pasley, went to India, arriving at Fort William September 22nd, 1822. 



The Corps of Bengal Engineers was in those days a very small one, 

 its cadre including only thirty-six officers, and, if they entered it with 

 a somewhat imperfect training, the manifold and incessant work into 

 which the young officers were speedily plunged afforded them at least 

 a very varied experience. During the first twelve years of Boileau's 

 service we find him engaged as executive engineer in the construc- 

 tion of fortifications, roads, barracks, an important church and gaol, 

 a considerable suspension bridge, and what not, and (among other 

 duties when stationed at Agra) on measures for the conservation of 

 the splendid buildings left there by the Mogul dynasty, including the 

 Taj itself. 



He married in 1829, and made a voyage to Europe with his 

 family in 1837. Whilst at home he published a work which has had 

 extensive use among surveyors, and of which he had already issued a 

 lithographed edition in India (1836). The London publication is 

 entitled : " A new and complete Set of Traverse Tables, showing the 

 Differences of Latitude and the Departures to Every Minute of the 

 Quadrant, and to Five Places of Decimals ; together with a Table of 

 the Lengths of each Degree of Latitude and corresponding Degree 

 of Longitude from the Equator to the Poles ; with other Tables useful 

 to the Surveyor and Civil Engineer. By Captain J. T. Boileau, 

 H.E.LC. Bengal Engineers. London : W. H. Allen & Co., Leaden- 

 hall Street, 1839."* 



* A note in General Boileau's handwriting, dated 12th November, 1880, says : 

 " These Traverse Tables were prepared to facilitate the computation of the areas of 



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