James Wilkinson Breeks

James Wilkinson Breeks
Born	1830
Died	1872
Residence	Madras Civil Service, Com. Neilgherry Hills
Occupation	civil service
Society Membership membership Ordinary Fellow left 1872 deceased elected_AI 1871.10.30

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1871.10.20 proposed

1872.10.22 death noted

Notes From Elsewhere

James Wilkinson Breeks (1830-1872), was an Indian civil servant and author

Breeks Memorial Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School is a Christian Co-educational School established in 1874.It was named after James Wilkinson Breeks, the first Commissioner (District Collector) of the Nilgiris. It was erected for the children of poor Europeans and Eurasians by public subscription shortly after his death, as a memorial to his services to the Nilgiris community

James Wilkinson Breeks who came out to Madras in 1849 as a 19-year-old member of the Madras Civil Service. Rising through the Revenue and Finance Departments, he became the Private Secretary of Governor Sir William Denison in 1861. Two years later he married Denison’s daughter Susan Maria, and with her moved to the Nilgiris in 1868 as its first District Commissioner.
There he began his study of the four tribes of the Nilgiris — the Todas, Kotas, Kurumbas and Irulas — and started his explorations of the cairns, discovering in them the prehistoric. Buried beneath the stone mounds were tall, vase-like burial urns decorated with crude animal figures, mainly buffaloes and men astride horses, hunting being a favourite theme. Working with him on both his studies as well as searches was his wife who, after his death in 1872, completed and edited his near-complete manuscripts that were published as An Account of the Primitive Tribes and Monuments in the Nilagiris.
But it was not for his contribution to Anthropology that his name had rung the bell I referred to earlier. It was for an Anglo-Indian school established in Ooty. I had always thought Breeks Memorial School was named after a Christian priest or an Old Mr. Chips. It now turns out that it is a memorial to a Civilian and pioneering anthropologist. Immediately after his death, the leading citizens of Ooty met and opened a fund to establish a school in memory of J.W. Breeks for his “services to the Nilgiris community”. The co-educational school, originally for European and Eurasian children, was opened in 1874, in a building raised for it between 1872 and 1874 and which is now part of the Nilgiris District Court campus. The School moved into its present premises in the heart of town in 1886. But I wonder how many in the School know about the invaluable contribution to South Indian anthropology that was made by the person it was named after.

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The items recovered by JW Breeks are on display at the Madras Museum