Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hadley, George (d.1798)
HADLEY, GEORGE (d. 1798), orientalist, was appointed a cadet in the East India Company's service in 1763, and gained his first commission on the Bengal establishment on 19 June of that year. He became lieutenant on 5 Feb. 1764, and captain on 26 July 1760, and retired from the service on 4 Dec. 1771 (Dodwell and Miles, Indian Army List, 1760-1834, pp. 124-5). Finding it impossible to properly discharge his duty as a commander of a company of sepoys without a knowledge of their language, Hadley reduced their dialect to a grammatical system in 1765. A copy of his manuscript grammar fell into the hands of a London publisher; it was printed very incorrectly in 1770, and was circulated in Bengal. Hadley thereupon published a correct edition, entitled 'Grammatical Remarks on the practical and vulgar Dialect of the Indostan Language commonly called Moors. With a Vocabulary, English and Moors,' 8vo, London, 1772; 4th edit., enlarged, 1796. He published also 'Introductory Grammatical Remarks on the Persian Language. With a Vocabulary, English and Persian,' 4to, Bath, 1776. Hadley died on 10 Sept. 1798 in Gloucester Street, Queen Square, London (Gent. Mag. 1798, pt. ii. p. 816). In 1788 Thomas Briggs, a printer, of Kingston-upon-Hull, persuaded Hadley to put his name to a wretched compilation called 'A New and Complete History of the Town and County of the Town of Kingston-upon-Hull,' 4to.
[Hadley's Prefaces; Brit. Mus. Cat.]