enactment of the Punjab Tenancy Act and the Land Revenue Bill, while Lady Dufferin found an active supporter and exponent at a public meeting of her benevolent scheme for female medical aid.
To the regret of Lord Dufferin, Peile left India on his nomination to the India council in London (12 Nov. 1887). In 1897 his ten years' term of office was extended for another five years. During these fifteen years he took a leading part at the India office in the government of India. He was one of the first to were upon his colleagues the need for enlarging provincial councils and for increasing their powers. He was a jealous guardian of the finances of India, strenuously opposing the application of her revenues to the cost of sending troops in 1896 to Suakin as 'not being a direct interest of India.' He also objected to imposing on cotton exported to India a differential and preferential rate (3 per cent.) of import duties, when the general tariff fixed for revenue purposes was 5 per cent. While he advocated a progressive increase in the number of Indians admitted to the higher branches of the service, he firmly opposed the 'ill-considered resolution' of the House of Commons (2 June 1893), in favour of simultaneous examinations. He declined the offer of chairmanship of the second famine commission, but he served on the royal commission on the administration of the expenditure of India in 1895, and recorded the reservations with which he assented to their report dated 6 April 1900. He was made K.C.S.I. in 1888.
Throughout his career he had found recreation in sketching, and some of his productions in black and white won prizes at exhibitions in India. Retiring from public office on 11 Nov. 1902, he devoted himself to family affairs, and found leisure to record an account of his life for his children. He died suddenly on 25 April 1906 at 28 Campden House Court, London, W., and was buried at the Kensington cemetery, Hanwell.
Peile married in Bombay, on 7 Dec. 1859, Louisa Elisabeth Bruce, daughter of General Sackville Hamilton Berkeley. His wife survived him with two sons, James Hamilton Francis, archdeacon of Warwick, and Dr. W. H. Peile, M.D., and a daughter.
[The Times, 27 April 1906; Annals of the Peiles of Strathclyde, by the Rev. J. W. Peile (brother of Sir James); Famine Commissioners Reports; Legislative Proc. of Governments of India and Bombay; Kathiawar administration Reports; private papers lent by the archdeacon of Warwick.]
PEILE, JOHN (1837–1910), Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, and philologist, born at Whitehaven, Cumberland, on 24 April 1837, was only son of Williamson Peile, F.G.S., by his wife Elizabeth Hodgson. Sir James Braithwaite Peile [q. v. Suppl. II] was his first cousin. His father died when he was five years old, and in 1848 he was sent to Repton School, of which his uncle, Thomas Williamson Peile [q. v.], was then headmaster. At Repton he remained till his uncle's retirement in 1854. During the next two years he attended the school at St. Bees, and in 1856 was entered at Christ's College, Cambridge. In 1859 he won the Craven scholarship, and in 1860 was bracketed with two others as senior classic, and with one of these, Mr. Francis Cotterell Hodgson, as chancellor's medallist. He graduated B.A. in 1860 and proceeded M.A. in 1863. Having been elected a fellow of Christ's in 1860, and appointed assistant tutor and composition lecturer, he settled down to college and university work, which occupied him till near his death. He took up the study of Sanskrit and comparative philology, and in 1865, and again in 1866, spent some time working with Professor Benfey at Göttingen. Till the appointment of Professor Edward Byles Cowell [q. v. Suppl. II] in 1867, he was teacher of Sanskrit in the university, and when Sanskrit became a subject for a section of part 2 of the classical tripos, he published a volume of 'Notes on the Tale of Nala' (1881) to accompany Professor Jarrett's edition of the text. He also corrected Jarrett's edition, which in consequence of a difficult method of transliteration was very inaccurately printed. In 1869 appeared his book 'An Introduction to Greek and Latin Etymology.' The lecture form of the first edition was altered in the second, which was issued in 1871; a third appeared in 1875. Soon after the point of view of comparative philologists changed in some degree, and Peile, who by this time was becoming more immersed in college and university business, allowed the book to go out of print. A little primer of 'Philology' (1877) had for long a very wide circulation. To the ninth edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' he contributed the article on the alphabet and also articles upon the individual letters. He was for many years a contributor to the 'Athenæum,' reviewing classical and philological publications. In 1904 he was elected a member of the British Academy.
Peile was tutor of his college from 1871 to 1884, when, on his appointment to the
