East India Company. He was educated at Harrow, and went out to India as a writer in the Bengal Civil Service in 1769. He became a member of the Supreme Council (1787–80), in which capacity he assisted Lord Cornwallis in introducing many reforms, but did not approve his permanent settlement of Bengal. On the retirement of Cornwallis, he was appointed governor-general (1793–98), adopting a policy of non-interference, but deposed Wazir Ali, for whom he substituted Saadat Ali as nawab of Oudh. His term of office was also signalized by a mutiny of the officers of the Indian army, which he met with concessions. He was created a baronet in 1792, and Baron Teignmouth in the peerage of Ireland in 1798. On his retirement from India he was appointed member of the board of control (1807–28), and was for many years president of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He died on the 14th of February 1834.
See Memoirs of Lord Teignmouth, by his son (1843).
TEIGNMOUTH, a seaport and market town in the Ashburton
parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, at the mouth
of the river Teign, on the English Channel, 15 m. S. by E. of
Exeter, by the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district
(1901) 8636. Two parishes, East and West Teignmouth, form
the town. It lies partly on a peninsula between the river and
the sea, partly on the wooded uplands which enclose the valley
and rise gradually to the high moors beneath Heytor. The Den,
or Dene, forms a promenade along the sea-front, with a small
lighthouse and a pier. St Michael’s church in East Teignmouth was rebuilt in 1824 in Decorated style, but retains a
Norman doorway and other ancient portions; of St James’,
in West Teignmouth, the south porch and tower are Norman.
There are a theological college for Redemptorists, and a Benedictine convent, dedicated to St Scholastica. The entrance to
the harbour has been improved by dredging, and the two quays
accommodate vessels drawing 13 ft. at neap tides. Pipeclay and
china clay, from Kingsteignton, are shipped for the Staffordshire potteries, while coal and general goods are imported.
Pilchard, herrings, whiting and mackerel are taken, and salmon
in the Teign. Malting, brewing and boatbuilding are also
carried on. East Teignmouth was formerly called Teignmouth
Regis, and West Teignmouth, Teignmouth Episcopi.
Teignmouth (Teinemue, Tengemue) possessed a church of St Michael as early as 1044, when what is now East Teignmouth was granted by Edward the Confessor to Leofric, bishop of Exeter, and an allusion to salterers in the same grant proves the existence of the salt industry at that date. Teignmouth is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but in 1276 what is now West Teignmouth appears as a mesne borough held by the dean and chapter of Exeter; what is now East Teignmouth continuing with the bishop, who was accused in that year of holding in his manor a market which should be held in the borough. The bishop’s manor was alienated in 1550 to Sir Andrew Dudley, but West Teignmouth remained with the dean and chapter until early in the 19th century. In the middle ages Teignmouth was a flourishing port, able to furnish 7 ships and 120 mariners to the Calais expedition of 1347, and depending chiefly on the fishing and salt industries. In the early part of the 17th century the town had fallen into decay, but it speedily recovered, and in 1744 could contribute twenty vessels to the Newfoundland shipping trade. The borough was never represented in parliament, nor incorporated by charter. The Saturday market, which was held up to the 19th century, is mentioned in 1220, and was confirmed by royal charter in 1253, together with a fair at Michaelmas. Teignmouth was burned by French pirates in 1340, and was again devastated by the French on the 26th of June 1690.
See Victoria County History, Devonshire; The Teignmouth Guide and Complete Handbook to the Town and Neighbourhood (Teignmouth, 1875).
TEIRESIAS, in Greek legend, a famous Theban seer, son
of Eueres and Chariclo. He was a descendant of Udaeus, one
of the men who had sprung up from the serpent’s teeth sown
by Cadmus. He was blind from his seventh year, for which
various causes were alleged. Some said that the gods had
blinded him because he had revealed to men what they ought
not to know. Others said that Athena (or Artemis) blinded
him because he had seen her naked in the bath; when his
mother prayed Athena to restore his sight, the goddess, being
unable to do so, purged his ears so that he could understand
the speech of birds, and gave him a staff wherewith to guide
his steps (Apollodorus iii. 6). According to Sostratus, author
of an elegiac poem called Teiresias, he was originally a girl,
but had been changed into a boy by Apollo at the age of seven;
after undergoing several more transformations from one sex to
the other, she (for the final sex was feminine) was turned into
a mouse and her lover Arachnus into a weasel (Eustathius on
Odyssey, p. 1665). Teiresias' grave was at the Tilphusian
spring; but there was a cenotaph of him at Thebes, and also
in later times his “observatory,” or place for watching for
omens from birds, was pointed out (Pausanias ix 16;
Sophocles, Antigone, 999). He had an oracle at Orchomenus,
but during a plague it became silent and remained so in
Plutarch’s time {De Defectu Oraculorum, 44). According to
Homer (Od. x. 492, xi. 90), Teiresias was the only person in
the world of the dead whom Proserpine allowed to retain his
memory and intellect unimpaired, and Circe sends Odysseus to
consult him concerning his return home. He figured in the
great paintings by Polygnotus in the Lesche at Delphi.
TEISSERENC DE BORT, PIERRE EDMOND (1814–1892),
French writer and politician, was born at Chateauroux on the
17th of September 1814, and entered the civil service after the
completion of his education at the École Polytechnique. He
was a railway expert, becoming secretary-general of the Railway Commission established in 1842, government commissioner
to the authorized railway companies, administrator of the
Lyons-Mediterranean railway, and commissioner to examine
foreign railways. In 1846 he was returned to the Chamber
of Deputies for Herault, but the revolution of 1848 drove him
into private life, from which he only emerged after the downfall of the Empire, when in February 1871 he was returned
to the National Assembly. He supported the government of
Thiers and was minister of agriculture and commerce in 1872–73.
He sat in the Left Centre, and steadily supported republican
principles. He entered the Senate in 1876, and was minister
of agriculture in the Dufaure-Ricard cabinet of that year,
retaining his portfolio in the Jules Simon ministry which fell
on the 16th of May 1877. In 1878, when he joined the new
Dufaure cabinet, he opened the Paris exhibition of agriculture
and manufactures, the original suggestion of which had been
made by him during his 1876 ministry. In 1879 he was sent
as ambassador to Vienna, whence he was next year recalled
on the score of health. Two years later he re-entered the
Senate, where he did good service to the cause of “Republican
Defence” during the Boulangist agitation. He died in Paris
on the 29th of July 1892. His works consist of discussions of
railway policy from the technical and economic side.
TELAMONES (Gr. τελάμων, supporter, from τλήναι, to bear),
in architecture the term used by the Romans as equivalent
to Atlantes (the Greek term) for male figures employed to
carry architraves and cornices. The best-known examples are
those in the tepidarium of the baths of Pompeii, which consist
of small figures in terra-cotta, 2 ft. high, placed between niches
and carrying a cornice.
TELANG, KASHINATH TRIMBAK (1850–1893), Indian judge and oriental scholar, was born at Bombay on the 30th of August 1850. By profession an advocate of the high court, he also took a vigorous share in literary, social, municipal and political work, as well as in the affairs of the university of Bombay, over which he presided as vice-chancellor from 1892 till his death. At the age of five Telang was sent to the Amarchaud Wadi vernacular school, and in 1859 entered the
high school in Bombay which bears the name of Mountstuart Elphinstone. Here he came under the influence of Narayan Mahadev Purmanand, a teacher of fine intellect and force of character, afterwards one of Telang’s most intimate friends.
