Rawson Hart Boddam
British Governor of Bombay
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rawson Hart Boddam (1734 – 20 May 1812, Bath) was a Governor of the Bombay Presidency during the rule of the East India Company in British India from 1784 to 1788.
Boddam entered East India Company service in 1752.[1] In 1760 he married Mary Sclater, sister of the Eliza Draper for whom Laurence Sterne wrote his Journal to Eliza;[2] but Mary died soon after the birth of a son Charles (1762–1811) and is buried in St. Thomas Cathedral, Mumbai.[3]
Rawson Hart Boddam was the first Governor of Bombay to be paid entirely by salary, at an annual rate of nearly £10,000. By a second wife, Eliza Maria Tudor, he had nine children, and settled at Capel House, Bull's Cross, near Enfield on his return to England.[4] He died 'aged 78 years' in May 1812.[1] In the 1920s a portrait was in the possession of Mrs. Hungerford Meyer Boddam, of Capel House, Guildford.[4]
