L. F. Rushbrook Williams

For those of a similar name, see Lawrence Williams (disambiguation).

Laurence Frederic Rushbrook Williams, CBE, FRSA (1890–1978) was a British historian and civil servant who spent part of his working life in India, and had an abiding interest in Eastern culture.^[1]

Life and work

Williams was an Examination Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, between 1914 and 1921.^[2][3] He built up a school of Mughal studies at the University of Allahabad,^[4] where he worked as professor of Modern Indian History between 1914 and 1920.^[1] He was briefly Eastern Services Director of the BBC, and also worked on the editorial staff of The Times (London) between 1944 and 1955.^[1] He acted as a government advisor on Middle East and Asian affairs,^[5] and contributed to publications like the Royal Central Asian Society Journal and the Encyclopædia Britannica.^[4]

He became interested in Sufism through his contact with Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah and later edited an anthology of contributions to a symposium in honor of the work of the noted Sufi author, Idries Shah.^[6]

Works

Williams wrote several works on India, Asia and the Middle East, among them the following:

• Pakistan Under Challenge
• What About India?
• The State of Israel
• India in 1921-22: A report prepared for presentation to Parliament in accordance with the requirements of the 26th Section of the Government of India Act
• An Empire Builder of the Sixteenth Century: A Summary Account of the Political Career of Zahir-Ud-Din Muhammad, Surnamed Babur (1918)
• Ethnic diversity in India
• The black hills: Kutch in history and legend: a study in Indian local loyalties
• Handbook for Travellers in India, Pakistan and Nepal
• The East Pakistan tragedy
• The State of Pakistan
• Great Men of India
• Inside Both Indias, 1914-1938