James Cordiner
Cordiner, James (1775–1836), Scottish Episcopal clergyman in Ceylon and India, was born probably in Banff, one of eight children of the Episcopalian minister and antiquary Charles Cordiner and his wife, Jean Shand. He was educated locally, and then at King's College, Aberdeen, where he graduated MA in 1793. In 1797, while still a divinity student, he was appointed to superintend the Military Male Orphan Asylum at Madras, for Eurasian sons of British soldiers. In October, en route for India, he was ordained deacon by the bishop of Carlisle.
Cordiner reached Madras by way of Bombay in June 1798 and remained at the asylum until the following April. At that time he was introduced to the Hon. Frederick North, later fifth earl of Guilford, and the first civil governor of Ceylon. As the chaplain to the garrison of Colombo had recently died, Cordiner was invited by North to take his place. He also became chaplain to the 51st regiment, having previously acted as chaplain to the 80th. He was chaplain from 1799 to 1804 and during this time he was also principal of all the schools on the island. As the only episcopalian clergyman on the island he conducted services at Government House each Sunday. He was also responsible for the formation of three schools in Colombo for Sinhalese, Tamil, and European pupils. In 1800 he made a six-month tour of the island with the governor, after which he made an official report on the schools. When Cordiner left Ceylon in 1804 he was presented with a piece of plate worth 200 guineas.
Cordiner set sail for England and reached Dover in February 1805; he then returned to his native north-east Scotland. While living at Peterhead he prepared his two-volume Description of Ceylon (1807) for the press. The work, which was handsomely illustrated with engravings taken from Cordiner's own drawings, described his experiences of the country including his observation of an elephant hunt, pearl fishing, and cinnamon cultivation, as well as a tour of the island. The second part of the work described, on the basis of second-hand information, details of military operations in 1803. A further work, A Voyage to India (1820), completed his descriptions of his life in the East.
In May 1807 Cordiner became second minister of St Paul's Episcopal Chapel, Aberdeen, a collegiate charge. He was promoted from second minister to first minister in the following year. In November 1834 ill health prompted him to retire from his ministerial duties. He died in Aberdeen of congestion of the lungs on 13 January 1836, and was buried locally in St Nicholas churchyard. Not much is known of the personal life of this man, whose claim to distinction lay in the fact that he visited Ceylon just as it was being brought under British administration, and published elegant descriptions of his experiences. He had married and had a son, Charles, who later became a Church of Scotland minister in the quoad sacra parish of Kininmonth, Aberdeenshire. His obituary emphasized his cheerful disposition, his humility, and his eagerness to avoid giving offence (Aberdeen Journal, 20 Jan 1836).
H. M. Chichester, rev. Lionel Alexander Ritchie
Sources Aberdeen Journal (20 Jan 1836) · J. Cordiner, A voyage to India (1820) · J. Cordiner, A description of Ceylon ... with narratives of a tour round the island in 1800, the campaign in Candy in 1803, and a journey to Ramisseram in 1804, 2 vols. (1807) · A. E. Smith, ed., ‘Register of St Paul's Episcopal Chapel, Aberdeen, 1720–1793’, The miscellany of the New Spalding Club, 2, New Spalding Club, 34 (1908) · W. Cramond, ed., The annals of Banff, 2, New Spalding Club, 10 (1893), 110, 359 · DNB · Fasti Scot., new edn, 6.225
Likenesses W. Bond, stipple, pubd 1819 (after A. Birnie, 1819), NPG; repro. in Cordiner, Voyage to India, facing frontispiece (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
