ABSTRACT
Robert Charles Caldwell was the eldest son of the Rev. Robert Caldwell, bishop of Tinnevelly in Madras. His date of birth is unknown, but his father married Eliza Mault in March 1844. Caldwell appears to have intended to follow in his father’s footsteps when he began the study of theology at St Augustine’s College in Canterbury, but he did not take holy orders. He then became the editor of the Madras Times, and subsequently the Madras Athenaeum and Daily News. His tenure of both these posts was of short duration, and the brief biography supplied by his publishers for the posthumous second edition of Chutney Lyrics explains this by reference to a ‘general complaint against him’ to the effect that there was ‘too much personality in his writings’. As well as the works, Caldwell also published an earlier collection of verse: Constance Lorn, and Other Poems.
