Peter Percival

Who was Peter Percival?

Peter Percival was a British born missionary, linguist and a pioneering educator in Sri Lanka and South India during the British colonial era. His work influenced prominent people such as Robert Bruce Foote a pioneering geologist and archeologist and Arumuka Navalar, a Hindu revivalist. He began his career in British held Sri Lanka and Bengal as a Wesleyan Methodist missionary. His early work was in the minority Sri Lankan Tamil dominant Jaffna peninsula. He was instrumental in starting and upgrading a number of schools within the Jaffna peninsula. His preference of education over evangelism influenced educational programs off all others who sought to improve the literacy rate in the district. During his stay in Jaffna, he led the effort to translate the Bible into Tamil, based on the Authorised Version. After returning to England, he converted to Anglicanism. Subsequent to his posting in South India, he severed his association with the Anglican Missionary Society that had sent him to India and worked as an educator in Presidency College in Madras Presidency. He published English-Tamil and English-Telugu dictionaries as well as a number of books on Indian culture and religion. He died in 1882 in Yercaud in present day Tamil Nadu.