Gottlieb Leitner

Other names: 

Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner

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Date of birth: 
15 Sep 1840
City of birth: 
Pest
Country of birth: 
Hungary
Date of death: 
22 Mar 1899
Location of death: 
Bonn, Germany
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About: 

G. W. Leitner was a Jewish educationist. He moved to London in about 1858 having studied Islam in Constantinopole. He studied divinity at King's College London and then taught Arabic, Turkish and modern Greek. In 1864 Leitner was appointed principal of the Government College at Lahore, and spent the next fifteen years in India. He helped to raise money to transform the Government College into the Oriental University of the Punjab. He founded a number of schools, societies, established journals in India and wrote a number of travelogues.

In 1881, Leitner returned to England. In 1883 he established the Oriental Institute in Woking. This teaching institute also contained an Oriental Museum and a notable art collection. In 1896 Leitner began to edit the Asiatic Review from the Institute. In 1889, the Shah Jahan Mosque was established in the Institute, with a bequest from Shah Jahan, the begum of Bhopal.

Organizations: 
East India Association
The Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking
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Published works: 

History of Indigenous Education in the Panjab since Annexation and in 1882 (Patiala: Languages Dept., Panjab, 1871)

Introduction to a Philosophical Grammar of Arabic (Lahore: Indian Public Opinion, 1871)

Sinin-i-Islam: Being a Sketch of the History and Literature of Muhammadanism, and their Place in Universal History (Lahore: Indian Public Opinion, 1871-6)

The Theory and Practice of Education, with Special Reference to Education in India (Lahore: s.n., 1871)

Native Self-Government in Matters of Education (London: East India Association, 1875)

A Detailed Analysis of Abdul Ghafur's Dictionary of the Terms used by Criminal Tribes in the Panjab (Lahore: Punjab Govt. Civil Secretariat Press, 1880)

Kafiristan: the Bashgeli Kafirs and their Language (Lahore: Dilbagroy, 1880)

Indigenous Elements of Self-Government in India, with Special Reference to the Panjab and more particularly in Matters of Education (London: East India Association, 1884)

On the Sciences of Language and of Ethnography with Special Reference to the Language and Customs of the People of Hunza (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1890)

Dardistan in 1886, 1889, and 1893 (Woking: Oriental University Institute, 1893)

The Hunza and Nagyr Handbook: Being an Introduction to a Knowledge of the Language, Race, and Countries of Hunza, Nagyr, and a part of Yasin (Woking: Oriental University Institute, 1893)

Dardistan in 1895 (Woking: Oriental University Institute, 1895)

Secondary works: 

Rubinstein, W. D., ‘Leitner , Gottlieb Wilhelm (1840–1899)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2009) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51109]

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Archive source: 

Correspondence with Lord Kimberley, Bodleian Library, Oxford