The data reproduced here was accumulated over many years by Lt-Col Hubert Kendall Percy-Smith (1897-1975) and Brigadier Humphry Bullock (d 1959), both Indian Army officers and keen genealogists intent on collecting biographical data on persons who served in British India. They gathered it from a variety of sources including publications about the sub-continent, church records and of course gravestones, and often received such information from others with similar interests. They also endeavoured to compile service histories and even pedigrees based on the material they had collected. This information is included here but researchers should bear in mind that it may sometimes represent no more than their deductions.

After his retirement Percy-Smith was for a time honorary librarian at the Society of Genealogists, and the greater part of the material collected by him and Bullock is deposited there, including a large card index. However, on his death, Percy-Smith bequeathed the papers still in his possession to the National Army Museum which subsequently donated them to BACSA which in turn has donated them to the British Library to be added to the India Office Private Papers in its custody.

In the meantime BACSA agreed to a proposal from the Families in British India Society (FIBIS) to transcribe the data for posting on both our websites. BACSA as the inheritor of Percy-Smith’s papers owns the copyright in his work, and Brigadier Bullock's daughter, Mrs Anne Macdonald, has generously given permission to publish his. BACSA is grateful to FIBIS and its transcriber Robert Charnock, and to Mrs Macdonald, for making it possible to bring this Percy-Smith/Bullock data to a wider public.