Peter Percival

Peter Percival was a British born missionary and educator who opened religious schools in Sri Lanka and South India during the British colonial era.) During his stay in Jaffna, he led the effort to translate the Authorized King James Version of Bible into the Tamil language, working with the Tamil scholar Arumuka Navalar – a Shaiva Hindu. Percival's work influenced Robert Bruce Foote. Percival began his career in British held Sri Lanka and Bengal as a Wesleyan Methodist missionary. He was instrumental in starting and upgrading a number of Christian schools within the Jaffna peninsula. 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.