William Crooke was a British civil servant, ethnographer, and folklorist who made important contributions to the study of North Indian society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While serving in the Indian Civil Service, he combined administrative work with close observation of local communities, religious practices, and social structures.
He is best known for works such as The North-Western Provinces of India and The Native Races of the British Empire: Northern India, which brought together historical records and first-hand field research to document caste systems, regional cultures, and everyday life in colonial India. Though written within a colonial framework, Crooke’s books remain valuable for the depth of material they preserve on India’s social and cultural history.
