An unmarked memorial stands among the graves of foreigners and British officials on the premises of the CSI Church in Ramanathapuram. Church officials seem to have woken up to the importance of the great man who lies buried here and have refurbished it. Church priest V. Prem says it is the grave of Francis Whyte Ellis (1777-1819), a British civil servant who first translated The Tirukkural. There is a plan to fix a marble plaque bearing his name and other details. The original plaques in Tamil and English are in the government museum at Ramalinga Vilasam, the palace of the Sethupathis. “Many years ago, when I went there, I could not find the plaque. When I searched, I could see it was being used as a step. We recovered the plaques and kept them in the museum,” recalls V. Vedachalam, an archaeologist and former curator of the museum.
The plaque reads: “Sacred to the memory of FRANCIS WHYTE ELLIS ESQRE of the madras civil service whose valuable life was suddenly terminated by a fatal accident at this place on the 9th March 1819 in the 41st year of his age uniting activity of mind with versatility of genius, he displayed the same ardour and happy sufficiency on whatever his varied talents were employed.”
