Might be of interest to Julian Craig and Arindam Sen.

CHEERS !!! Have heard quite a bit about it in the past and present.

... A ' Griffin ' was the name given by senior, long serving E.I.C. officers and civil servants - the ' old India hands' - to their young and inexperienced subordinates fresh off the boat from England. I am not entirely certain of the origination of the term, or why the word ' Griffin' was used in this context. Would any member of the RBSI happen to know ? I have a copy of ' Tom Raw' in my own library - but it is not an antiquarian edition (which I imagine would be rather expensive to buy) - but a modern reproduction produced by a company that trades under the name ' Nabu Public Domain Reprints' - as far as I can recall the copy was not a costly acquisition, £ 10 perhaps...

@Julian Craig : that is correct

Julian, in the 18th century, writers describe gryphon or griffin as 'modern hieroglyphic, signifying strength and swiftness'. later it was used to designate the blood of a mulatto and the inspecifcity of thought of those who thought like the race with which they were not physically connected.---Indian Renaissance: British Romantic Art And the Prospect of India By Hermione De Almeida, Hermione De Almeida George H. Gilpin.

... Pure Pseuds corner! Arindam: Anybody with a serviceable knowledge of the legends of ancient Greece will be familiar with the term 'Griffin' (or Gryphon) – which refers to a mythological beast with a lion's head and the wings of an eagle, and that was used extensively in European medieval iconography etc & so on... My question was really an attempt to define why the word' Griffin' should have been applied to the novice clerks of the E.I.C. circa 1820 ? I am sure that this had nothing to do with their 'strength or swiftness' (indeed, if one reads 'Tom Raw' quite a different impression is created !) or on account of their ‘ malatto’ blood... I have been doing a little digging – the 1886 edition of ' Hobson-Jobson ' has an entry for 'Griffin', as below : "Griffin, Griff ; Griffish, adj. One newly arrived in India, and unaccustomed to Indian ways and peculiarities; a Johnny Newcome. The origin of the phrase is unknown to us. There was an Admiral Griffin who sailed in Indian waters from 1746 to 1748, and was not very fortunate. Had his name to do with the origin of the term? The word seems to have been first used at Madras." David Gilmour suggests that 'Griffin' was an early corruption of the Welsh surname Griffith and may originally have been "used abroad to designate a raw [ie.naive- J.C] Welshman". Make of that what you will !

thanks for sharing.

Yes Julian it makes sense. The Routledge Dictionary of historical slang defines 'griffish' and 'griffin' as "Of or like a newcomer to India, hence of any greenhorn : Anglo-Indian from ca 1810"/ "as a fashionable phrase in Madras 1794"/ " a naval cadet or subaltern"/ "a grinning booby who has lost a tooth or two 1720"...etc (not relevant to TR)

Arindam ~ If you read the ' First Canto' of ' Tom Raw, the Griffin' (as provided in the link above by the Rare Book Club ) you will note that Sir Charles D'Oyly goes to some length to define what exactly it is that he understood the term ' Griffin' to mean ~ viz : "III ... Of what a Griffin is - or they'll not heed us, In this our great essay; which doubtings lead us (Shielding ourselves from hypercritic claws) To tell the honest truth, which indeed is - The Griffin which our lofty poem draws Is - not chimerical, but - man with all his flaws ! IV Our Griffin is an inexperienced youth, A raw, bewildered boy, who seeks his fortune In Asiatic climes, unfledged in truth .... "

*Nb : If one keeps in mind that during the period in which D'Oyly was writing (1820s), many of the E.I.C's ' Griffins' would have been little more than seventeen or eighteen years of age when they were packed off to the Indian sub-continent - with very little relevant preparation or training and next to no practical ' life experience' - it is no great surprise to discover that they would often find themselves completely out of their depth and entirely open to the sort of close-scrapes and predicaments that our hapless anti-hero ' Tom Raw' finds himself getting into ... Best etc.

Rare Book, Is the name of the book TOM RAW, the Griffin, it will be interesting read...