Claude Martin

Life & Legacy

Major-General Claude Martin (5 January 1735 – 13 September 1800) was a French army officer who served in the French and later British East India companies in colonial India. Martin rose to the rank of major-general in the British East India Company's Bengal Army. Martin was born in Lyon, France, into a humble background, and was a self-made man who left a substantial lasting legacy in the form of his writings, buildings and the educational institutions he founded posthumously. There are now ten schools named after him, two in Lucknow, two in Calcutta and six in Lyon. The small village of Martin Purwa in India was also named after him.