Early years Childers was born in 1838 in
Cantley, South Yorkshire, the son of Reverend Charles Childers, an English chaplain in
Nice. In 1857, at the age of nineteen, he was admitted to
Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied
Hebrew.
Ceylon From 1860 to 1864, Childers was employed by the
civil service in
Ceylon, first as private secretary to the
governor,
Charles Justin MacCarthy, and then as office assistant to the government agent in
Kandy. During his time in Ceylon, he studied
Sinhala and
Pali with Ven. Yātrāmulle Śrī Dhammārāma Thera at Bentota Vanavāsa Vihāra, and established a firm friendship with Ven. Waskaḍuwe Śrī Subhūti. His time there was brought to an end when ill health forced him to return to England.
Pali dictionary Upon his return to England, Childers continued his study of Pali, influenced by
Reinhold Rost and
Viggo Fausböll. In 1870, he published the text of the
Khuddaka Pāṭha with an English translation and notes in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. This was the first Pali text ever printed in England. The first volume of his Pali dictionary was published in 1872. In the autumn of that year, he was appointed sub-librarian at the
India Office under Reinhold Rost, and early in the following year became the first professor of Pali and Buddhist literature at
University College, London. The second and concluding volume was published in 1875. A few months later, the dictionary was awarded the
Prix Volney for 1876 by the
Institut de France.
Family Childers was married to Anna Mary Henrietta Barton, who came from an Anglo-Irish family with an estate in
Glendalough, County Wicklow. Childers and his wife had five children (two sons and three daughters).
Death Childers died from
tuberculosis on 25 July 1876, at the age of thirty-eight.
Thomas William Rhys Davids states in the
Dictionary of National Biography that Childers died in
Weybridge, but the
Encyclopædia Britannica records his place of death as
London. ==Notable works==