John William Kaye

Sir John William Kaye KCSI (1814 – 24 July 1876) was a British military historian, civil servant and army officer. His major works on military history include a three volume work on The History of the Sepoy War in India. This work was revised later by Colonel G. B. Malleson and published in six volumes in 1890 as Kaye and Malleson's History of the Indian Mutiny.

The second son of Charles Kaye, a solicitor, and Eliza, daughter of Hugh Atkins, he was born in London and baptized on 30 June 1814. He was educated at Eton College and at the Royal Military College, Addiscombe. From 1832 to 1841 he was an officer in the Bengal Artillery commissioned on 14 December 1832 as a Bengal artillery cadet, afterwards spending some years in literary pursuits both in India and in Britain. He married Mary Catherine (1813-1893), daughter of Thomas Puckle of Surrey, in 1839. In 1841 he resigned from the army and began to write for newspapers such as the Bengal Harkaru. In 1844 he started the Calcutta Review while also writing a novel based in Afghanistan. In 1856 he entered the civil service of the East India Company, and when in 1858 the government of India was transferred to the British crown, he succeeded John Stuart Mill as secretary of the political and secret department of the India office. In 1871 he was made a KCSI. He died in London at his home at Rose Hill on 24 July 1876.