George Otto Trevelyan. Colour lithograph by L. Ward (Spy), 1873.

'The competition wallah' was the title of a book by Trevelyan. "'The competition wallah', which appeared in book form in 1864 after previous serialization in Macmillan's magazine, consisted of a series of letters from an imaginary young Indian civil servant. "Competition wallah" was the term used to describe an official who had won his post in the competitive examinations which had been introduced by the East India Company in 1853, largely through the efforts of Trevelyan's father. The book was well received in Britain and in India, and nearly seventy years later G. M. Trevelyan was able to claim that "it still remains the most vivid account of the Anglo-Indian world immediately after the Mutiny" ... However, some feathers were ruffled by the comments on the attitudes of British settlers towards the Indian people"--Oxford dictionary of national biography, article on Trevelyan, Sir George Otto