Azimullah Khan (17 September 1830 — 18 March 1859), also known as Dewan Azimullah Khan, was initially appointed Secretary, and later Prime Minister (hence the prefix Dewan) to Shrimant Nana Saheb Peshwa II. He is also known as the Krantidoot Azimullah Khan (Krantidoot in Hindi for "Ambassador of Revolution"). Azimullah Khan was involved in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, primarily ideologically, influencing important nobles such as Shrimant Nana Saheb Peshwa II. Origins Azimullah was rescued as a starving Muslim boy from the famine of 1837-38 along with his mother when they were provided shelter at a mission in Kanpur. There he learnt English but also French, no mean achievement for an Indian in the 19th century. After working as secretary to several British officers, he was taken into the service of the Shrimant Nana Saheb Peshwa II, adopted son of the late Peshwa Baji Rao II (died 28 January 1851), as secretary and advisor. The Maratha mission Nana Sahib was involved in an extended appeal to the British East India Company to pass on to him the £80,000 annual pension that his adoptive father (exiled to the Kingdom of Oudh) had been granted. While Nana Sahib had inherited Peshwa Baji Rao's property and title, the pension paid by the Company had terminated on the latter's death. Nana Sahib chose Azimullah to lead a delegation to England in 1853 to plead his case with the Board of Control and the British Government. England In England, Azimullah was taken under the wing of Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon; an intellectual and translator whose husband was a civil servant, court functionary and the cousin of the then Prime Minister. This introduction probably came about through the philosopher John Stuart Mill, who was an official of the East India Company and had been a childhood friend of Lucie's. Azimullah lodged with the Duff Gordons at their home in Esher, and in Lucie's company may have met her friends Dickens, Carlyle, Meredith, Tennyson, Browning and Thackeray (though there is no direct evidence). The mission to obtain resumption of the pension for Nana Sahib was unsuccessful and reportedly embittered Azimullah Khan. Constantinople On his way back, Azimullah's party stopped in Constantinople, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. There he met with the Times correspondent William Howard Russell, who noted the young Muslim official's interest in the losses and setbacks suffered by the British Army. Azimullah is