Born: 1808
Died: 1866
Source: Chaplains in the HEIC 1805 to 1835 (Rev Frank Perry, The Church In Madras 1904)
Biography: GEORGE WILLIAM MAHON was born in 1808, being the only son of William Mahon of Swansea. He matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1824, and was elected a scholar the same year. He graduated B.A. in honours 1828 and was elected to a Fellowship, which he held till 1837, and proceeded M.A. 1831. He was appointed a Chaplain in 1834. Having served at St. Thomas Mount, Bangalore, and Black Town for short periods, he became Garrison Chaplain of Fort St. George in 1839. He retained this position till he was removed from it in 1849 over a case of suicide, so deliberate that there was in his opinion no question of insanity, and therefore no obligation to conduct the solemn burial office of the Church. Vincent Shortland's case at Bangalore was a precisely similar one. In both cases the Chaplains suffered, but their suffering bore fruit; for it was soon afterwards ruled that the insanity of a suicide must be tested by evidence before a properly constituted court of inquiry. Mahon took furlough on his removal from the Fort and went home. He retired from the Service in 1852. After his retirement he lived at Aspley, Woburn, Bedfordshire, where he died in 1866.