Allan Octavian Hume (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British political reformer, ornithologist, civil servant and botanist who worked in British India and was the founding spirit and key founder of the Indian National Congress. He was a proponent of Indian self-rule and strongly supported the idea of Indian independence. He supported the idea of self-governance by Indians. A notable ornithologist, Hume has been called "the Father of Indian Ornithology" and, by those who found him dogmatic, "the Pope of Indian Ornithology".
As the collector of Etawah, he saw the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as a result of misgovernance and made great efforts to improve the lives of the common people. The district of Etawah was among the first to be returned to normality and over the next few years Hume's reforms led to the district being considered a model of development. Hume rose in the ranks of the Indian Civil Service but like his father Joseph Hume, a Radical member of parliament, he was bold and outspoken in questioning British policies in India. He rose in 1871 to the position of secretary to the Department of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce under Lord Mayo who was assassinated a year later. He did not get along as well with subsequent viceroys, and his criticism of Lord Lytton's policies led to his removal from the Secretariat in 1879.
He founded the journal Stray Feathers in which he and his subscribers recorded notes on birds from across India. He built up a vast collection of bird specimens at his home in Shimla by making collection expeditions and obtaining specimens through his network of correspondents.
Following the loss of manuscripts that he had long worked on in the hope of producing a magnum opus on the birds of India, he abandoned ornithology and gifted his collection to the Natural History Museum in London, where it continues to be the single largest collection of Indian bird skins. He was briefly a follower of the theosophical movement founded by Madame Blavatsky. He worked for Indian self-governance through the Indian National Congress that he founded. He left India in 1894 to live in London from where he continued to take an interest in the Indian National Congress. He maintained an interest in English botany and founded the South London Botanical Institute towards the end of his life.
Early life Hume was born in Westminster, London and baptised at St Mary's, Bryanston Square,Moulton (2004); Encyclopædia Britannica confused this with St.Mary Kent, while some older sources give his birthplace as Montrose, Forfarshire. The baptism register at St. Mary's, Bryanston Square records the date of registration as 15 July and date of birth as 4 June. See :File:Baptism_register_for_A_O_Hume.png for the relevant entry. a younger son (and the eighth of nine children) of Joseph Hume, the Radical Scottish member of parliament, by his marriage to Maria Burnley. Until the age of eleven he was privately tutored growing up at the town house at 6 Bryanston Square in London and at their country estate, Burnley Hall in Norfolk. He was educated at University College Hospital, where he studied medicine and surgery and was then nominated to the Indian Civil Services which led him to study at the East India Company College, Haileybury. Early influences included his friend John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. He briefly served as a junior midshipman aboard a navy vessel in the Mediterranean in 1842.
Civil service North-Western Provinces - Etawah (1849–1867) Hume sailed to India in 1849 and on reaching Calcutta, he stayed with his cousin James Hume, The following year, he joined the Bengal Civil Service at Etawah in the North-Western Provinces, in what is now Uttar Pradesh. His career in India included service as a district officer from 1849 to 1867, head of a central department from 1867 to 1870, and secretary to the Government from 1870 to 1879.Wedderburn (1913):3. He married Mary Anne (26 May 1824, Meerut – 30 March 1890, Simla), daughter of Rivers Francis Grindall (1786–1832) in 1853. He had a home, possibly used in summer, in Mussoorie in 1853. In 1853 he clashed with his higher up, magistrate Mark B. Thornhill of Dehra Dun, who had failed to cooperate on a case that Hume was dealing with in Mussoorie. Hume in turn refused to hand over papers relating to civil cases that he was dealing with in Mussoorie. Hume accused Thornhill of abuse of authority and Thornhill sent an armed contingent to forcibly take away the papers from Hume. The altercations resulted in his transfer to Aligarh. The court in Agra examined the case between Hume and Thornhill and concluded that Hume was indeed correct in his interpretation of the law but that he was showing an "undue spirit of opposition."Mehrotra & Moulton (2004):xxiv. This Aligarh posting was short and he was then promoted as joint magistrate and deputy collector of Mainpuri district in June 1854. By May 1855 he was promoted to collector at Bulandshahr and then to officiating magistrate at Etawah in February 1856.Mehrotra & Moulton (2004):xxvi.
It was only nine years after his entry to India that Hume faced the Indian Rebellion of 1857 during which time he was involved in several military actions for which he was created a Companion of the Bath in 1860. Initially it appeared that he was safe in Etawah, not far from Meerut where the rebellion began but this changed and Hume had to take refuge in Agra fort for six months.Wedderburn (1913):11–12. Nonetheless, all but one Indian official remained loyal and Hume resumed his position in Etawah in January 1858. He built up an irregular force of 650 loyal Indian troops and took part in engagements with them. Hume blamed British ineptitude for the uprising and pursued a policy of "mercy and forbearance" when dealing with the captured rebels. Only seven persons were executed at the gallows on his orders. The district of Etawah was restored to peace and order in a year, something that was not possible in most other parts.Wedderburn (1913):19.
Shortly after 1857, he set about in a range of reforms. As a District Officer in the Indian Civil Service, he began introducing free primary education and held public meetings for their support. He made changes in the functioning of the police department and the separation of the judicial role. Noting that there was very little reading material with educational content, he started, along with Koour Lutchman Singh, a Hindi language periodical, Lokmitra (The People's Friend) in 1859. Originally meant only for Etawah, its fame spread.Wedderburn (1913):21. Hume also organised and managed an Urdu journal Muhib-i-riaya.Memorandum by M. Kempson, Director of Public Instruction, NWP, dated 19-April-1870. Home Department Proceedings April 1877. National Archives of India.
He took up the cause of education and founded scholarships for higher education. He wrote, in 1859, that education played a key role in avoiding revolts like the one in 1857:
... assert its supremacy as it may at the bayonet's point, a free and civilised government must look for its stability and permanence to the enlightenment of the people and their moral and intellectual capacity to appreciate its blessings.
In 1863 he moved for separate schools for juvenile delinquents rather than flogging and imprisonment which he saw as producing hardened criminals. His efforts led to a juvenile reformatory not far from Etawah. He also started free schools in Etawah and by 1857 he established 181 schools with 5186 students including two girls.Wedderburn (1913):16. The high school that he helped build with his own money is still in operation, now as a junior college, and it was said to have a floor plan resembling the letter "H". This, according to some was an indication of Hume's imperial ego. Hume found the idea of earning revenue earned through liquor traffic repulsive and described it as "The wages of sin". With his progressive ideas on social reform, he advocated women's education, was against infanticide and enforced widowhood. Hume laid out in Etawah, a neatly gridded commercial district that is now known as Humeganj but often pronounced Homeganj.
Commissioner of Customs (1867–1870) In 1867 Hume became Commissioner of Customs for the North West Province, and in 1870 he became attached to the central government as Director-General of Agriculture. In 1879 he returned to provincial government at Allahabad. His work on reducing the burden involved in the maintenance of the customs department controlling the movement of salt, which included the 2500 mile-long Inland Customs Line, the so-called great hedge,Footnote in Lydekker, 1913: This was a thorn-hedge supplemented by walls and ditches, and strongly patrolled for preventing the introduction into British territory of untaxed salt from native states (see Sir John Strachey's "India," London, 1888). led to his promotion by Lord Mayo who rewarded him with Secretaryship and was moved in 1871 to the Department of Revenue and Agriculture.
Secretary to the Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce (1871–1879) Hume was very interested in the development of agriculture. He believed that there was too much focus on obtaining revenue and no effort had been spent on improving the efficiency of agriculture. He found an ally in Lord Mayo who supported the idea of developing a complete department of agriculture. Hume noted in his Agricultural reform in India that Lord Mayo had been the only Viceroy who had any experience of working in the fields.
Hume made a number of suggestions for the improvement of agriculture placing carefully gathered evidence for his ideas. He noted the poor yields of wheat, comparing them with estimates from the records of Emperor Akbar and yields of farms in Norfolk. Lord Mayo supported his ideas but was unable to establish a dedicated agricultural bureau as the scheme did not find support from the Secretary of State for India, but they negotiated the setting up of a Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce despite Hume's insistence that Agriculture be the first and foremost aim. The department had charge on land revenue, settlements, advances for works in agricultural improvement, horticulture, livestock breeding, silk, fiber, forests, commerce and trade, salt, opium, excise, stamps, and industrial art. It also collected data and was in charge of censuses, the gazetteers, surveys, geology, and meteorology. Hume was made Secretary of this department in July 1871 leading to his move to Shimla.
With the murder of Lord Mayo in the Andamans in 1872, Hume lost patronage and support for his work. He however went about reforming the department of agriculture, streamlining the collection of meteorological data (the meteorological department was set up by order number 56 on 27 September 1875 signed by Hume) and statistics on cultivation and yield.
Hume proposed the idea of having experimental farms to demonstrate best practices to be set up in every district. He proposed to develop fuelwood plantations "in every village in the drier portions of the country" and thereby provide a substitute heating and cooking fuel so that manure (dried cattle dung was used as fuel by the poor) could be returned to the land. Such plantations, he wrote, were "a thing that is entirely in accord with the traditions of the country – a thing that the people would understand, appreciate, and, with a little judicious pressure, cooperate in." He wanted model farms to be established in every district. He noted that rural indebtedness was caused mainly by the use of land as security, a practice that had been introduced by the British. Hume denounced it as another of "the cruel blunders into which our narrow-minded, though wholly benevolent, desire to reproduce England in India has led us." Hume also wanted government-run banks, at least until cooperative banks could be established.