Allan Octavian Hume

Allan Octavian Hume (June 6th 1829 - July 31st 1912) is a colonial administrator and a British ornithologist. He is the son of Joseph Hume. He was, in company of Sir William Wedderburn, one of the founders of the Indian National congress. He was described by Dr. Sálim Ali like the father of Indian ornithology , and described like the Pope of Indian ornithology by those which found it too dogmatic.

Biography

Hume was born with St Mary CRAY, with the Kent, the son of Joseph Hume, a radical member of the Parliament. He is educated with the Haileybury Training College , then with the University College Hospital , studying there the Médecine and the Chirurgie. In 1849 he travels to India and joined the following year the administration of the provinces of the North-West, with Etawah in what today is the Uttar Pradesh. He quickly becomes a district officer , introducing free primary education and creating a vernacular local newspaper, Lokmitra ( The friend of the people ). He marries Mary Anne Grindall in 1853.

During the Révolte of Cipayes of 1857 it takes refuge with the Fort of Agra six months. Only an Indian officer remains faithful, and Hume takes again its official position in January 1858. It creates a force of 650 Indian troops and takes part in the battles with them. He blames the British ineptitude for the rebellion and maintains a policy of leniency and tolerance .

He devotes himself to the cause of education and founds purses for higher education. He writes into 1859 that a free and civilized government must seek its stability and its permanence in the instruction of the people and their capacities morals and intellectual to appreciate its advantages.

In 1860 Hume is named member of the Ordre of the Bath for his actions during the revolt of Cipayes.

In 1863 he proposes to send the young delinquents to schools especially for them in the place to send them in Prison. Its efforts lead to the creation of a Reformatory for young people close to Etawah. It founds free schools with Etawah; in 1857 it had already created 181 schools, including/understanding: 5186 students, including two girls.

In 1867 he becomes Commissaire of the customs of the province of the North-West, and in 1871 is attached to the central government as managing director of Agriculture. In 1879 it turns over to the provincial government, this time at Allahabad. Hume makes destroy the barrier; Lord Mayo rewards it with a high station, and later, since 1871, a station at the Departments of incomes and agriculture. Leaving Simla, Hume turns over to the provinces of the North-West in October 1879 and withdraws service in 1882.

It is against the income generated by the trade of alcoholic drinks, calling it wages of the sin . With its progressive ideas on the social reform, it was for education of the women and against the Infanticide and forced widowhood.

Hume makes build in Etawah a commercial district, Humeganj or Homeganj with the streets with right angles. The college of which it had financed construction still exists, but today it is a junior college . The building even is in form of H, that some say due to the ego of Hume, but the form is seen only in air sight.

Hume proposes to make plant trees in all the villages of the driest areas of the country with an aim of providing them out of firewood, replacing the manure so that this one can be used in the agricultural fields. Plantations of trees, he says, are a thing entirely in agreement with the traditions of this country - something that the people will include/understand, will appreciate, and with a little pressure judiciously applied, will coopéréra.

He notes the rural debt, caused especially by the use of the grounds like safety, a use which the British themselves had introduced. Hume denounces it like another of burs that our desire limited but entirely voluntary to reproduce England in India carried out us to make. Hume wanted also banks operated by the government, at least like measures temporary until the creation of co-operative banks

Hume withdraws public office in 1882. The following year he writes an open letter with the bachelors of the Université of Calcutta, inviting them to form their own national political movement. This leads to the first session of the Indian National congress in 1885, held with Bombay. Hume holds the role of general secretary until 1908. With sir William Wedderburn, the weather is possible the organization of the Indians so that they prepare for their autonomous indigenous government.

His wife, Mary Anne, die in 1890. Their only daughter is the widow of Ross Scott, police chief of justice of Oudh.

Hume leaves India in 1894 and settles with Upper Norwood ( The Chalet , 4 Kingswood Road), with London. He dies at the 83 years age on July 31st, 1912. Its ashes are buried with the cemetery of Brookwood.

In 1973 the Indian postal service publishes a stamp in its honor.

Theosophy

Hume did not like much the Christianisme and its institutions, but believed in the immortality of the heart and the idea of ultimate supreme under the pseudonym H.X. for the magazine The Theosophist . It was as an answer to certain Mr. Terry, a theosophist Australia N. It publishes also several lampoons theosophic called Hints one Esoteric Theosophy . Last numbers of Fragments , in answer to the same person, were written by A.P. Sinnett and were signed by this last, authorized by Mahatma K.H., chela laic .

A long story on Hume and his wife appears in the book of Sinnett, Occult World , the synopsis whose was published in an Indian local newspaper. Once, with the dinner, Helena Blavatsky request with Mrs. Hume if there were something which she wished. She answers him a pin which his/her mother had given him, that she had lost some time ago. Blavatsky says to him that it would try to find it by occult means. Later this evening it pin is found in a garden by Blavatsky, which brings all the group to him.

Blavatsky visited the castle of Rothney regularly, property of Hume, in Simla, and an account of its visit can be read in Simla, Present Past and of Edward John Buck (which succeeds Hume with the head of the department of agriculture). Later, Hume expresses its doubts about certain capacities allotted to Blavatsky and is of this fact far away from the theosophists.

Hume is not intrigued by the theosophy once occupied any more with the creation of the Indian National congress.

Ornithology

As of an young age, Hume is interested in science and the natural history. One retains there the old names, of which some which are not valid any more. The statute of the species was disputed a long time; comparisons between sound DNA and that several other similar species were carried out in 2002 and indicated a valid distinct species. It is not that in 2006 qu ' one revives the species, in Thailand.

Hume made several only ornithological forwardings. In March 1873 it did one, visiting the Andaman islands, Nicobar and others in bay of Bengal, accompanies by them by the geologists Stoliczka and Dougall of the Geographical Survey off India like James Wood-Mason of the Indian Museum with Calcutta

• Captain and then Colonel E.A. Butler, Belgaum (1880), Karachi, Deesa, Abu
• Mr. James Davidson, Satara and Sholapur districts, Khandeish, Kondabhari Ghat
• Colonel Godwin-Austen, Shillong, Umian valley, Assam
• Mr. Brian Hodgson, Nepal
• Duncan Charles Home, “Hero off the Kashmir Spoils” (Bulandshahr, Aligarh)
• Dr. T.C. Jerdon, Tellicherry
• Colonel C.H.T. Marshall, Bhawulpoor, Murree
• Colonel G.F.L. Marshall, Nainital, Bhim tal
• Mr. James A. Murray, Karachi Museum
• Mr. Eugene Oates, Thayetmo, Tounghoo, Pegu
• Captain Robert George Wardlaw Ramsay, Afghanistan, Karenee hills
• Mr. G.P. Sanderson (Chittagong)
• Dr. Ferdinand Stoliczka
• Mr. Robert Swinhoe, Hongkong
• Mr. Charles Swinhoe, S. Afghanistan
• Colonel Samuel Tickell
• Colonel Tytler, Dacca, 1852
• Mr. Valentine Ball, Rajmahal hills, Subanrika (Subansiri)
• Richard Lydekker