Allan Octavian Hume (June 6, 1829 - July 31, 1912), was a Scottish civil

servant, political reformer and the founder of the Indian National Congress. He
was described by Dr Salim Ali as 'Father' of Indian Ornithology.

Life and career: A.O. Hume was probably born at St Mary Cray, Kent, (some
sources point to Montrose, Angus, Scotland as his birthplace), the son of
Joseph Hume, the Radical MP. He was educated at Haileybury Training
College and then University College Hospital, studying medicine and surgery.
In 1849 he sailed to India and joined the Bengal Civil Service at Etawah in Uttar
Pradesh. He soon rose to become District Officer, introducing free primary education and creating
a local vernacular newspaper, 'Lokmitra'. He married Mary Ann Grindall in 1853. In 1867 he
became Commissioner of Customs for the North West Province, and in 1870 became attached to
the central government as Director-General of Agriculture. In 1879 he returned to provincial
government at Allahabad.

Hume retired from the civil service in 1882. In 1883 he wrote an open letter to the graduates of
Calcutta University, calling upon them to form their own national political movement. This led in
1885 to the first session of the Indian National Congress held in Bombay. Hume served as its
General Secretary until 1908. Hume left India in 1894 and settled at Upper Norwood in London.
He is buried in Brookward Cemetery.

Contribution to Ornithology

During his career in India he started with a systematic plan to survey and document the birds of
the Indian Subcontinent and in the process he accumulated the largest collection of Asiatic birds
in the world, housed in a museum and library at his home in Rothney Castle on Jakhu Hill, Shimla
(Himachal Pradesh).

Hume used this vast bird collection to produce a publication on all the birds of India. This work
was lost in 1885 when all his manuscripts were sold by a servant as waste paper. A landslip
caused by heavy rains in Shimla damaged his personal museum and specimens. He wrote to the
British Museum wishing to donate his collection on certain conditions, one of them being that the
collection was to be examined by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe, apart from raising Dr. Sharpe's rank and
salary. The British Museum was unable to heed to his conditions. It was only after the destruction
of nearly 20000 specimens, that alarm bells were raised and the Museum authorities let Dr
Sharpe visit India to supervise the transfer of the specimens to the British Museum.

The Hume collection as it went to the British museum in 1874 consisted of 82,000 specimens
(258 types) of which 75,577 were placed in the Museum. A breakup of that collection is as follows
(old names retained):

Allan Octavian Hume (June 6, 1829 - July 31, 1912) son of Joseph Hume was a civil servant in
British governed India, and a political reformer. He was, along with Sir William Wedderburn, a
founder of the Indian National Congress. He has been called the father of Indian Ornithology by
some and, by those who found him dogmatic as the Pope of Indian ornithology.[1]

Life and career

Hume was born at St Mary Cray, Kent[2], the son of Joseph Hume, the Radical MP. He was
educated at Haileybury Training College and then University College Hospital, studying medicine
and surgery. In 1849 he sailed to India and the following year joined the Bengal Civil Service at
Etawah in the North-Western Provinces, in what is now Uttar Pradesh. He soon rose to become
District Officer, introducing free primary education and creating a local vernacular newspaper,
Lokmitra (The People's Friend). He married Mary Anne Grindall in 1853.

He took up the cause of education and founded scholarships for higher education. He wrote in
1859:

1
a free and civilized 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 1860 Hume was made Companion of the Bath for his services during the rebellion or Indian
rebellion of 1857.

The system of departmental examinations introduced soon after (Hume joined the civil services)
enabled Hume so to outdistance his seniors that when the Mutiny broke out he was officiating
Collector of Etawah, which lies between Agra and Cawnpur. Rebel troops were constantly
passing through the district, and for a time it was necessary to abandon headquarters ; but both
before and after the removal of the women and children to Agra, Hume acted with vigour and
judgment. The steadfast loyalty of many native officials and landowners, and the people
generally, was largely due to his influence, and enabled him to raise a local brigade of horse. In a
daring attack on a body of rebels at Jaswantnagar he carried away the wounded joint magistrate,
Mr. Clearmont Daniel, under a heavy fire, and many months later he engaged in a desperate
action against Firoz Shah and his Oudh freebooters at Hurchandpur. Company rule had come to
an end before the ravines of the Jumna and the Chambul in the district had been cleared of
fugitive rebels. Hume richly merited the C.B. (Civil division) awarded him in 1860. He remained in
charge of the district for ten years or so and did good work.

—Obituary The Times of August 1st, 1912

In 1863 he moved for separate schools for Juvenile delinquents rathern than imprisonment. 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. In 1867 he
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.

Hume's appointment, in 1867, to be Commissioner of Customs in Upper India gave him charge of
the huge physical barrier[3]which stretched across the country for 2,500 miles from Attock, on the
Indus, to the confines of the Madras Presidency. He carried out the first negotiations with
Rajputana Chiefs, leading to the abolition of this barrier, and Lord Mayo rewarded him with the
Secretaryship to Government in the Home, and afterwards, from 1871, in the Revenue and
Agricultural Departments. Leaving Simla, he returned to the North-West Provinces in October,
1879, as a member of the Board of Revenue, and retired from the service in 1882.[4]

He was against the revenue earned through liquor traffic and described it as "The wages of sin".
With his progressive ideas about 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. The high school that he
helped build with his own money is still in operation, now as a junior college, and it has a floor
plan resembling the letter H. This, according to some is an indication of Hume's imperial ego,
although the form can easily be missed.

Hume 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 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 also took note of rural indebtedness, chiefly caused by the use of land as security, a practice
the British themselves had introduced. 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.

2
He was very outspoken and never feared to criticise when he thought the Government was in the
wrong. In 1861, he objected to the concentration of police and judicial functions in the hands of
the police superintendent. He criticized the administration of Lord Lytton (before 1879) which
according to him cared little for the welfare and aspiration of the people of India. Lord Lytton's
foreign policy according to him had led to the waste of "millions and millions of Indian money".

In 1879 the Government made their disapproval of his criticism and frankness known and
summarily removed him from the Secretariat. The Englishman in an article dated 27 June 1879,
commenting on the event stated, "There is no security or safety now for officers in Government
employment."

Hume retired from the civil service in 1882. In 1883 he wrote an open letter to the graduates of
Calcutta University, calling upon them to form their own national political movement. This led in
1885 to the first session of the Indian National Congress held in Bombay. Hume served as its
General Secretary until 1908. Along with Sir William Wedderburn (1838-1918) they made it
possible for Indians to organize themselves in preparation of self government.

Mary Anne Grindall died in 1890, and their only daughter was the widow of Mr. Ross Scott who
was sometime Judicial Commissioner of Oudh. Hume left India in 1894 and settled at The Chalet,
4, Kingswood Road, Upper Norwood in London. He died at the age of eighty-three on July 31st,
1912. His ashes are buried in Brookwood Cemetery.

In 1973, the Indian postal department released a commemorative stamp.[5]

[edit] Theosophy

Hume wanted to become a chela (student) of the Tibetan spiritual gurus. During the few years of
his connection with the Theosophical Society Hume wrote three articles on Fragments of Occult
Truth under the pseudonym "H. X." published in The Theosophist. These were written in response
to questions from Mr. Terry, an Australian Theosophist. He also privately printed several
Theosophical pamphlets titled Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. The later numbers of the Fragments,
in answer to the same enquirer, were written by A.P. Sinnett and signed by him, as authorized by
Mahatma K. H., A Lay-Chela.

A long story, about Hume and his wife appears in A.P. Sinnett's book Occult World, and the
synopsis was published in a local paper of India. The story relates how at a dinner party, Madame
Blavatsky asked Mrs Hume if there was anything she wanted. She replied that there was a
brooch, her mother had given her, that had gone out of her possession some time ago. Blavatsky
said she would try to recover it through occult means. After some interlude, later that evening, the
brooch was found in a garden, where the party was directed by Blavatsky.

Madame Blavatsky was a regular visitor at Hume's Rothney castle at Simla and an account of her
visit may be found in Simla, Past and Present by Edward John Buck (who succeeded Mr. Hume
in charge of the Agricultural Department). Later, Hume privately expressed grave doubts on
certain powers attributed to Madame Blavatsky and due to this, soon fell out of favour with the
Theosophists.

Hume lost all interest in theosophy when he got involved with the creation of the Indian National
Congress.