Allan Octavian Hume

From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project

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 was described by Dr. Salim Ali as the father of Indian Ornithology.

Contents 1 Life and career 2 Theosophy 3 Contribution to ornithology 3.1 Species described 3.2 Stray Feathers 3.3 Hume's network of correspondents 3.4 My Scrap book: or rough notes on Indian Oology and ornithology (1869) 3.5 Game Birds of India, Burmah and Ceylon (1879-1881) 3.6 Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds (1883) 4 South London Botanical Institute 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 External links

Life and career

According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Hume was born at St Mary Cray, Kent^[1], 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.

In 1860 Hume was made Companion of the Bath for his services during the rebellion or Indian rebellion of 1857. 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.

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

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. He was also 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.

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.

Hume left India in 1894 and settled at Upper Norwood in London. His ashes are buried in Brookwood Cemetery.

In 1973, the Indian postal department released a commemorative stamp.^[2]

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.

Contribution to ornithology

From early days, Hume had a special interest in science. Science, he wrote Template:Quotation and of natural history he wrote in 1867 Template:Quotation

During his career in Etawah, he built a personal collection of bird specimens, however it was destroyed during the 1857 mutiny. Subsequently he started afresh 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, which he housed in a museum and library at his home in Rothney Castle on Jakko Hill, Simla. Rothney castle originally belonged to P. Mitchell, C.I.E and after Hume bought it, he tried to convert the house into a veritable palace, which he expected would be bought by the Government as a Viceregal residence in view of the fact that the Governor-General then occupied ‘Peterhoff’, which was too small for Viceregal entertainments. Hume spent over two hundred thousand pounds on the grounds and buildings. He added enormous reception rooms suitable for large dinner parties and balls, as well as a magnificent conservatory and spacious hall with walls displaying his superb collection of Indian horns. He hired a European gardener, and made the grounds and conservatory a perpetual horticultural exhibition, to which he courteously admitted all visitors.

Rothney Castle could only be reached by a troublesome climb, and was never purchased by the British Government and he himself did not use the larger rooms except for one that he converted into a museum for his wonderful collection of birds, and for occasional dances.

He made many expeditions to collect birds both on health leaves and as and where his work took him. He was Collector and Magistrate of Etawah from 1856 to 1867 during which time he studied the birds of that area. He later became Commissioner of Inland Customs which made him responsible for the control of 2500 miles of coast from near Peshawar in the northwest to Cuttack on the Bay of Bengal. He travelled on horseback and camel in areas of Rajasthan and negotiated treaties with various local maharajas to control the export of natural resources such as salt. During these travels he made a number of notes on various bird species

Template:Quotation

His expedition to the Indus area was one of the largest and it started in late November 1871 and continued until the end of February 1872. In March 1873, he visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. In 1875 he visited the Laccadive Islands. And in 1881 he made his last ornithological expedition to Manipur. This was made on special leave following his demotion from the Central Government to a junior position on the Board of Revenue of the North Western Provinces.

He used this vast bird collection to produce a massive publication on all the birds of India. Unfortunately this work was lost in 1885 when all Hume's manuscripts were sold by a servant as waste paper. Hume's interest in ornithology reduced due to this theft as well as a landslip caused by heavy rains in Simla which damaged his personal museum and specimens. He wrote to the British Museum wishing to donate his collection on certain conditions. One of the conditions was that the collection was to be examined by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe and personally packed by him, apart from raising Dr. Sharpe's rank and salary due to the additional burden on his work caused by his collection. 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 by Dr. Sharpe and the Museum authorities let him visit India to supervise the transfer of the specimens to the British Museum.

Sharpe provides the following account of Hume's impressive private ornithological museum:

Template:Quotation

Sharpe also noted Template:Quotation

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

• 2830 Birds of Prey (Accipitriformes)… 8 types
• 1155 Owls (Strigiformes)…9 types
• 2819 Crows, Jays, Orioles etc…5 types
• 4493 Cuckoo-shrikes and Flycatchers… 21 types
• 4670 Thrushes and Warblers…28 types
• 3100 Bulbuls and wrens, Dippers, etc…16 types
• 7304 Timaliine birds…30 types
• 2119 Tits and Shrikes…9 types
• 1789 Sun-birds (Nectarinidae) and White-eyes (Zosteropidae)…8 types
• 3724 Swallows (Hirundiniidae), Wagtails and Pipits (Motacillidae)…8 types
• 2375 Finches (Fringillidae)…8 types
• 3766 Starlings (Sturnidae), Weaver-birds (Ploceidae), and larks (Alaudidae)…22 types
• 807 Ant-thrushes (Pittidae), Broadbills (Eurylaimidae)…4 types
• 1110 Hoopoes (Upupae), Swifts (Cypseli), Nightjars (Caprimulgidae) and Frogmouths (Podargidae)…8 types
• 2277 Picidae, Hornbills (Bucerotes), Bee-eaters (Meropes), Kingfishers (Halcyones), Rollers(Coracidae), Trogons (Trogones)…11 types
• 2339 Woodpeckers (Pici)…3 types
• 2417 Honey-guides (Indicatores), Barbets (Capiformes), and Cuckoos (Coccyges)…8 types
• 813 Parrots (Psittaciformes)…3 types
• 1615 Pigeons (Columbiformes)…5 types
• 2120 Sand-grouse (Pterocletes), Game-birds and Megapodes(Galliformes)…8 types
• 882 Rails (Ralliformes), Cranes (Gruiformes), Bustards (Otides)…6 types
• 1089 Ibises (Ibididae), Herons (Ardeidae), Pelicans and Cormorants (Steganopodes), Grebes (Podicipediformes)…7 types
• 761 Geese and Ducks (Anseriformes)…2 types
• 15965 Eggs

The Hume Collection contained 258 types.

Species described

Some of the species that were first described or discovered by Hume are as follows. The numbers are references to species as given in S. D. Ripley's synopsis^[3] and the old names are retained. Many of these names are no longer valid.

An additional species, the Large-billed Reed-Warbler Acrocephalus orinus known from just one specimen collected by him on his Sind expedition of 1871 is believed, on the basis of recent DNA studies, to be a proper species. However the bird has never been subsequently seen or collected.

Hume made several expeditions solely to study ornithology and in March 1873 he made one to the Andaman, Nicobar and other islands in the Bay of Bengal along with geologists Dr. Ferdinand Stoliczka and Dr. Dougall of the Geological Survey of India and James Wood-Mason of the Indian Museum in Calcutta.

Hume employed William R. Davidson as a curator of his personal bird collection and also sent him out on collection trips to various parts of India, when he was held up with official responsibilities.

Stray Feathers

Hume started the quarterly journal Stray Feathers - A journal of ornithology for India and dependencies in 1872. He used the journal to publish descriptions of his new discoveries, such as Hume's Owl, Hume's Wheatear and Hume's Whitethroat. He wrote extensively on his own observation as well as critical reviews of all the ornithological works of the time and earned himself the nickname of Pope of Indian ornithology.

Hume's network of correspondents

Hume built up a network of ornithologists reporting from various parts of India. A list based on the correspondents mentioned in Stray Feathers and in his Game Birds is as follows. This is probably only a small fraction of the subscribers of Stray Feathers.

Additional authors who published in Stray Feathers

He also corresponded with ornithologists outside India including R. Bowdler-Sharpe, the Marquis of Tweeddale, Pere David, Dresser, Benedykt Dybowski, John Henry Gurney, J.H.Gurney, Jr. ,Johann Friedrich Naumann, Severtzov, Dr. Middendorff.

My Scrap book: or rough notes on Indian Oology and ornithology (1869)

This was Hume's first major work. It had 422 pages and accounts of 81 species. It was dedicated to Edward Blyth and Dr. Thomas C. Jerdon who had done more for Indian Ornithology than all other modern observers put together and he described himself as their their friend and pupil. He hoped that his book would form a nucleus round which future observation may crystallize and that others around the country could help him fill in many of the woeful blanks remaining in record.

Game Birds of India, Burmah and Ceylon (1879-1881)

This work was co-authored by C. H. T. Marshall. The three volume work on the game birds was made using contributions and notes from a network of 200 or more correspondents. Hume delegated the task of getting the plates made to Marshall. The chromolithographs of the birds were drawn by W. Foster, E. Neale, M. Herbert, Stanley Wilson and others and the plates were produced by F. Waller in London. Hume had sent specific notes on colours of soft parts and instructions to the artists. He was unsatisfied with many of the plates and included additional notes on the plates in the book.

In the preface Hume wrote Template:Quotation

while his co-author Marshall, wrote Template:Quotation

Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds (1883)

This was another major work by Hume and in it he covered descriptions of the nests, eggs and the breeding seasons of most Indian bird species. It makes use of notes from contributors to his journals as well as other correspondents and works of the time.

A second edition of this book was made in 1889 which was edited by Eugene Oates. This was published when he had himself given up all interest in ornithology. An event precipitated by the loss of his manuscripts through the actions of a servant. He wrote in the preface: Template:Quote

Eugene Oates wrote his own editorial note Template:Quote

This nearly marked the end of Hume's interest in ornithology. Hume's last piece of ornithological writing was done in 1891 as part of an Introduction to the Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission an official publication on the contributions of Dr. Ferdinand Stoliczka, who died during the return journey on this mission. Stoliczka in a dying request had asked that Hume should edit the volume on the ornithological results.

South London Botanical Institute

Shortly after Hume's return to London he took up an interest in botany, and founded and endowed the South London Botanical Institute which continues to promote the study of plants to the present day. It was intended as a sort of local alternative to Kew. The SLBI has a herbarium containing approximately 100,000 specimens mostly of flowering plants from the British Isles and Europe including many collected by Hume. The collection has been augmented by the addition of other herbaria over the years, and has significant collections of Rubus (bramble) species and of the Shetland flora, the latter including a major gift from the late Richard Palmer, joint author of the standard work on Shetland plants. Other resources include a very good library originally containing Hume's own books. There are classroom facilities, a small botanical garden, and an ongoing programme of talks and courses. In the years leading up to the establishment of the Institute, Hume built up links with many of the leading botanists of his day. He worked with F. H. Davey and in the Flora of Cornwall (1909), Davey thanks Hume as his companion on excursions in Cornwall and Devon, and for helping in the compilation of that Flora, publication of which was financed by him.

See also

• Indian natural history

Notes

1. ↑ Encyclopaedia Britannica [1] give his birthplace as Montrose, Forfarshire
2. ↑ Stamp commemorating Hume - Indian Postal Department
3. ↑ S. Dillon Ripley (1961) A Synopsis of the Birds of India and Pakistan. Bombay Natural History Society.
4. ↑ Warr, F. E. 1996. Manuscripts and Drawings in the ornithology and Rothschild libraries of The Natural History Museum at Tring. BOC.

References

• Bruce, Duncan A. (2000) The Scottish 100: Portraits of History's Most Influential Scots, Carroll & Graf Publishers.
• Buck, E. J. (1904) Simla, Past and Present. Thacker & Spink, Calcutta, 1904. excerpt
• Mearns and Mearns (1988) Biographies for Birdwatchers. Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-487422-3
• Moulton, Edward (2003) 'The Contributions of Allan O. Hume to the Scientific Advancement of Indian Ornithology' in Petronia: Fifty Years of Post-Independence Ornithology in India, ed. J. C. Daniel and G. W. Ugra. Bombay Natural History Society - New Delhi: Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Pages 295-317.
• Moxham, Roy (2002) The Great Hedge of India. ISBN 0-7567-8755-6
• Wedderburn, W. 1913. Allan Octavian Hume. C.B. Father of the Indian National Congress. T.F. Unwin. London.

External links

• Project Gutenberg edition of The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1
• Biographies of ornithologists
• Hume-Blavatsky correspondence
• South London Botanical Institute
• Book review

he:אלן אוקטביאן יוםpl:Allan Octavian Humesv:Allan Octavian Humede:Allan Octavian Hume