Selected Writings of Allan Octavian Hume: District Administration in North India, Rebellion and Reform, Volume One: 1829-1867 by Allan Octavian Hume

by Allan Octavian Hume

This is the first volume of the selected writings of Allan Octavian Hume, the founder of the Indian National Congress. It focuses on Hume's years in district administration in what was then the North Western Provinces. What lends special interest to this early phase of his life was that some eleven years of it were spent continuously in one district, Etawah. From these documents Hume emerges as a committed reformer in the British liberal utilitarian mode, but one who was very sensitive to local Indian opinion.

Unknown Binding

First published January 27, 2005

About the author

Allan Octavian Hume CB was a civil servant, political reformer and amateur ornithologist and horticulturalist in British India. He was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, a political party that was later to lead the Indian independence movement. A notable ornithologist, Hume has been called "the Father of Indian Ornithology" and, by those who found him dogmatic, "the Pope of Indian ornithology."

A number of animals and birds are named after Hume. These include
:
Hume's Leaf-warbler Phylloscopus humei
Sikkim Wedge-billed Babbler "Sphenocichla humei"
Manipur Bush Rat, Hadromys humei (Thomas, 1886)
Hume's Argali, Ovis ammon humei Lydekker 1913 (now treated as Ovis ammon karelini, Severtzov, 1873)