Sir John Hewett was an administrator in India, with a passion for big game hunting. He wrote this chatty memoir in 1938 when he returned to England. The book offers a detailed account of his adventures in the jungles of Tarai, Gooch Behar, the Central Provinces, and up north in Kumaon and Garhwal. In reading of his descriptions of his travels, we learn a lot about John, as he was known among friends. He travelled a great deal with his younger daughter Lorna, who was an intrepid hunter in her own right and even returned with him to India in 1926-27. The last chapter in this book is about Lorna’s unchaperoned trek, to Leh in 1921. The book provides interesting vignettes of the social structures and cultural traditions of the days of the Raj. The photographs of the people the author knew, the maharajas and his colleagues and the author’s staff lend colour to the readers’ visual vocabulary of a bygone era.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sir John Hewett
Sir John Prescoti Heweti (1854-1941), an administrator in India, was born at Barham, Kenl, on 25 August, 1854. He was educated at Winchester College and at Balhol College, Oxford, where he passed the Indian Civil examination in 1875. in 1877, he was posted to the North-Western Provinces and for four years served as an assistant magistrate and collector in Agra, Bulanshahr and Mathura. He was an ambitious man and after his posting to Tarai in 1881, he rose rapidly through the ranks. On the side, he engaged in a passionate pursuit of tigers, often waking at 4 a.m. to clear his official work before selling off on big-game shools. Lord Curzon was deeply impressed by his administrative ability and efficiency and promoted Herbal to look into commerce and industry. His political conservatism made him question Morley’s reforms which he opposed vehemently. In 1911, he was relieved from his gubernatorial duties to arrange the coronation durbar of George V and Queen Mary at Delhi. His creation of a tent housing of 200,000 people, spread over 25 square miles, was an organizational marvel. In 1912, he retired and returned to Britain. Throughout the First World War, he kept a keen eye on the proposals for political reforms in India. Lord Montagu and Lord Chelmsford were wary of his stance. He had a brief parliamentary career himself, and with age, gradually mellowed down. A solid, heavy-jowled man, Hewett looked the very essence of a colonial administrator. He died on 27 September, 1941, at his home, The Court House at Chipping Warden, near Bombury, in England.
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