"Allan Octavian Hume was an administrator with a deep insight and understanding of the problems of rural India. He was a friend of Indian Peasantry, the champion of the aspirations of the Indian people for self-government and the foremost advocated of India’s unity and nationhood." 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.
A.O. Hume was probably born at St. Mary Cry, Kent, (some sources point to Montrose, Angus, Scotland as his birthplace), the son of Joseph Hume, the Radical M.R. 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 Brook ward Cemetery. 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).
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