INTEODUCTION 



By the kind permission of the Editor, the following obituary 

 notice of Mr. Allan Octavian Hume, C.B., is reproduced, 

 with some slight abbreviations and verbal alterations, from 

 The Times of August 1st, 1912. 



" Born on June 6, 1829, Mr. Hume was one of the six 

 children of Joseph Hume, the reformer, who entered the 

 medical service of the East India Company before the close 

 of the 18th century, and came home in 1808 the possessor 

 of a large fortune. He was at the height of his fame when 

 Allan, early in 1849, passed out of the East India College, 

 Haileybury, into the Indian Civil Service, and was posted 

 to the North-West Provinces. The system of departmental 

 examinations introduced soon after enabled Hume so to out- 

 distance his seniors that when the Mutiny broke out he 

 was officiating Collector of Etawah, which lies between Agra 

 and Cawnpur. Eebel 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 Jaswant- 

 nagar 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 Gudh 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. Humeganj, a hand- 



