Person · Indian National Congress founder · India
Allan Octavian Hume
Also known as Allan Octavian Hume, A.O. Hume, AO Hume, Hume of Rothney
Scottish retired Indian Civil Service officer (1829-1912) who after thirty years in the Bengal and North-Western Provinces administration — including as magistrate of Etawah during the 1857 revolt and later Secretary to the Government of India — called for a national Indian political organisation in his open 1883 letter to graduates of Calcutta University, and convened the first Indian National Congress session at Bombay on 28 December 1885 with 72 delegates. Hume served as the Congress's General Secretary from 1885 to 1908, drafted its early constitutions, and was its principal institutional architect through its first two decades. He was also a serious ornithologist whose fifty thousand bird skins went to the British Museum.
- Date
- 1829–1912
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Tradition
- Standard reference and biographical literature; INC proceedings and contemporary memoirs.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
Hume's post-service residence Rothney Castle at Simla was both the Congress's effective headquarters through the 1880s and 1890s and the base of his ornithological work. His 1883 open letter proposed a Congress-like body on explicit anti-sedition grounds: that an organised legal political movement would prevent an unorganised violent one. The 1885 Bombay session elected Umesh Chandra Bonnerjee as its first president. Hume returned to England in 1894 and continued directing Congress affairs by correspondence.
About the place
Placed between Simla (Rothney Castle) and the English counties where he retired.
Connections (1)
- FoundedIndian National Congress (founding era)
Allan Octavian Hume convened the first Indian National Congress session at Bombay on 28 December 1885 with 72 delegates, after his open 1883 letter to Calcutta University graduates had called for a national Indian political organisation. He served as the Congress's General Secretary from 1885 to 1908, drafted its early constitutions, and was its principal institutional architect through its first two decades. His house Rothney Castle at Simla was the Congress's effective headquarters through the 1880s and 1890s.