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Hume was born at Montrose, Forfarshire, the son of Joseph Hume, the Radical MP. 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 (The People's Friend). He married Mary Ann Grindall in 1853.
In 1860 Hume was made Companion of the Bath for his services during the Indian Mutiny. In 1867 he became Commissioner of Customs for the North West Province, and in 1870 he became attached to the central government as Director-General of Agriculture. In 1879 he returned to provincial government at AllahabadAllahabad is a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh It is located in the southern part of the state, at 25. 50' E, and stands at the confluence of the Ganga ( Ganges) and Yamuna rivers. The modern settlement was built on or the site of the ancient ho.
He took up the cause of education and founded scholarships for higher education. He wrote in 1859, "a free and civilized government must look for its stability and permanence to the enlightenment of the people and their moral and intellectual capacity to appreciate its blessings." In 1863 he moved for separate schools for Juvenile delinquents rathern than imprisonment. His efforts led to a Juvenile Reformatory not far from EtawahEtawah is a city on the Yamuna River in the Uttar_Pradesh state of India. The district of Etawah lies in the southwestern portion of Uttar_Pradesh (26° 47" N 72° 20" E) and forms a part of the Kanpur Division. External link http://etawah. in Towns and cit. He also started free schools in Etawah and by 1857 he established 181 schools with 5186 students including two girls. He was also against the revenue earned through liquor traffic and described it as "The wages of sin". With his progressive ideas about social reform, he advocated women's Education, was against infanticide and enforced widowhood. Hume laid out in Etawah a neatly gridded commercial district that is now known as Humeganj but pronounced, "Homeganj." The high school that he helped build with his own money is still in operation, now as a junior college, and it has a floor plan resembling the letter H. This, according to some is an indication of Hume's imperial ego, although the form can easily be missed.
Hume proposed to develop fuelwood plantations "in every village in the drier portions of the country" and thereby provide a substitute heating and cooking fuel so that manure could be returned to the land. Such plantations, he wrote, were "a thing that is entirely in accord with the traditions of the country-a thing that the people would understand, appreciate, and, with a little judicious pressure, cooperate in."
He also took note of rural indebtedness, chiefly caused by the use of land as security, a practice the British themselves had introduced. Hume denounced it as another of "the cruel blunders into which our narrow-minded, though wholly benevolent, desire to reproduce England in India has led us." Hume also wanted government-run banks, at least until cooperative banks could be established.
He was very outspoken and never feared to criticise when he thought the Government was in the wrong. In 1861, he objected to the concentration of police and judicial functions in the hands of the police superintendent. He criticized the administration of Lord LyttonEdward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton ( November 8, 1831 November 24, 1891) was an English statesman and poet. The son of the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, he was educated at Harrow School and at the University of Bonn. When eighteen years old, (before 1879) which according to him cared little for the welfare and aspiration of the people of India. Lord Lytton's foreign policy according to him had led to the waste of "millions and millions of Indian money".
In 1879 the Government made their disapproval of his criticism and frankness known and summarily removed him from the Secretariat. The Englishman in an article dated 27 June 1879, commenting on the event stated, "There is no security or safety now for officers in Government employment."
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 LondonLondon is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England, and with over seven million inhabitants in the Greater London area, is the second-most populous conurbation in Europe (after Moscow). From being Londinium the capital of the Roman province of Bri. He is buried in Brookward Cemetery.