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{{Short description|Scottish historian and statistician (1840-1900)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2014}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Sir William Wilson Hunter
| image = File:Sir William Wilson Hunter (1840-1900).png
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1840|07|15}}
| birth_place = [[Glasgow]], [[Scotland]], [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|UK]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1900|02|06|1840|07|15}}
| death_place = Oaken Holt, [[England]], UK
| nationality = [[United Kingdom|British]]
| fields = [[History]], [[statistics]]
| workplaces = [[Indian Civil Service]]<br />[[University of Calcutta]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Glasgow]]
| known_for =
| awards =
| signature =
| signature_alt =
| spouse =
}}

'''Sir William Wilson Hunter''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|KCSI|CIE}} (15 July 1840{{snd}}6 February 1900)<ref>{{cite journal|title=Obituary: Sir William Wilson Hunter, K. C. S. I., C. I. E.|journal=[[The Geographical Journal]]|date=March 1900|volume=15|issue=3|pages=289–290|jstor=1774698}}</ref> was a Scottish historian, statistician, a compiler and a member of the [[Indian Civil Service]].

He is most known for ''[[The Imperial Gazetteer of India]]'' on which he started working in 1869, and which was eventually published in nine volumes in 1881, then fourteen, and later as a twenty-six volume set after his death.

==Early life and education==
William Wilson Hunter was born on 15 July 1840 in [[Glasgow]], [[Scotland]], to Andrew Galloway Hunter, a Glasgow manufacturer. He was the second of his father's three sons. In 1854 he started his education at the 'Quaker Seminary' at Queenswood, [[Hampshire]] and a year later he joined the [[Glasgow Academy]].

He was educated at [[Glasgow University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] 1860), [[Paris]] and [[Bonn]], acquiring a knowledge of [[Sanskrit]], [[LL.D.]], before passing first in the final examination for the [[Indian Civil Service]] in 1862.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=945}}

==Career==
He reached [[Bengal Presidency]] in November 1862 and was appointed assistant magistrate and collector of [[Birbhum]], in the lower provinces of [[Bengal]], where he began collecting local traditions and records, which formed the materials for his publication, entitled ''The Annals of Rural Bengal'',{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=945}} which influenced among others the [[historical romance]] ''[[Durgeshnandini]]'' of [[Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay]].<ref name="ChakravortyGupta2004" />

He also compiled ''A Comparative Dictionary of the Non-Aryan Languages of India'', a glossary of dialects based mainly upon the collections of [[Brian Houghton Hodgson]], which according to the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition]], "testifies to the industry of the writer but contains much immature philological speculation".{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=945}}

In 1869 [[Richard Southwell Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo|Lord Mayo]], the then [[Governor-General of India|governor-general]], asked Hunter to submit a scheme for a comprehensive statistical survey of India. The work involved the compilation of a number of local gazetteers, in various stages of progress, and their consolidation in a condensed form upon a single and uniform plan.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=945}} There was unhappiness with the scope and completeness of the earlier surveys conducted by administrators such as [[Francis Buchanan-Hamilton|Buchanan]], and Hunter determined to model his efforts on the ''[[Ain-i-Akbari]]'' and ''[[Description de l'Égypte]]''. Hunter said that "It was my hope to make a memorial of England's work in India, more lasting, because truer and more complete, than these monuments of Mughal Empire and of French ambition."<ref name=Marriott2003p209>{{cite book |title=The other empire: metropolis, India and progress in the colonial imagination |first=John |last=Marriott |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-7190-6018-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z2K0eVWnGmkC |page=209 |access-date=7 December 2011}}</ref>

In response to Mayo's question on 30 May 1871 of whether the Indian Muslims are "bound by their religion to rebel against the Queen" Hunter completed his influential work ''The Indian Musalmans'' in mid-June 1871 and later published it as a book in mid-August of the same year.<ref>{{cite journal|author=v. L. B.|title=De Mohammedanen in Hindostan. —''Our Indian Musalmans: Are they bound in conscience to rebel against the Queen?'' by W. W. Hunter|journal=[[Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde|Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië]]|volume=18|issue=2|pages=121–122|year=1872|jstor=25736656}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Ali|first=M. Mohar|author-link=Muhammad Mohar Ali|title=Hunter's "Indian Musalmans": A Re-Examination of Its Background|journal=The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland|year=1980|volume=112|issue=1|pages=30–51|doi=10.1017/S0035869X00135889|jstor=25211084}}</ref> In it, Hunter concluded that the majority of the Indian Muslim scholars rejected the idea of rebelling against the Government because of their opinion that the condition for religious war, i.e. the absence of protection and liberty between Muslims and infidel rulers, did not exist in British India; and that "there is no ''[[jihad]]'' in a country where protection is afforded".<ref>Bonney, R. (2004) ''Jihad: From Qur'an to Bin Laden'', Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 193-194</ref>

In 1872 Hunter published his history of [[Orissa, India|Orissa]]. The [[International Sanitary Conferences|third International Sanitary Conference]] held at [[Constantinople]] in 1866 declared Hindu and Muslim pilgrimages to be 'the most powerful of all the causes which conduce to the development and propagation of Cholera epidemics'. Hunter echoing the view described the 'squalid pilgrim army of Jagannath' as<ref name="Metcalf1997">{{cite book|author=Thomas R. Metcalf|title=Ideologies of the Raj|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TRcMoGSkRtIC&pg=PA175|date=27 February 1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-58937-6|pages=175}}</ref> {{quote|with its rags and hair and skin freighted with vermin and impregnated with infection, may any year slay thousands of the most talented and beautiful of our age in Vienna, London, or Washington.}}

[[Image:The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908-1931, Book cover.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[The Imperial Gazetteer of India]], William Wilson Hunter's most known work, on which he started working in 1869.]]

He embarked on a series of tours throughout the country,<ref name=Marriott2003p209 /> and he supervised the ''A Statistical Account of Bengal'' (20 volumes, 1875–1877)<ref>{{cite journal|title=A Statistical Account of Bengal by W. W. Hunter|journal=The North American Review|date=September–October 1878|volume=127|issue=264|pages=339–342|jstor=25100678}}</ref> and a similar work for [[Assam]] (2 volumes, 1879).<ref name=ODNB>{{ODNBweb |title=Hunter, Sir William Wilson |id=14237}}</ref>

Hunter wrote that {{quote|Under this system, the materials for the whole of British India have now been collected, in several Provinces the work of compilation has rapidly advanced, and everywhere it is well in hand. During the same period the first Census of India has been taken, and furnished a vast accession to our knowledge of the people. The materials now amassed form a Statistical Survey of a continent with a population exceeding that of all Europe, Russia excepted."<ref name="Dirks2003">{{cite book|author=Nicholas B. Dirks|title=Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G0D1K4Zn_9QC&pg=PA199|year=2003|publisher=Permanent Black|isbn=978-81-7824-072-5|pages=199}}</ref>}}

The statistical accounts, covering the 240 administrative districts, comprised 128 volumes and these were condensed into the nine volumes of ''[[The Imperial Gazetteer of India]]'', which was published in 1881.<ref name=Marriott2003p209 /> The ''Gazetteer'' was revised in later series, the second edition comprising 14 volumes published between 1885 and 1887, while the third comprised 26 volumes, including an atlas, and was published in 1908 under the editorship of [[Herbert Hope Risley]], [[William Stevenson Meyer]], [[Richard Burn (Indologist)|Richard Burn]] and [[James Sutherland Cotton]].<ref name="Scholberg1970">{{cite book|author=Henry Scholberg|author-link=Henry Scholberg|title=The District Gazetteers of British India: A Bibliography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BYsZAAAAMAAJ|year=1970|publisher=Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Company|isbn=9780800212650}}</ref>

Again according to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition, Hunter "adopted a [[transliteration]] of vernacular place-names, by which means the correct pronunciation is ordinarily indicated; but hardly sufficient allowance was made for old spellings consecrated by history and long usage."{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|pp=945–946}} Hunter's own article on India was published in 1880 as ''A Brief History of the Indian Peoples'', and has been widely translated and utilized in Indian schools. A revised form was issued in 1895, under the title of ''The Indian Empire: its People, History and Products''.

Hunter later said that {{quote|Nothing is more costly than ignorance. I believe that, in spite of its many defects, this work will provide a memorable episode in the long battle against ignorance; a breakwater against the tide of prejudice and false opinions flowing down upon us from the past, and the foundation for a truer and wider knowledge of India in time to come. Its aim has been not literary graces, nor scientific discovery, nor antiquarian research; but an earnest endeavour to render India better governed, because better understood.<ref name=Marriott2003p209 />}}

Hunter contributed the articles "Bombay", "Calcutta", "Dacca", "Delhi" and "Mysore" to the 9th edition (1875–89) of the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''.<ref>[http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/contributors.html Important Contributors to the Britannica, 9th and 10th Editions]. 1902encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 20 April 2018.</ref>

In 1882 Hunter, as a member of the governor-general's council, presided over the Commission on Indian Education; in 1886 he was elected vice-chancellor of the [[University of Calcutta]].
In 1887 he retired from the service, was created [[Order of the Star of India|KCSI]], and settled at Oaken Holt, near [[Oxford]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=946}} He was on the governing body of [[Abingdon School]] from 1895 until his death in 1900.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.abingdon.org.uk/uploads/school/files/abingdonian/1900_April_V002_N017.pdf#page=13|title=School Notes|publisher=The Abingdonian}}</ref>

On 13 March 1889 [[Philip Lyttelton Gell]] the then Secretary to the Delegates of the [[Clarendon Press]], wrote to Hunter about {{quote|a project which has been for some time under the consideration of the Delegates, to publish a series giving the salient features of Indian History in the Biographies of successive Generals and Administrators.<ref name="ChakravortyGupta2004" />}}

Gell arranged the publication of the series by June 1889; with Hunter receiving £75 for each volume, and the author £25. Gell's experience of the earlier unsaleable [[Sacred Books of the East]] and financial constraints forced the ''[[Rulers of India series|Rulers of India]]'' to end at 28 volumes in spite of Hunter's disappointment about the same.<ref name="ChakravortyGupta2004">{{cite book|editor1-last=Chakravorty|editor1-first=Swapan|editor1-link=Swapan Kumar Chakravorty|editor2-last=Gupta|editor2-first=Abhijit|last=Chatterjee|first=Rimi B.|author-link=Rimi B. Chatterjee|title=Print Areas: Book History in India|chapter="Every Line for India" : The Oxford University Press and the Rise and Fall of the Rulers of India Series|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lKQPnCIZMnIC&pg=PA65|year=2004|publisher=Orient Blackswan|isbn=978-81-7824-082-4|pages=65–102}}</ref>{{full citation needed|reason=this is a massive page range — need to narrow it down for the various citations|date=April 2015}}
Hunter himself contributed the volumes on [[James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie|Dalhousie]] (1890)<ref>{{cite journal|last=H. P.|title=''The Marquess of Dalhousie'' by William Wilson Hunter|journal=Revue Historique|year=1891|volume=47|issue=2|pages=387–393|jstor=40938228}}</ref> and Mayo (1891)<ref>{{cite journal|last=H. P.|title=''The Earl of Mayo'' by William Wilson Hunter|journal=Revue Historique|year=1892|volume=48|issue=2|pages=387–400|jstor=40939452}}</ref> to the series.<ref name="ChakravortyGupta2004" />

He had previously written an official ''Life of Lord Mayo'', which was published on 19 November 1875 in two volumes with a second edition appearing in 1876.<ref name="Mittal1996">{{cite book|author=Satish Chandra Mittal|author-link=Satish Chandra Mittal|title=India Distorted: A Study of British Historians on India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1_jphIo6hsC&pg=PA199|date=1 January 1996|publisher=M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd.|isbn=978-81-7533-018-4|pages=199}}</ref> He also wrote a weekly article on Indian affairs for ''[[The Times]]''.
But the great task to which he applied himself on his settlement in England was a history upon a large scale of the ''British Dominion in India'', two volumes of which only had appeared when he died, carrying the reader barely down to 1700. He was much hindered by the confused state of his materials, a portion of which he arranged and published in 1894 as ''Bengal Manuscript Records'', in three volumes.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=946}}

Hunter dedicated his 1892 work ''Bombay 1885 to 1890: A Study in Indian Administration'' to [[Florence Nightingale]].<ref name="Nightingale2007">{{cite book|author=Florence Nightingale|title=Florence Nightingale on Social Change in India: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zaajLobsdS0C&pg=PA841|date=6 December 2007|publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University Press|isbn=978-0-88920-495-9|pages=841}}</ref>

His later works include the novel titled ''The Old Missionary'' (1895, described on the title-page as "revised from ''[[The Contemporary Review]]''"),<ref>{{cite news|title=The Old Missionary|url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-october-1895/19/the-old-missionary|access-date=2014-12-23|newspaper=[[The Spectator]]|date=5 October 1895|page=19}}</ref> and ''The Thackerays in India'' (1897). John F. Riddick describes Hunter's ''The Old Missionary'' as one of the "three significant works" produced by [[Anglo-Indian]] writers on Indian missionaries along with ''The Hosts of the Lord'' (1900) by [[Flora Annie Steel]] and ''Idolatry'' (1909) by [[Alice Perrin]].<ref name="Riddick2006">{{cite book|author=John F. Riddick|title=The History of British India: A Chronology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Es6x4u_g19UC&pg=PA179|date=1 January 2006|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-32280-8|pages=179}}</ref>

In the winter of 1898–1899, in consequence of the fatigue incurred in a journey to the Caspian and back, on a visit to the sick-bed of one of his two sons, Hunter was stricken down by a severe attack of [[influenza]], which affected his heart. He died at Oaken Holt on 6 February 1900.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=946}}

[[Satish Chandra Mittal|S. C. Mittal]] believes that Hunter "represented the official mind of the bureaucratic Victorian historians in India", of whom [[James Talboys Wheeler]] and [[Alfred Comyn Lyall]] were other examples.<ref>{{cite book |title=India Distorted: A Study of British Historians on India |volume=2 |first=Satish Chandra |last=Mittal |author-link=Satish Chandra Mittal |publisher=M.D. Publications |year=1996 |isbn=9788175330184 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1_jphIo6hsC |page=170}}</ref>

==Bibliography==

===Works===
* {{cite book |title=A Comparative Dictionary of the Languages of India and High Asia: With a Dissertation. Based on the Hodgson Lists, Official Records, and Mss|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924073426532|year=1868|publisher=Trübner and Company}}
* {{cite book |title=Annals of Rural Bengal |publisher=Smith, Elder & Co |year=1868 |url=https://archive.org/details/annalsofruralben00huntuoft}}
* {{cite book |title=The Indian Musalmans: Are They Bound in Conscience to Rebel Against the Queen?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gHJfAAAAcAAJ|year=1871|publisher=Trübner and Company}}<ref>{{Cite web|title=In the book 'The Indian Musalmans' by William Wilson Hunter, the author has mentioned the Indians Muslims who rebelled against the British empire as 'Wahhabis', so did only Salafis/Ahlul Hadith fight against the British? - Quora|url=https://www.quora.com/In-the-book-The-Indian-Musalmans-by-William-Wilson-Hunter-the-author-has-mentioned-the-Indians-Muslims-who-rebelled-against-the-British-empire-as-Wahhabis-so-did-only-Salafis-Ahlul-Hadith-fight-against-the-British?q=William%20salafis|access-date=2021-03-27|website=www.quora.com}}</ref>
* {{cite book |title=Orissa, Or, The Vicissitudes of an Indian Province Under Native and British Rule|url=https://archive.org/details/orissa00unkngoog|year=1872|publisher=Smith, Elder and Company}}
* {{cite book |title= A Statistical Account of Bengal |url= https://archive.org/details/astatisticalacc01kiscgoog |location=London |publisher=Trübner & Co. |year=1875–1879}} (20 volumes)
* {{cite book |title= A Statistical Account of Assam |year=1879}} (2 volumes)
* {{cite book |title=A Brief history of the Indian peoples |url=https://archive.org/stream/briefhistoryindi00hunt#page/n7/mode/2up |year=1880 |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press}}
* {{cite book |title=The Imperial Gazetteer of India |year=1908–1909 |url=https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/}} (3rd ed. 26 vols; 1st ed. 9 vols, 1881; 2nd ed. 14 vols, 1885–87)
* {{cite book |title= The Indian Empire: Its People, History, and Products London |publisher=Trübner & Co. |year=1886|isbn=9788120615816 |edition=Second|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yUhvfR1S_UEC&q=using+this+route+first+appears+old+history+from+record+seems+road+considered+ancient+gate+pass+jiu+tangshu}}
* {{cite book |title=Bombay, 1885-1890: A Study in Indian Administration|url=https://archive.org/details/bombaytoastudyi00huntgoog|year=1892|publisher=Frowde}}
* {{cite book |title=The Marquess of Dalhousie |year=1894}}
* {{cite book |title= State Education for the People in America, Europe, India, and Australia: With Papers on the Education of Women, Technical Instruction, and Payment by Results. |url= https://archive.org/details/stateeducationfo00syrarich |publisher=C. W. Bardeen |year=1895}}
* {{cite book |title= The Thackerays in India and Some Calcutta Graves |publisher=Henry Frowde |location=London |year=1897|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006574001}}<ref>{{cite journal |title=Review: ''The Thackerays in India and Some Calcutta Graves'' by Sir William Wilson Hunter|journal=The Athenæum|date=23 January 1897|issue= 3613|pages= 111–112|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858029267667;view=1up;seq=77}}</ref>
* {{cite book |title=[[s:Index:History of India Vol 6.djvu|History of India: From the first European settlements to the founding of the English East India Company]]|series=History of India |editor-first=A. V. |editor-last=Williams Jackson |editor-link=A. V. Williams Jackson |volume=6 |year=1906 |publisher=Grolier Society |location=London}}
* {{cite book |title=[[s:Index:History of India Vol 7.djvu|History of India: The European struggle for Indian supremacy in the seventeenth century]]|series=History of India |editor-first=A. V. |editor-last=Williams Jackson |editor-link=A. V. Williams Jackson |volume=7 |year=1907 |publisher=Grolier Society |location=London}}

===Works about Hunter===
* {{cite book|author=Francis Henry Bennett Skrine|author-link=Francis Henry Bennett Skrine|title=Life of Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I.|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924021025527|year=1901|publisher=Longmans, Green}}

==See also==
*[[The Imperial Gazetteer of India]]
*[[Hunterian transliteration]]
*[[Census of India prior to independence]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}
'''Attribution:'''
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Hunter, Sir William Wilson|volume=13|pages=945–946}}

==External links==
{{Sister project links| wikt=no | commons=no | b=no | n=no | q=no | s=Author:William Wilson Hunter | v=no | voy=no | species=no | d=q724677}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=Hunter,+William+Wilson }}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Wilson Hunter |sopt=t}}

{{University of Calcutta Vice chancellors|state=collapsed}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, William Wilson}}
[[Category:1840 births]]
[[Category:1900 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Glasgow]]
[[Category:People educated at the Glasgow Academy]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Glasgow]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire]]
[[Category:Indian Civil Service (British India) officers]]
[[Category:Scottish Indologists]]
[[Category:Historiography of India]]
[[Category:Deaths from influenza]]
[[Category:Scottish statisticians]]
[[Category:Infectious disease deaths in England]]
[[Category:Vice Chancellors of the University of Calcutta]]
[[Category:Scottish historians]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish people]]
[[Category:19th-century historians]]
[[Category:University of Paris alumni]]
[[Category:University of Bonn alumni]]
[[Category:Scottish civil servants]]
[[Category:Scottish knights]]
[[Category:Scottish biographers]]
[[Category:Governors of Abingdon School]]

William Wilson Hunter - Revision history

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>Perseus25: Added italics