Joseph Hume
Joseph Hume (born January 22, 1777 in Montrose , Scotland , † February 20, 1855 in Burnley Hall near East Somerton , Norfolk , England ) was a British doctor and politician.
life and work
Hume, who came from a humble background (he was the younger son of a ship's captain), completed a medical degree at Edinburgh University and went to India in 1797 , where he initially worked as a regimental doctor. As a result, he made a considerable fortune there and returned to Great Britain in 1808.
In 1812 he bought a seat in the House of Commons (for Weymouth ) and joined the Tories , but had to give up his membership after a dissolution of Parliament because the owner of the seat refused to send him again. Hume filed a lawsuit and got some of his money back.
During a six-year period in which he was not a member of Parliament, he made the acquaintance of the economist James Mill and studied his teachings and those of the philosophical reformers around Jeremy Bentham . Hume joined the efforts of Francis Place and other philanthropists to improve the lot of the working class, particularly through the establishment of Lancaster schools and the creation of savings banks .
In 1815 he married Catherine Elizabeth Burnley , daughter of a director of the British East India Company . The marriage had six children, including Allan Octavian Hume , who was also politically active.
In 1818 he was sent back to the House of Commons for the Scottish Border burghs . He was later elected successively as MPs for Middlesex (1830), Kilkenny (1837) and Montrose (1842), the latter he remained until his death.
From his re-entry, Hume became the self-proclaimed guardian of public funds, who questioned all items of the state budget and brought them to parliament for a vote. In 1820 he succeeded in setting up a committee to examine the cost of tax collection, and in which he was very active. He made a name for himself as a “watchdog”, who gave the respective Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) no peace and relentlessly denounced any waste.
He also successfully combated traditional guild laws that discriminated against simple craftsmen and favored masters, and achieved the abolition of laws that forbade the export of machines and prevented workers from going abroad.
Hume protested incessantly against the corporal punishment with the nine-tailed cat in the British military, the shanghai of seamen and the guilty imprisonment .
Hume died on February 20, 1855 at home in Burnley Hall , East Somerton , Norfolk , England . He was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery , London.
Honors
Hume was accepted as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society in 1818 .
literature
- Hume, Joseph . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 13 : Harmony - Hurstmonceaux . London 1910, p. 884 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
- Joseph Hume . In: The Gazebo . Issue 31, 1853, pp. 334–336 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
- Karl Marx : Hume . In: Neue Oder-Zeitung , No. 98, February 28, 1855; Critical obituary
- Portraits from the English Parliament. Joseph Hume . In: Illustrirte Zeitung . No. 37 . J. J. Weber, Leipzig March 9, 1844, p. 171–172 ( books.google.de ).
Web links
- Biography at the Liberal Democrat History Group (English)
- Biography and family tree ( Memento from April 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- Entry to Hume; Joseph (1777–1855) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hume, Joseph |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British doctor and politician, Member of the House of Commons |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 22, 1777 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Montrose , Scotland |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 20, 1855 |
| Place of death | Burnley Hall at East Somerton , Norfolk , England |