Theodore Hope

Sir Theodore Cracraft Hope, KCSI, CIE (9 December 1831 - 4 July 1915) civil servant of the Government of India, including Public Works member of the Government of India, and widely known in England as an active layman of the Anglican Church.

Born in 1831, Theodore Hope was the only child of Dr. James Hope, F.R.S., physician of St. George's Hospital, whose well-known research in connexion with heart disease was cut short by his death from consumption in middle life. Theodore's mother was Mrs. Anne Hope, the author, who later converted to Roman Catholicism. The delicacy of both mother and son compelled their frequent absence abroad, and so the boy was privately educated for the most part, with spells at Rugby, and afterwards at Haileybury, then the East India Company's college. From frequent yachting practice abroad he was able to secure a master's certificate before he was 20; and when he joined the Bombay Civil Service in 1853 he spoke five European languages.

Within two years of landing Hope was Inspector in Gujerah for the newly-formed Education Department. With the help of native scholars he prepared a series of Gujerati text-books, which held the field for close upon a half a century. Next he served Sir George Clerk, the Governor, as private secretary, and then was given charge of the Ahmedabad district, where he pursued his archæological hobbies, and when he came home on long leave in 1865-66 he published three large works of the architectural monuments of Ahmedabad, Bijapur, and Dharwar. Returning to India, he spent eight years as Collector of Surat, and in 1871 he was called to Bombay, to preside over a committee appointed to deal with the unsatisfactory state of municipal finance. For a time he filled the post of the Commissioner there.

But it is for his work in Calcutta and Simla that Sir Theodore will be best remembered. For four or five years he represented his province in the Viceregal Legislature. He served also as secretary in the Revenue Department, and was made addition Secretary for Famine at the close of 1876. In 1880 he was appointed provisional member of the Bombay Government, but did not take up the post, as he was required at headquarters as Secretary of the Finance Department. In 1882 he became Public works Member of the Governor-General's Council and his 5½ years in that position were marked by a railway development which raised the open mileage from 8,000 to 14,000, and also by an advance of 20 per cent in the area of land brought under irrigation. He was made a C.I.E. in 1882, and a K.C.S.I. four years later. He left India in 1888.

Sir Theodore married in 1866, Josephine, only daughter of Mr. J. W. Fulton, of Braidujle House, Co. Down, but there were no children of the marriage. He died Sunday 4 July 1915 and buried at Highgate Cemetery on Thursday 8 July.