Joseph Hume

Joseph Hume FRS (22 January 1777 – 20 February 1855) was a Scottish doctor and Radical MP, born in Montrose, Angus.

He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and moved to India in 1797. There, he was commissioned as a surgeon to an Army regiment, and was able to take up work as an interpreter and commissary-general due to his knowledge of Indian languages.

His knowledge of chemistry helped him provide the administration with a method to recover damp gunpowder in 1802, on the eve of Lord Lake's Maratha war. In 1808, he resigned and returned home with a fortune of about £40,000.

Between 1808 and 1811, he travelled around England and Europe and, in 1812, published a blank verse translation of The Inferno.

In 1812, he purchased a seat in Parliament for Weymouth, Dorset, England, and voted as a Tory. When the parliament was dissolved the patron refused to return his money, and Hume brought an action to recover part of it. Six years later, Hume again entered the House, and made acquaintance with James Mill and the philosophical reformers of the school of Jeremy Bentham. He joined with Francis Place, of Westminster, and other philanthropists, to help improve the condition of the working classes, labouring especially to establish schools for them on the Lancastrian system, and forming savings banks.

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