Sir Theodore Cracraft Hope KCSI CIE (9 December 1831 – 4 July 1915) often referred to as T. C. Hope was a British born civil servant of the Government of India, including Public Works, and was an active layman of the Anglican Church.
Born in 1831, Theodore Hope was the only child of Dr. James Hope, F.R.S., a wealthy physician at St George's Hospital, whose research in connection with heart disease was cut short by his death from consumption in middle life. Theodore's mother, Anne was an author. Hope was privately educated for the most part, with spells at Rugby School, 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 became Inspector in Gujarat, India for the newly formed Education Department. With native scholars he prepared a series of Gujarati text-books. Next he served Sir George Clerk, the Governor, as private secretary, and then was given charge of the Ahmedabad district, where he pursued his archeological 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.