Sir Herbert William Emerson, (1 June 1881 — 13 April 1962), commonly known as H. W. Emerson, was a civil servant in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

and served as Governor of the Punjab in the 1930s.

Early life

He was born on 1 June 1881 in

West Kirby West Kirby is a resort town on the north-west corner of the Wirral Peninsula in Merseyside, England, at the mouth of the River Dee, Wales, River Dee. Within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Cheshire, to th ...

, England to Stephen S. Emerson and Emelia Susan Emerson. He was educated at Calday Grange School and

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

.Journal Officiel: Supplément special / Société des nations. Switzerland, Harrison & Sons, 1939.

Career

Early career

He was appointed to the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...

in 1904 and served as an Assistant Commissioner in the

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

. Between 1911 and 1914 he served as Manager of the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

Bushahr Bushahr, also spelt as 'Bashahr' and 'Bussahir' or 'Bushair' was a Rajput princely state in India during the British Raj. It was located in the hilly western Himalaya promontory bordering Tibet in the northern part of colonial Punjab region. T ...

. In 1916 he became Superintendent and Settlement Officer of

Mandi State Mandi State was a native state of British India, within the Punjab; with Mandi, Himachal Pradesh as its capital. The state of Mandi (the name means "market" in Hindi), which included two towns and 3,625 villages, was part of the States of the ...

. The following year he was made an Assistant Commissioner and Settlement Officer in the Punjab, and in 1922 became Deputy Commissioner.

Home Secretary

From 1930 to 11 April 1933, he served as the Home Secretary of the government of

succeeding

Harry Graham Haig Sir Harry Graham Haig KCSI CIE JP ICS (13 April 1881 – 14 June 1956) Sean Scalmer''Gandhi in the West: The Mahatma and the Rise of Radical Protest'' Cambridge University Press 2011. (p. 84) was a British administrator in India. Haig wa ...

. In the role, Emerson had talks with

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

over release of political prisoners after the

civil disobedience movement The Salt March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, Dandi March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Mahatma Gandhi. The twenty-four day march lasted from 12 March to 6 April 1930 as a di ...

. He and the Viceroy, Lord Irwin agreed for negotiation and resulted in

Gandhi–Irwin Pact The Gandhi–Irwin Pact was a political agreement signed by Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, on 5 March 1931 before the Second Round Table Conference in London. Before this, Irwin, the Viceroy, had announced in October 1929 a va ...

which conditioned the release but only of those who have not been accused of violent oppression. Due to this, three revolutionaries

Bhagat Singh Bhagat Singh (27 September 1907 – 23 March 1931) was a charismatic Indian revolutionary* * who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer * * in what was to be retaliation for the death of an Indian nationa ...

Sukhdev Sukhdev Thapar (15 May 1907 – 23 March 1931) was an Indian revolutionary who worked to make India independent from the British Raj along with his best friends and partners Bhagat Singh and Shivaram Rajguru. A senior member of the Hindustan S ...

Rajguru Rajguru, also spelled as Rajyaguru, is an ancient title and surname of the Indian subcontinent which means ''royal priest''. Notable people *Rajguru Aggavamsa Mahathera, Bangladeshi Buddhist *Rajguru Priyo Ratana Mahathera, Buddhist guru *Basava ...

, who had been accused for brutally murdering ASP of Lahore, John Saunders in late 1928, were hanged in the Central Jail of Lahore in the evening of 23 March 1931. There was great public furore after their hanging. In many places protests and strikes took place against the British Government's unjust decision to hang them after an illegitimate trial where they were not even chanced to be defended. People even protested against Emerson to be just working on the orders of the Viceroy and not bearing any decisive powers.

Governor of Punjab

In 1933 he was appointed Governor of the Punjab and Sir Maurice Hallett took over as Home Secretary. The following year he took leave from the role and was deputised for four months by

Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan ''Khan Bahadur'' Captain Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, (5 June 1892 – 26 December 1942), also written Sikandar Hyat-Khan or Sikandar Hyat Khan, was an Indian politician and statesman from the Punjab who served as the Premier of the Punjab, among ...

. Emerson served as Governor until his retirement in April 1938.

Other Home Secretaries before Emerson

Here is a probable list of Home Secretaries of British Government who had served before Emerson — *Sir

Herbert Hope Risley Sir Herbert Hope Risley (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency. ...

— 1904–1910 *Sir

William Sinclair Marris Sir William Sinclair Marris (9 October 1873 – 12 December 1945) was a British civil servant, colonial administrator, and classical scholar. He was a member of the Indian Civil Service during the British Raj, and later became Vice-Chancellor o ...

— 1913–1916 *Sir

James Houssemayne Du Boulay Sir James Houssemayne Du Boulay (15 April 1868 in Hampshire – 26 November 1943) was a British civil servant. Life and career Houssemayne Du Boulay was the son of James Thomas Houssemayne Du Boulay and Alice Mead Du Boulay (''née'' Cornish) ...

— 1916–1919 *Sir Sidney Robert Hignell — 1919–1921 *Sir H. D. Craik — 1921–1926 *Sir

— 1926–1930

Later life

On 23 September 1938, he became League of Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees, and later Director of the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees, dealing primarily with Russian and European Jewish refugees. He was an active writer, recording local customs and publicizing his opinions. He died at the age of 80 on 13 April 1962 at the British capital

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

.Obituaries on File: A-R. United States, Facts on File, 1979.

Indian legacy

He was portrayed by an Irish actor Ryan Jonathan in the 2002

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

film ''

The Legend of Bhagat Singh ''The Legend of Bhagat Singh'' is a 2002 Indian Hindi-language biographical period film directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. The film is about Bhagat Singh, a Freedom Fighter who fought for Indian independence along with fellow members of the Hin ...

''. In the film he had been wrongly portrayed as a Home Member of

Viceroy's Executive Council The Viceroy's Executive Council was the cabinet of the government of British India headed by the Viceroy of India. It is also known as the Council of the Governor-General of India. It was transformed from an advisory council into a cabinet consistin ...

while he had been a Home Secretary of The

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

. In the film his appearance also differs from his real one as in it he is show having a moustache while he actually did not have any.Sir Herbert is also portrayed in the Movie Jannah(1998). He is shown as Governor or Punjab along with his deputy Sikandar Hyaat meeting with Gandhi and Nehru. Sir Herbert played a key role in education in Punjab. Emerson College in Multan was established in 1920 in his honour. The college is now known as Emerson University.

Literature

* Oxford Biography Index Number 101067177

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Emerson, Herbert William Indian Civil Service (British India) officers Governors of Punjab (British India) 1881 births 1962 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India Knights Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire Government Emerson College People educated at Calday Grange Grammar School Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge British people in colonial India