Jervoise Athelstane Baines

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Sir Jervoise Athelstane Baines

FRGS (17 October 1847 – 26 November 1925) was an administrator in the Indian Civil Service during the period of the British Raj
.

Early life

Baines was the son of Edward Baines, the

competitive examination for entry into the Indian Civil Service, spent two years in training and was then posted to the Bombay Presidency.[2][3]

India

Baines arrived in India in 1870, approximately halfway through the five-year-long attempt to collect statistical population data, which was the first such exercise by the Raj administration. In 1881, he was deputy superintendent of the census in the Presidency and excelled to the degree that he was appointed

Poona from 1883[5] and held various other posts while in India.[3][6]

Baines spent much of his time organising the censuses and also analysing and producing reports based on their data, which were "widely recognised as the work of a brilliant ethnographer and statistician", according to an obituary published in

H. H. Risley and Edward Gait,[7] and his obituary in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society noted that

he brought to the presentation and interpretation statistical of data not only all the resources of a well-stored mind but also a gift of sympathetic insight which enabled him to develop with almost dramatic vividness " the story behind the figures".[4]

Later life and recognition

In January 1894, Baines was made a

Royal Opium Commission for the period 1894–1895. He retired near to the end of 1895.[2][7] Returning to England, he initially settled in London and became involved in local politics and administration, becoming an Alderman of London County Council between 1898 and 1902. He moved to Kidlington, Oxford in 1904, was knighted in 1905.[4][9] and was a member of the Oxfordshire County Council from 1917 until 1922.[4][5] Much of his involvement in Oxfordshire politics concerned education.[2]

Baines was elected a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1881 and served a term as its president between 1909 and 1910, following a continuous period as a member of the Society's Council from 1895.[4][10] The society awarded him its Guy Medal in Gold in 1900, making him one of the eight people to receive the honour between its inception in 1892 and 1930.[11][12] Baines was also a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society from 1896,[13] an Honorary Member of the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute from 1897.[4]

He died at Kidlington on 26 November 1925.[7] He had married Constance Pyne in 1874, and the couple had a son and a daughter.[6]

Baines was well liked in the princely state of

Trivandrum and whilst leaving the State, he sold them at very affordable prices to the local citizens. These two locations (Nanthancode Bains Compound and Museum Bains Compound) are now named "Bains Compound" in his memory.[14][15]

Works

Among his written works are Ethnography (castes and tribes), which was published in 1912,

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica (as J.A.B.), and numerous journal papers. The latter mostly concerned demographics,[4] such as The Recent Trend of Population in England and Wales.[17]

See also

  • Census of India prior to independence

References

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Jervoise Athelstane Baines
  1. ^ Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles. Armorial families : a directory of gentlemen of coat-armour (Fifth ed.). Edinburgh: T. C. & E. C. Jack. p. 20. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  2. ^ a b c d "Obituary: Sir Athelstane Baines". The Times. London. 27 November 1925.
  3. ^ a b direction of the Secretary of State for India in Council (1905). The India List and India Office List for 1905. London: Harrison and Sons. p. 431. Retrieved 16 May 2012.
  4. ^
    JSTOR 2341501
    .(subscription required)
  5. ^ a b Venn, John Archibald, ed. (1940). Alumni Cantabrigienses; a Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 123. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  6. ^ a b Parker, C. (2003). "Papers of Sir Jervoise Athelstane Baines, and his son-in-law, Philip Edward Percival, both of the Indian Civil Service, 1862–1929". Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  7. ^
    doi:10.1038/116909a0
    .
  8. ^ "No. 26472". The London Gazette. 2 January 1894. p. 2.
  9. ^ "No. 27821". The London Gazette. 25 July 1905. p. 5143.
  10. ^ "Past Presidents". The Royal Statistical Society. Archived from the original on 17 March 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  11. doi:10.1080/01621459.1960.10482048
    .(subscription required)
  12. ^ "Previous recipients: Guy Medal in Gold". The Royal Statistical Society. Archived from the original on 17 March 2012. Retrieved 16 May 2012.
  13. ^ List of Honorary Members, Honorary Corresponding Members and Fellows (PDF). London: Royal Geographical Society. 1921. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 16 May 2012.
  14. ^ "Elie House in Nanthancode stands tall - The Hindu". The Hindu.
  15. ^ "Fading MEMORIES - TVDM - The Hindu". The Hindu.
  16. ^ Baines, Athelstane (1912). Ethnography (castes and tribes). Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  17. JSTOR 2341000
    .(subscription required)
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