Sir Herbert William Emerson, (1 June 1881 — 13 April 1962) was a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

and served as the Governor of Punjab in the 1930s. Emerson University Multan was earlier known as Emerson College Multan, named after Sir Emerson's services as Governor Punjab in 1930.

Early life

He was born on 1 June 1881, at

West Kirby West Kirby () is a coastal town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. In the north west of the Wirral Peninsula and at the mouth of the River Dee, the town is contiguous with Hoylake. It lies within the historic county bo ...

, 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 Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...

in 1904 and served as an Assistant Commissioner at

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

. Between 1911 and 1914, he served as the Manager of the princely state of

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. Bushahar was eighty four miles long, sixty two ...

. In 1916 he became Superintendent and Settlement Officer of

Mandi State Mandi State was a princely state within (British India), with the town of Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, Mandi 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 ...

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

Home Secretary

From April 1930 to 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 w ...

. In the role, Emerson had talks with

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

over release of political prisoners after the

civil disobedience movement Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". ...

. He and the

Viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the Anglo-Norman ''roy'' (Old Frenc ...

Lord Irwin Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), known as the Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and the Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a British Conservative politician of the 1930s. He h ...

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. The Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, had announced in October 1929 ...

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 an Indian anti-colonial revolutionary who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer in December 1928 in what was intended to be retaliation for the deat ...

Sukhdev Sukhdev Thapar (15 May 1907 – 23 March 1931) was an Indian freedom fighter who fought against the British government for Indian independence. He was a member of the '' Hindustan Socialist Republican Association'' (HSRA), and was executed al ...

Rajguru Rajguru, also spelled as Rajyaguru, is an ancient title and surname of the Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to th ...

, 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 The governor of the Punjab was head of the British administration in the province of the Punjab. In 1849 the East India Company defeated the Sikh Empire and annexed the Punjab region. The governor-general of India, Lord Dalhousie, implemented a t ...

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'' Major 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 the

British Indian government The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or direct ...

who had served before Emerson — * Sir Herbert Hope Risely — 1904–1910 * Sir William Sinclair Marris — 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 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 w ...

— 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 city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

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

Indian legacy

He was portrayed by a British actor Ryan Jonathan in the 2002

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...

film ''

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

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

Viceroy's Executive Council The Viceroy's Executive Council, formerly known as Council of Four and officially known as the Council of the Governor-General of India (since 1858), was an advisory body and cabinet of the Governor-General of India, also known as Viceroy. It exis ...

while he had actually been a Home Secretary of the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

. In it, his appearance also differs from his real one as he is shown having a moustache while he actually did not have any. Sir Herbert is also portrayed in the film '' Jinnah (1998)''. He is shown as Governor of Punjab along with his deputy Sikandar Hayat meeting with

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British ...

and

Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a prin ...

. 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