Sir Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton
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Sir Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton (6 December 1860 – 6 December 1939) was a
Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
businessman who made
Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...
his second home. He established a ''
zamindari A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous Indian feudalism, feudal lord of a ''zamindari'' (feudal estate). The term itself came into use during the Mughal Empire, when Persian language, Persian was the offi ...
'' in
Gosaba Gosaba is a village and a gram panchayat within the jurisdiction of the Gosaba police station in the Gosaba CD block in the Canning subdivision of the South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. History Sir Daniel Mack ...
, where he experimented with programmes of rural and social upliftment. He was a visionary and builder of rural reconstruction programmes at a time when the
Indian national movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic ...
was gaining momentum, and gave importance to rural upliftment and self-help.


Early life

Hamilton was brought up in a business family on the
Isle of Arran The Isle of Arran (; ) or simply Arran is an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde and the seventh-largest Scottish island, at . Counties of Scotland, Historically part of Buteshire, it is in the ...
, off the West coast of Scotland. He was sent out to
Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...
in 1880 to look after the branch of the mercantile firm Mackinnon-Mackenzie. He was married to Margaret Elizabeth Hamilton (later Lady).


Career

He became the chief of Mackinnon Mackenzie in
Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
in the early twentieth century. In 1903 he bought land of "... about 9000 acres in Gosaba and had it reclaimed by felling the woods and raising embankment on the riverside".Alapan Bandopadhyaya and Anup Matilal, eds., ''The Philosopher's Stone: Speeches and Writings of Sir Daniel Hamilton'' (Calcutta, 2003), p.2 His involvement with Gosaba was motivated by his desire to improve the living conditions of the poverty stricken people of
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 ...
. He introduced the
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...
system in Gosaba, and in all of
Sunderbans Sundarbans (; pronounced ) is a mangrove forest area in the Ganges Delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal ...
, and thus educated the people to share responsibility. His championing of the cooperative society in the Sunderbans ran parallel with the growth of the cooperative movement in India. He also established the cooperative credit society with 15 members in Gosaba. He provided an initial capital of Rs. 500 for the society, forming "...a nucleus of a group of rural credit societies...". In 1918 he started a Consumers' Cooperative Society. In 1919 he set up a central
model farm A demonstration farm, experimental farm or model farm, is a farm which is used primarily to research or demonstrate various agricultural techniques, with any economic gains being an added bonus. Demonstration farms are often owned and operated by ...
to experiment with
paddy Paddy may refer to: People *Paddy (given name), a list of people with the given name or nickname *A nickname or slur for an Irish person Birds *Paddy (pigeon), a Second World War carrier pigeon *Snowy sheathbill or paddy, a bird species *Black ...
, vegetables and fruits. A Cooperative Paddy Sales Society was established in 1923. In 1924 he established the Gosaba Central Cooperative Bank, and in 1927 he established the Jamini Rice Mill. In 1934 he started the Rural Reconstruction Institute, and two years later he began the issue of one rupee notes in Gosaba. He was a contemporary and close associate of the
Nobel Laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...
poet,
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
, with whom he exchanged several letters on the need for village reconstruction and cooperative societies. As his Gosaba project neared completion in the 1930s, Hamilton invited both Tagore and
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 ...
to visit it. Tagore did so in December 1932. Gandhi never did visit, but in 1935, just as he was getting deeply involved in his own quite different experiment in village revitalization, he sent his secretary,
Mahadev Desai Mahadev Haribhai Desai (1 January 1892 – 15 August 1942) was an Indian independence activist, scholar and writer best remembered as Mahatma Gandhi's personal secretary. He has variously been described as "Gandhi's Boswell, a Plato to G ...
, in his place. Desai spent about a week with Hamilton at Gosaba in early February and wrote about the visit in a four-part series in ''Harijan'', the Gandhian weekly.M.D. ahadev Desai “Towards an Ideal Zamindari,” ''Harijan''., vol. 3 (1935), pp. 36-37 (March 15), 52-53 (March 29), 61-62 (April 5), and 69-70 (April 13). ''Harijan'' is available at the . Desai was impressed with both Hamilton (“a remarkable man” of “lofty idealism”) and the Gosaba project. Desai was there on 7 February 1935, when the final clod of earth was placed to complete 130 miles of dikes. Over the previous 30 years Gosaba had gone from easily flooded jungle to a prosperous estate of 10,000 people in twenty-five villages, linked by a network of cooperative societies, dispensaries and schools. All disputes were settled locally and there was no alcohol in evidence. It showed what a benevolent and reform-minded landlord could achieve. But Gosaba only pointed “toward” an ideal estate, and Desai ends his series with several suggested improvements including lower rates of rent.


Death

Hamilton died on his 79th birthday.


References

*Sir Daniel o Goshabaar Akkhan (Sir Daniel and the history of Goshaba in Bengali) by Soumen Dutta-Mitra Ghosh publishers ltd. (Kolkata, 2010)


External links


Portrait of Sir Daniel Mackinnon Hamilton
Scran Scran is a Scottish online resource for educational use by the public, schools, further education and higher education. It presents nearly 490,000 (still and moving) images and sounds contributed by museums, galleries, archives and the media. It ...

An image of Hamilton's Bungalow
at
Gosaba Gosaba is a village and a gram panchayat within the jurisdiction of the Gosaba police station in the Gosaba CD block in the Canning subdivision of the South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. History Sir Daniel Mack ...
,
West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...
in
Sunderbans Sundarbans (; pronounced ) is a mangrove forest area in the Ganges Delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Hooghly River in India's state of West Bengal ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Daniel Mackinnon 1860 births 1939 deaths British people in colonial India British businesspeople Bengali zamindars Indian cooperative organizers Knights Bachelor People from the Isle of Arran People from the Bengal Presidency Businesspeople from British India