Hunter, William Wilson, Sir (1840 -1900)

Sir William Wilson Hunter was the son of Andrew Galloway Hunter, a Glasgow manufacturer from Denholm in Roxburghshire, and Isabella, daughter of William Wilson, woollen manufacturer of Hawick. He was educated at Glasgow Academy and Glasgow University where he graduated in 1860, spent the next year on the Continent, where he learned Sanskrit, and entered the Bengal Civil Service in 1861, coming top in the public examination. He married, 4 December 1863, Jessie, daughter of the Reverend Thomas Murray. His first appointment was that of Assistant Magistrate and Collector in the district of Birbhum in Lower Bengal. While there he collected materials for his first book The annals of rural Benghal which was published in 1868. He was appointed by Lord Mayo to organise the Statistical Survey of India 1869 1885, which he did with outstanding success, He was Under Secretary to the Government of India 1871, President of the Indian Education Commission 1882, a Member of the Viceroy's Legislative Council 1881 1887, and of the Indian Finance Committee, and Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta. He was made a Knight Commander of the Star of India in 1887, and an Honorary M.A. of Oxford University in 1889.