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Sir William Wedderburn, Bt
Member of Parliament for Banffshire
In office 1893–1900
Preceded by	Sir Robert Duff
Succeeded by	Alexander William Black
Personal details
Born	25 March 1838 Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Died	25 January 1918(1918-01-25) (aged 79) Meredith, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Political party	Liberal Party
Other political affiliations	Co-founder of Indian National Congress
Relations	Wedderburn family
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Profession	Civil servant, politician

Sir William Wedderburn, 4th Baronet, JP DL (25 March 1838 – 25 January 1918) was a British civil servant and politician who was a Liberal Party member of Parliament (MP). Wedderburn was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress. He was also the president of Congress in 1889 and 1910, for the Allahabad session.

Early life

William Wedderburn was born in Edinburgh, the fourth and youngest son of Sir John Wedderburn, 2nd Baronet and Henrietta Louise Milburn. His grandfather, Sir David, had had the title of the Wedderburn baronetcy restored to the family, following the attainder after the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the subsequent regain of fortune via the slave sugar plantations of Jamaica.

William was educated at Hofwyl Workshop, then Loretto School and finally at Edinburgh University. He joined the Indian Civil Service as his father and an older brother had done. His older brother John had been killed in the 1857 uprising and William joined the service in 1860 after ranking third (of 160 applicants) in the entrance exam of 1859. His elder brother David, a widely travelled MP, was the 3rd baronet.

Career

He entered the Indian Civil Service in Bombay in 1860, served as District Judge and Judicial Commissioner in Sind; acted as secretary to Bombay Government, Judicial and Political Departments; and from 1885 acted as Judge of the High Court, Bombay. He retired when acting Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay in 1887. During his work he noted the troubles of peasantry arising from moneylending and he suggested that co-operative agricultural banks be established to provide credits at reasonable rates. The proposal was supported in India but was blocked by the India Office. Wedderburn supported reforms suggested by Lord Ripon to develop local self-government and equality to Indian judges. He was seen as supporting the aspirations of Indians and was denied a judge position in the Bombay high court. This led him to retire early in 1887. Along with Allan Octavian Hume he was a founder of the Indian National Congress and served as its president in 1889 and 1910. He worked along with influential Congress leaders in Bombay and in 1890 he chaired the British committee of the Indian National Congress, helped publish the journal India and attempted to support the movement through parliamentary action in Britain. He developed a close working relationship with G. K. Gokhale of the Congress. He was an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate in North Ayrshire in 1892 and served as Liberal Member of Parliament for Banffshire from 1893 to 1900.

He was a member of the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditure in 1895 and chairman of Indian Parliamentary Committee. He was considered a great friend of the Indian Progressive Movement and presided at the Indian National Congress, 1889, later chairman, British Committee of the Indian National Congress. In 1910 he returned to India as Congress president and tried to solve the rift between Hindus and Muslims and attempted to reconcile the differences between those who wished to work constitutionally and those who wanted to use more militant actions. He wrote a biographical memoir of A. O. Hume who died in 1912.

Marriage and children

He succeeded his brother, Sir David, to the baronetcy on 18 September 1882. He married Mary Blanche Hoskyns, daughter of Henry William Hoskyns, on 12 September 1878. A daughter, Dorothy, was born in Poona in 1879 and in 1884 they had a second daughter in London, Margaret Griselda. He died at his home in Meredith, Gloucestershire on 25 January 1918. According to the local history society of the nearby village of Tibberton, the farmland of Meredith had been inherited by his mother, and his father commissioned James Medland, a locally prominent architect, to build the house in 1859.

Publications

• Papers and Schemes on Arbitration Courts, Agricultural Banks, Village Panchayets and subjects relating to the condition of the Indian people
• Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; father of the Indian National Congress, 1829 to 1912 (1912)

References

1. Nanda, Bal Ram (2015). Gokhale: The Indian Moderates and the British Raj. Princeton University Press. p. 542. ISBN 9781400870493.
2. Mookerjee, Girija; Andrews, C.F (1938). Routledge Revivals: The Rise and Growth of the Congress in India. Routledge. p. 306. ISBN 9781315405483.
3. = https://www.inc.in/en/leadership/past-party-president/sir-william-wedderburn>
4. "William Wedderburn - Read here complete information about William Wedderburn biography, History, education, Family, fact, other information". Indian National Congress. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
5. ^ Rao, C. Hayavadana, ed. (1915). "Wedderburn, Sir William" . The Indian Biographical Dictionary . Vol. 24.2. Madras: Pillar & Co. pp. 460–461.
6. ^ Moulton, Edward C. (2004). "Wedderburn, Sir William, fourth baronet (1838–1918)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/41165. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
7. Ratcliffe, S.K. (1923). Sir William Wedderburn and the Indian reform movement. London: George Allen and Unwin.
8. "Meredith and the Wedderburn's" (PDF). Tibberton Gloucestershire.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir William Wedderburn
• Speeches and writings (1918)

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Presidents	Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee Dadabhai Naoroji Badruddin Tyabji George Yule William Wedderburn Pherozeshah Mehta Anandacharlu Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee Dadabhai Naoroji Webb Surendranath Banerjee Rahimtulla M. Sayani C. Sankaran Nair Anandamohan Bose Romesh Chunder Dutt N. G. Chandavarkar Dinshaw Edulji Wacha Surendranath Banerjee Lalmohan Ghosh Henry Cotton Gopal Krishna Gokhale Dadabhai Naoroji Rash Behari Ghosh Madan Mohan Malaviya William Wedderburn Bishan Narayan Dar Raghunath Narasinha Mudholkar Nawab Syed Muhammad Bahadur Bhupendra Nath Bose Satyendra Prasanna Sinha, 1st Baron Sinha Ambica Charan Mazumdar Annie Besant Madan Mohan Malaviya Syed Hasan Imam Motilal Nehru Lala Lajpat Rai C. Vijayaraghavachariar Hakim Ajmal Khan Chittaranjan Das Mohammad Ali Jauhar Abul Kalam Azad Mahatma Gandhi Sarojini Naidu S. Srinivasa Iyengar Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari Motilal Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru Vallabhbhai Patel Madan Mohan Malaviya Nellie Sengupta Rajendra Prasad Jawaharlal Nehru Subhas Chandra Bose Abul Kalam Azad J. B. Kripalani Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya Purushottam Das Tandon Jawaharlal Nehru U. N. Dhebar Indira Gandhi Neelam Sanjiva Reddy K. Kamaraj S. Nijalingappa Jagjivan Ram Shankar Dayal Sharma D. K. Barooah Indira Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi P. V. Narasimha Rao Sitaram Kesri Sonia Gandhi Rahul Gandhi Mallikarjun Kharge
Prime ministers	Jawaharlal Nehru Lal Bahadur Shastri Gulzarilal Nanda Indira Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi P. V. Narasimha Rao Manmohan Singh
Leaders	Lok Sabha Jawaharlal Nehru Gulzarilal Nanda Lal Bahadur Shastri Satya Narayan Indira Gandhi Yashwantrao Chavan Chembakassery Mathai Stephen Rajiv Gandhi Arjun Singh P. V. Narasimha Rao Sharad Pawar Sonia Gandhi Pranab Mukherjee Sushilkumar Shinde Mallikarjun Kharge Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Ravneet Singh Bittu Rahul Gandhi Rajya Sabha N. Gopalaswamy Ayyangar Charu Chandra Lal Bahadur Shastri Govind Ballabh Hafiz Mohamad Ibrahim Yashwantrao Chavan Jaisukhlal Hathi M. C. Chagla Jaisukhlal Hathi Kodardas Kalidas Shah Uma Shankar Dikshit Kamalapati Tripathi Pranab Mukherjee V.P. Singh Narayan Dutt Tiwari P. Shiv Shankar Shankarrao Chavan Motilal Vora Ahmed Patel Anand Sharma Jairam Ramesh A. K. Antony Digvijaya Singh P. Chidambaram Abhishek Singhvi Rajeev Shukla Manmohan Singh Ghulam Nabi Azad Mallikarjun Kharge
Political wings	Seva Dal All India Mahila Congress Indian Youth Congress National Students' Union of India Indian National Trade Union Congress All India Professionals Congress
Chief ministers	Current Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu Siddaramaiah Anumula Revanth Reddy
Category

• 1838 births
• 1918 deaths
• Nobility from Edinburgh
• People educated at Loretto School, Musselburgh
• Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
• Deputy lieutenants of Gloucestershire
• Indian Civil Service (British India) officers
• Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies
• Scottish Liberal Party MPs
• Presidents of the Indian National Congress
• UK MPs 1892–1895
• UK MPs 1895–1900
• Wedderburn baronets
• Wedderburn family
• Indian National Congress politicians