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{{Use British English|date=June 2017}}
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'''Sir Jervoise Athelstane Baines''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CSI|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 [[vicar]] of [[Yalding]] in Kent, and his wife, Catherine Eularia Baines.<ref>{{cite book |title=Armorial families : a directory of gentlemen of coat-armour |page=20 |first=Arthur Charles |last=Fox-Davies |edition=Fifth |location=Edinburgh |publisher=T. C. & E. C. Jack |url=http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/arthur-charles-fox-davies/armorial-families--a-directory-of-gentlemen-of-coat-armour-hci/page-20-armorial-families--a-directory-of-gentlemen-of-coat-armour-hci.shtml |access-date=15 May 2012 |archive-date=15 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180615190717/http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/arthur-charles-fox-davies/armorial-families--a-directory-of-gentlemen-of-coat-armour-hci/page-20-armorial-families--a-directory-of-gentlemen-of-coat-armour-hci.shtml |url-status=dead }}</ref> He was born on 17 October 1847 in the village of [[Bluntisham]] in the former English county of [[Huntingdonshire]].<ref name=Times>{{cite news |newspaper=The Times |location=London |date=27 November 1925 |title=Obituary: Sir Athelstane Baines}}</ref> He was educated at [[Rugby School]] and at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]. In 1868, he passed the [[competitive examination]] for entry into the Indian Civil Service, spent two years in training and was then posted to the [[Bombay Presidency]].<ref name=Times /><ref name=List1905p431>{{cite book |title=The India List and India Office List for 1905 |page=431 |year=1905 |author=direction of the Secretary of State for India in Council |location=London |publisher=Harrison and Sons |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b2NPAAAAMAAJ |access-date=16 May 2012}}</ref>

== 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 [[Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India|Census Commissioner]] for the [[1891 Census of India|national census of 1891]].<ref name=RSS1926 /> He had worked as an assistant [[District collector|collector]] and magistrate at [[Poona]] from 1883<ref name=Venn>{{cite book |title=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 |url=https://archive.org/details/p2alumnicantabri01univuoft |page=[https://archive.org/details/p2alumnicantabri01univuoft/page/123 123] |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1940 |volume=1 |editor-first=John Archibald |editor-last=Venn |editor-link=John Archibald Venn |access-date=15 May 2012}}</ref> and held various other posts while in India both in British India as well as in native states such as Travancore.<ref name=List1905p431 /><ref name=Bodleian />

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 ''[[Nature (magazine)|Nature]]''. For the 1891 census, Baines changed the classification from that which had been used in the exercise of 1881. His obituary in the Journal of the [[Royal Statistical Society]] describes the changes as being "first the separation of caste from religion and, secondly, the substitution of the population ''subsisting'' by an occupation for that ''exercising'' it." He wrote the resultant 300-page General Report.<ref name=RSS1926 /> His work influenced that of his successors, such as [[H. H. Risley]] and [[Edward Albert Gait|Edward Gait]],<ref name=Nature1909p909>{{Cite journal |journal=Nature |volume=116 |page=909 |date=19 December 1925 |doi=10.1038/116909a0 |title=Sir Athelstane Baines |issue=2929 |bibcode=1925Natur.116Q.909. |doi-access=free }}</ref> and his obituary in the Journal of the [[Royal Statistical Society]] noted that {{blockquote|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".<ref name=RSS1926 />}}

== Later life and recognition ==
In January 1894, Baines was made a [[Companion of the Order of the Star of India]].<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=26472 |page=2 |date=2 January 1894 }}</ref> He had worked on the decennial Report on Moral and Material Progress for 1891 and he was appointed as Secretary to the [[Royal Opium Commission]] for the period 1894–1895. He retired near to the end of 1895.<ref name=Times /><ref name=Nature1909p909 /> 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.<ref name=RSS1926 /><ref>{{London Gazette|issue=27821 |page=5143 |date=25 July 1905 }}</ref> and was a member of the [[Oxfordshire County Council]] from 1917 until 1922.<ref name=RSS1926 /><ref name=Venn /> Much of his involvement in Oxfordshire politics concerned education.<ref name=Times />

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.<ref name=RSS1926>{{cite journal |journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society |volume=89 |issue=1 |date=January 1926 |pages=182–184 |title=Obituary: Sir Athelstane Baines, C.S.I. |author1=R.H.R. |author2=S. de J. |publisher=Royal Statistical Society |location=London |jstor=2341501 }}{{subscription required}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rss.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=486 |title=Past Presidents |publisher=The Royal Statistical Society |access-date=15 May 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120317044817/http://www.rss.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=486 |archive-date=17 March 2012 }}</ref> The society awarded him its [[Guy Medal|Guy Medal in Gold]] in 1900, making him one of the eight people to receive the honour between its inception in 1892 and 1930.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Journal of the American Statistical Association |volume=55 |issue=289 |year=1960 |title=Leading British Statisticians of the Nineteenth Century |doi=10.1080/01621459.1960.10482048 |first=Paul J. |last=Fitzpatrick |page=50 }}{{subscription required}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Previous recipients: Guy Medal in Gold |url=http://www.rss.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=479 |publisher=The Royal Statistical Society |access-date=16 May 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120317045440/http://www.rss.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=479 |archive-date=17 March 2012 }}</ref> Baines was also a fellow of the [[Royal Geographical Society]] from 1896,<ref>{{cite book |title=List of Honorary Members, Honorary Corresponding Members and Fellows |page=6 |year=1921 |publisher=Royal Geographical Society |location=London |url=http://scans.library.utoronto.ca/pdf/1/35/listofhonoraryme00royauoft/listofhonoraryme00royauoft.pdf |access-date=16 May 2012 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303232716/http://scans.library.utoronto.ca/pdf/1/35/listofhonoraryme00royauoft/listofhonoraryme00royauoft.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> an Honorary Member of the [[American Statistical Association]] and an elected member of the [[International Statistical Institute]] from 1897.<ref name=RSS1926 />

He died at Kidlington on 26 November 1925.<ref name=Nature1909p909 /> He had married Constance Pyne in 1874, and the couple had a son and a daughter.<ref name=Bodleian>{{cite web |title=Papers of Sir Jervoise Athelstane Baines, and his son-in-law, Philip Edward Percival, both of the Indian Civil Service, 1862–1929 |first=C. |last=Parker |year=2003 |publisher=Bodleian Library, University of Oxford |url=http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/1500-1900/baines-percival/baines-percival.html |access-date=15 May 2012}}</ref>

Baines was popular and well liked in the princely state of [[Travancore]] both for his services to the Maharajah, as well as his generosity to the ordinary citizens of Travancore. The erstwhile Baines residence in Trivandrum, the stately Lyndhurst house, is currently owned by the government of Kerala as a residence of one of the government ministers.<ref>https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2021/05/22/kerala-ministers-allotted-official-residences-cars.html</ref> The Baines family owned land at two locations in the leafy suburbs in [[Trivandrum]] city. Whilst they were leaving India, the Baines family parcelled and sold these pieces of land, at very affordable prices, to the local citizens. These two locations in Trivandrum (the Nanthancode Bains Compound in Nanthancode suburb, and the Museum Bains Compound between Nanthancode and Palayam, opposite to the present day Napier Zoological gardens/Trivandrum zoo) are named "Bains Compound" in his memory.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/A-house-in-an-orchard/article14477876.ece| title = Elie House in Nanthancode stands tall - The Hindu| website = [[The Hindu]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/fading-memories/article28201720.ece| title = Fading MEMORIES - TVDM - The Hindu| website = [[The Hindu]]}}</ref><ref>https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/r-vasudeva-poduvals-contribution-to-architectural-and-artistic-heritage-of-travancore/article7540311.ece.</ref>

== Works ==
Among his written works are ''Ethnography (castes and tribes)'', which was published in 1912,<ref>{{cite book |title=Ethnography (castes and tribes) |url=https://archive.org/details/ethnographycaste00bainuoft |first=Athelstane |last=Baines |location=Strassburg |publisher=Karl J. Trübner |year=1912 |access-date=15 May 2012}}</ref> contributions to the [[1911 Encyclopædia Britannica|1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'']] (as ''J.A.B.''), and numerous journal papers. The latter mostly concerned demographics,<ref name=RSS1926 /> such as ''The Recent Trend of Population in England and Wales''.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Baines |first=Jervoise Athelstane |title=The Recent Trend of Population in England and Wales |journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society |date=July 1916 |volume=79 |issue=4 |pages=399–417 |doi=10.2307/2341000 |jstor=2341000 }}{{subscription required}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Census of India prior to independence]]

==References==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Guy Medal}}
{{Royal Statistical Society presidents}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baines, Jervoise Athelstane}}
[[Category:1847 births]]
[[Category:1925 deaths]]
[[Category:Indian Civil Service (British India) officers]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:British ethnologists]]
[[Category:British statisticians]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Star of India]]
[[Category:People educated at Rugby School]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Statistical Society]]
[[Category:People from Oxford]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society]]
[[Category:Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society]]
[[Category:People from Bluntisham]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]

Jervoise Athelstane Baines - Revision history

SheldonCruce at 09:19, 29 January 2026