imported>Chan Tuni at 09:15, 23 July 2021

2021-07-23T09:15:56Z

New page

{{EngvarB|date=September 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2014}}
'''John Henry Hutton''' [[Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|FRAI]] (27 June 1885 – 23 May 1968) was an English-born [[anthropologist]] and an administrator in the [[Indian Civil Service]] (ICS) during the period of the [[British Raj]]. The period that he spent with the ICS in [[Assam]] evoked an interest in tribal cultures of that region that was of seminal importance. His research work was recognised subsequently with his appointment to the chair of [[William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology]] at the [[University of Cambridge]] and with various honours.<ref name="odnb">{{cite ODNB |first=Alan |last=Macfarlane |title=Hutton, John Henry (1885–1968) |date=January 2011 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/53568 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/53568 |accessdate=8 November 2013}} </ref>

== Early life ==
John Henry Hutton was the son of a [[Church of England]] clergyman. He was born on 27 June 1885 at [[West Heslerton]], then in the [[East Riding of Yorkshire]] and now in [[North Yorkshire]]. He attended [[Chigwell School]] in Essex and then obtained a third-class degree in modern history from [[Worcester College, Oxford]] in 1907.<ref name="odnb" />

== Career ==
Hutton joined the ICS in 1909, spending most of his career in India in Assam. He held positions as a Political Officer and as a Deputy Commissioner, for which his duties included undertaking lengthy tours within the Assam region to inspect facilities and infrastructure as well as to settle legal disputes. To his role as Deputy Commissioner was added in 1920 that of Honorary Director of Ethnography for Assam.<ref name="prm">{{cite web |title=John Henry Hutton |url=http://history.prm.ox.ac.uk/collector_hutton.html |publisher=Pitt Rivers Museum |location=Oxford |first=Alison |last=Petch |date=August 2005 |accessdate=8 November 2013}}</ref> Between 1929 and 1933 he was [[Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India|Census Commissioner]], having responsibility for organising the 1931 [[census of India]] and compiling the subsequent report on it.<ref name="odnb" />

Hutton's interest in anthropology was piqued around the time of his 1920 appointment. He was encouraged in his researches by [[Henry Balfour]] of the [[Pitt Rivers Museum]], who visited Hutton in the [[Naga hills]]. Many published works on the tribal culture of the area were written by him from 1920, including the seminal ''The Angami Nagas'' and ''The Sema Nagas'', which earned him a [[DSc]] from the [[University of Oxford]] in 1921.<ref name="odnb" /><ref name="prm" /> Later, during official discussions about the formulation of the [[Government of India Act 1935]], Hutton worked with some success to protect the interests of tribal minorities despite opposition from Indian nationalists who suspected that it was a scheme intended to divide the country.<ref name="rai" />

Hutton resigned from the ICS in 1936 for family reasons, and possibly also because he wanted to devote more time to his research. In 1937, he succeeded [[T. C. Hodson]] as William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at Cambridge University, where he was also elected a [[Fellow]] of [[St. Catharine's College, Cambridge|St. Catharine's College]].<ref name="rai" /> In writing ''Caste in India'', published in 1946, he was able to draw on his experiences in charge of the 1931 census. In other works he demonstrated an interest in comparative anthropology, writing of possible links between the culture of the eastern Himalayas and other [[megalithic culture]]s in south-east Asia and in Oceania. He retired from his professorship in 1950 and was made an honorary fellow of St. Catharine's in 1951.<ref name="odnb" />

== Death ==
Hutton died on 23 May 1968 at his home in [[New Radnor]], Radnorshire.<ref name="odnb" /> A fellow anthropologist of India, [[Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf]], said in an obituary that the death of Hutton "... ended a chapter in the history of British anthropology. He was the last of the distinguished class of civil servants who in their time contributed so greatly to the knowledge of the indigenous peoples of Britain's far-flung empire and in a later phase of their career achieved positions of eminence in academic life."<ref name="rai">{{cite journal |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |year=1968 |pages=66–67 |authorlink=Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf |first=Christoph |last=von Fürer-Haimendorf |title=John Henry Hutton, 1885–1968 |publisher=Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |jstor=3031708}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

== Family ==
Hutton married Stella Eleanora Bishop, a widow, in 1920. The couple had two sons and a daughter. Stella died in 1944 and in 1945 he married Maureen Margaret O'Reilly.<ref name="odnb" />

== Honours and legacy ==
Hutton had assisted in quelling a rebellion by the [[Kuki people|Kuki tribal people]] between 1917–19 and was appointed a [[Order of the Indian Empire|Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire]] for that work. He was [[High Sheriff of Radnorshire]] in 1943 and President of the [[Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland]] (RAI) in 1944–45. He had won the Rivers Memorial Medal, awarded by the RAI, in 1929 and the silver medal of the [[Royal Society of Arts]] in 1932. He gave the [[Frazer Lecture]] in 1938.<ref name="odnb" /><ref name="rai" />

[[Kathleen Gough]] was among his doctoral students<ref>{{cite ODNB |first=Ronald |last=Frankenberg |title=Gough , (Eleanor) Kathleen (1925–1990) |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/60257 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60257 |accessdate=8 November 2013}} </ref> and von Fürer-Haimendorf was among those who were inspired by him.<ref name="odnb" /> He loaned to the Pitt Rivers Museum, and later donated, his collection of tribal materials accumulated while in Assam.<ref name="prm" />

== Publications ==
Among Hutton's publications are:
* {{cite book |title=The Angami Nagas: With some notes on neighbouring tribes |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |year=1921 |url=https://archive.org/details/angaminagaswith00hutt}}
* {{cite book |title=The Sema Nagas |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |year=1921 |url=https://archive.org/details/semanag00hutt}}
* {{cite book |title=The Lhota Nagas: With an introduction and supplementary notes |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |year=1922 |url=https://archive.org/details/lhotanagas00mill}} (written by [[John Philip Mills]], introduction and supplementary notes by Hutton)
* {{cite book |title=The Ao Nagas |location=London |year=1926}}
* {{cite book |title=Census of India |year=1933}}
* {{cite book |title=A Primitive Philosophy of Life |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1938}}
* {{cite book |title=Caste in India: its Nature, Function and Origins |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.56768 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1946}}

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

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==
*{{cite book |title=The Concept of Race in South Asia |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Delhi |year=1995 |editor-first=Peter |editor-last=Robb |first=Crispin |last=Bates |chapter=Race, Caste and Tribe in Central India: the early origins of Indian anthropometry |isbn=978-0-19-563767-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PwNkQgAACAAJ}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hutton, John Henry}}
[[Category:1885 births]]
[[Category:1968 deaths]]
[[Category:British anthropologists]]
[[Category:Indian Civil Service (British India) officers]]
[[Category:Fellows of St Catharine's College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:High Sheriffs of Radnorshire]]
[[Category:People from Radnorshire]]
[[Category:People from West Heslerton]]
[[Category:People educated at Chigwell School]]
[[Category:Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire]]
[[Category:20th-century anthropologists]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Folklore Society]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland]]

John Henry Hutton - Revision history

imported>Chan Tuni at 09:15, 23 July 2021