Frank Lugard Brayne was born on 6 January 1882. A son of the Reverend R. T. W. Brayne, he attended
Monkton Combe School before being admitted to
Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he held a scholarship and Emma Charlotte Lugard, daughter of Frederick Grueber Lugard and sister of
Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard. Brayne passed the competitive examination for appointment to the
Indian Civil Service (ICS) in 1905. He was sent to the Punjab, where he worked for some time as secretary to Delhi Municipality during the period when the planning of
New Delhi was underway. During
World War I, he served with the
18th Lancers of the
British Indian Army, being mostly based in the Middle East. and the
Kingdom of Serbia awarded him the
Order of St. Sava, fifth class, in 1917. He was awarded the
Military Cross in 1919 while serving as a temporary lieutenant in Egypt. The citation for that award was: After the war, Brayne returned to the Punjab and in 1920 he married Iris Goodeve, a daughter of Edgar Goble. He became
district officer of
Gurgaon, some from Delhi, at a time when the area, comprising a population of around 700,000, was suffering greatly from a recent influenza epidemic, a failed monsoon and the return of soldiers from the war. To counter the deprivation, Brayne initiated what became known as the Gurgaon Scheme, in which he hoped to alleviate the plight of peasants in all its aspects by encouraging and facilitating the idea of
self-help. He wrote several books about this, including
Village Uplift in India,
Socrates in an Indian Village,
Socrates Persists in India, and
Socrates at School, as well as one comparing rural life in India with that of England. The scheme was not a success. having retired from the ICS to become welfare officer and then Commissioner for Resettlement of Soldiers in Punjab. He was survived by his wife, four sons and two daughters. == Awards ==