India He entered the
East India Company's
Bengal civil service as a writer in 1826, having displayed from an early age a great proficiency in Asian languages and dialects. On 4 January 1827, Trevelyan was appointed assistant to Sir
Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, the commissioner at
Delhi, where, during a residence of four years, he was entrusted with the conduct of several important missions. For some time he acted as guardian to the youthful
Madhu Singh, the
Rajah of
Bhurtpore. He also worked to improve the condition of the native population. He abolished the transit duties by which the internal trade of India had long been fettered. For these and other services, he received the special thanks of the governor-general in council. Before leaving Delhi, he donated personal funds for construction of a broad street through a new suburb, then in course of erection, which thenceforth became known as Trevelyanpur. In 1831, he moved to Calcutta, and became deputy secretary to the government in the political department. Trevelyan was especially zealous in the cause of education, and in 1835, largely owing to his persistence, government was led to decide in favour of the promulgation of European literature and science among the Indians. An account of the efforts of government, entitled
On the Education of the People of India, was published by Trevelyan in 1838. In April 1836, he was nominated secretary to the Sudder board of revenue, an office he had held until his return in January 1838.
Role in the Irish Famine On 21 January 1840, he entered on the duties of assistant secretary to
Her Majesty's Treasury in London, and discharged the functions of that office for nineteen years. In Ireland, he administered the relief works of 1845–47, when upwards of 734,000 men were employed by the government during the
Great Famine. Altogether, about a million people in Ireland are reliably estimated to have died of starvation and epidemic disease between 1846 and 1851, and some two million emigrated in a period of a little more than a decade (1845–55). On 27 April 1848, Trevelyan was appointed as a
KCB in reward of his services. The Great Famine in Ireland began as a catastrophe of extraordinary magnitude, but its effects were severely worsened by the actions and inactions of the Whig government, headed by
Lord John Russell in the crucial years from 1846 to 1852. Many members of the British upper and middle classes believed that the famine was a divine judgment—an act of Providence although these views also existed in the Irish Catholic Church. A leading exponent of the providentialist perspective was Trevelyan, who was chiefly responsible for administering Irish relief policy throughout the famine years. In his book
The Irish Crisis, published in 1848, Trevelyan later described the famine as "a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence", one which laid bare "the deep and inveterate root of social evil", that evil being Ireland's rural economic system of exploitative landlords and peasants overly dependent on the potato. The famine, he declared, was "the sharp but effectual remedy by which the cure is likely to be effected... God grant that the generation to which this great opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part and we may not relax our efforts until Ireland fully participates in the social health and physical prosperity of Great Britain." This mentality of Trevelyan's was influential in persuading the government to do nothing to restrain mass evictions. Historians disagree concerning Trevelyan's responsibility for famine relief policy in Ireland, and what exactly was his role in it. Karen Sonnelitter discusses the subject in her
edited collection of primary sources,
The Great Irish Famine: A History in Documents. During the
Great Famine, specifically 1846, the
Whig–Liberal Government held power in Britain, with Trevelyan acting as treasurer. In this position Trevelyan had considerable influence over the parliament's decisions, especially the plans for the relief effort in Ireland. Along with the Whig government, he believed Ireland needed to correct itself and that a
laissez-faire attitude was the best solution. Though the efforts made by Trevelyan did not produce any permanent remedy to the situation, he believed that if the British Government gave Ireland all that was necessary to survive, the Irish people would come to rely on the British government instead of fixing their problems. In the summer of 1846, Trevelyan ordered the Peelite Relief Programmes, which had been operating since the early years of the famine, to be shut down. This was done on 21 July 1846 by
Sir Charles Wood. Trevelyan believed that if the relief continued while a new food crisis was unfolding, the poor would become permanently conditioned to having the state take care of them. After the end of the Peelite Relief Programs, the Whig–Liberal government instituted the Labour Rate Act, which provided aid only to the most severely affected areas of the famine. Trevelyan said in his 9 October 1846 letter to Lord Monteagle that "the government establishments are strained to the utmost to alleviate this great calamity and avert this danger" as was within their power so to do. Trevelyan praised the government and denounced the Irish gentry in his letter, blaming them for the famine. In his letter to Lord Monteagle, Trevelyan identified the gentry with the "defective part of the national character" and chastised them for expecting the government to fix everything, "as if they have themselves no part to perform in this great crisis." This existed alongside other assisted emigration paid for by the landlords of those travelling (estimated at nearly 11,000 people), where tenants had sufficient funds, voluntary emigration, and the work of the
Colonial Land and Emigration Commission. Trevelyan likewise supported Irish emigration, saying "We must not complain of what we really want to obtain".
Civil Service Reform In 1853, Trevelyan proposed the organisation of a new system for hiring of people in the government civil service. The
Northcote–Trevelyan Report, signed by himself and
Sir Stafford Northcote in November 1853, entitled
The Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service, laid the foundation for securing the admission of qualified and educated persons into positions that had been dominated by members of aristocratic and influential families who benefitted by personal networks. It was intended to be a merit system.
Return to India In 1858,
Lord Harris resigned the governorship of the presidency of
Madras, and Trevelyan was offered the appointment. Having maintained his knowledge of oriental affairs by close attention to all subjects affecting the interest of India, he entered upon his duties as governor of Madras in the spring of 1859. He soon became popular in the presidency. It is claimed that due to his conduct in office, the natives became reconciled to the government. An assessment was carried out, a police system organised in every part, and, contrary to the traditions of the
East India Company, land was sold in
fee simple to any one who wished to purchase. These and other reforms introduced or developed by Trevelyan won the gratitude and esteem of the Madras population. All went well until February 1860. Towards the close of 1859,
James Wilson had been appointed financial member of the legislative council of India. At the beginning of the new year, he proposed a plan of retrenchment and taxation by which he hoped to improve the financial position of the British administration: his plan was introduced at
Calcutta, the seat of government, on 18 February, and transmitted to Madras. On 4 March, an open telegram was sent to Calcutta implying an adverse opinion of this proposal by the governor and council of Madras. On 9 March, a letter was sent to Madras stating the central government's objection to the transmission of such a message in an open telegram at a time when native feeling could not be considered stable. At the same time, the representative of the Madras government in the legislative council of India was prohibited from following the instructions of his superiors to lay their views upon the table and to advocate on their behalf. On 21 March, the government sent another telegram to Madras declaring the bill would be introduced and referred to a committee which was due to report in five weeks. On 26 March, opinions among Trevelyan and his council were recorded and, on his authority, the document found its way into the papers. On arrival of this intelligence in Britain, the Governor of Madras was at once recalled. This decision occasioned much discussion both in and out of
Parliament. Defending the recall of Trevelyan,
Palmerston, in his place in Parliament, said:
Sir Charles Wood, the
President of the Board of Control, said: In 1862, Trevelyan returned to India as finance minister. His tenure of office was marked by important administrative reforms and by extensive measures for the development of
natural resources in India by means of public works. In 1862, Colonel
Douglas Hamilton was given a
roving commission by Trevelyan to conduct surveys and make drawings for the Government of all the
hill plateaus in Southern India which were likely to suit as Sanitaria, or quarters for European troops. On his return home in 1865, Trevelyan became engaged in discussions of the question of army purchase, on which he had given evidence before the royal commission in 1857. Later he was associated with a variety of social questions, such as charities,
pauperism, and the like, and in the treatment of these. He was a staunch
Liberal, and gave his support to the Liberal cause in
Northumberland, while residing at
Wallington Hall in that county. Trevelyan died at 67 Eaton Square, London, on 19 June 1886, aged 79. ==Legacy and honours==