Description

A.C. Macnabb of Macnab, I.C.S.

Given by Mrs. Macnabb of Macnab Senior

India General 1790-1886; Punjab, 1911-1948 Nepal, Pakistan

Memoir: ‘Unto the third and fourth generation: an episode in Indian history’ by A.C. Macnabb of Macnab. Lithographed, 334 pp; foolscap. Completed 1969. Printed 1972.

• Chapters 1-6. History of clan and family in India from 1790, including in chapter 4 long excerpts from a Mutiny letter describing the whole event of the greased cartridges in the 3rd N.I. and the punishment of the offenders, in Meerut, 10 May 1857. History of Donald Campbell Macnabb, in India 1852-1886 Lahore, Rawalpindi. Attack during Mutiny. Deputy Commissioner: Jhelum 1857-8; Sialkot 1861-64; Simla 1872-74; Commissioner: Ambala 1874-84; Delhi 1884-86 lived in Ludlow Castle.
• Chapter 7. Autobiography begins.
• Chapters 8-11. In India: arrival at Bombay 1911. Posted to Lahore as Assistant Commissioner, Hazara. Life in Hazara. Ferozepore for Settlement training – takes departmental exams. Returns to Ferozepore as a magistrate.
• Chapters 12-14. Delhi: 1914 as City Magistrate under Colonel Beadon. Description of reorganisation of local city govt. as Secretary to the Municipal Committee. Closing wells – writes Delhi Municipal Manual and Delhi Municipal history. Lahore: A.D.C. to Sir Michael O’Dwyer in Delhi. Biographical sketch of him. Burmese holiday etc. Difference in lives of Civil Servants there and in India. Portrait of his brother, Commissioner at Magwe, tackling famine in C.P. in 1897-1900.
• Chapter 15. Home Leave.
• Chapter 16. Lahore – Assistant to Deputy Commissioner, Colonel Michael Ferrar (q.v.) Deputy Commissioner of Karnal in Ambala Division – Disperses a riot with 40 police only. Compares dispersing this riot with Amritsar, and defends Dyer. Meets Sir Percy Sykes and General Orbon. Sun eclipse fair in 1922. Jat women. Meets Frank Lugard Brayne – biographical sketch.
• Chapter 17. Subdivisional officer – Rupar. Interim charge of Ambala District. Charge of Shahpur District. Description of Tiwana tribe. Describes life in Sargodha, the work, club, country and problems, and a typical day. Roads and road making.
• Chapter 18. Secretariat: Lahore – Finance.
• Chapter 19. Home leave.
• Chapters 20-21. District Magistrate in Attock. Describes district, touring and work – his wife. accompanying him. Secretariat, Lahore. Social life in Simla. All India Health Week competition -vaccinations.
• Chapters 22-24. 1934 ? takes over Rawalpindi Division. Description of daily work. Short biographical sketch of Chief Justice Sir Douglas Young. Commissioner in Rawalpindi. Gives resume of his work as District Officer for previous eight years. Recalls a Sikh agitation in Sargodha colony of Shahpur District. Riverraine crimes. Brayne’s ‘uplift’ programme. Resumé of his work in Rawalpindi.
• Chapter 25. Home leave.
• Chapter 26. 1937 – Administrator of Lahore Municipality. The difficulties of launching a sanitation scheme for the city. Terminal tax. Efforts to stamp out corruption. Sir James Roberts’ treatment for tuberculosis. His wife’s welfare work. Describes his own work.
• Chapter 27. Describes a holiday by car to Ceylon, Bangalore and visits Sir James Roberts’ experimental villages – gives biographical sketch of him.
• Chapter 28. Commissioner of Jullundur Division 1940-45 ? describes house and work. Comments on the Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900.
• Chapter 29. Reclamation of grazing land in Hoshiarpur District under Arthur Hamilton.
• Chapter 30. Open air cinema show in the Tahsil of Zira. Describes a typical village inspection. Brief biographical sketch of Miss Emily Kinnaird, then aged 86. Gives the number of days and miles spent touring in one year and average costings for his time in Jullundur.
• Chapter 31. Canadian mission.at Palampur, Kangra District. Describes tour of Kangra District. Briefly on the Spitials.
• Chapter 32. Ending of dacoity in Ferozepore District. Touring in the northern hills.
• Chapter 33. Briefly comments on Congress Party. Entertained by Raja Baldeo Singh, at Gulex.
• Chapter 34. Visit to Thakur Abbe Chand at Lahaul in Kangsar. Gives record of his wife’s activities in the winter of 1944-5. Short passages on the failure to iodise the Kangra salt; the fight against malaria carrying mosquitoes by the introduction of gambusia fish; successful attempt to allow girls to enter in the primary classes of the middle schools; his use of Brayne’s Socrates in an Indian Village.
• Chapter 35. Nepal, 1945 – guests of Colonel Norman Macleod- attends Investiture of new Maharajah. Succeeds Sir James Penny as Financial Commissioner.
• Chapter 36. Describes his work.
• Chapter 37. Retires to Britain. Financial settlements.
• Chapter 38. Returns to Pakistan in 1948 with Friedel Peter (missionary) to help him with his Technical Services Association for displaced persons. Describes work in some detail- particularly with Christian Protestants in West Punjab.
• Chapter 39. Acquires home in Scotland.
• Chapter 40. Evaluation of F.L. Brayne and his work.
• Chapter 41. Speculates on whether the partition of India could have been avoided.
• Appendix A. Extracts from his wife’s letters written from Jullundur. Describes her life and the touring and her work with the village women. Detailed description of their visit to Lahaul.
• Appendix B. Extracts from his confidential Reports to the Punjab Government from Jullundur, 1940-1946, touching on many different subjects such as roads, canals, forestry, health, crime.
• Appendix C. Scots Law in connection with the principals of Indian Law.
• Appendix D. Macnabb family history.

Additional papers given by The Macnab of Macnabb

National Register of Archives (Scotland)

Eastern Survey: Macnab of Macnabb: Killin

Catalogues of collection of family papers, largely correspondence, some of which relates to India; mainly 19th and 20th centuries. August 1974.