Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/446

 government. Sir Evelyn Wood, then a young officer, who visited Allahabad at the time, regarded him as the cleverest man in India (From Midshipman to Field-Marshal). He succeeded to the baronetcy in February 1861, and went back to Oudh as judicial commissioner in 1863. From April 1871 he acted as chief commissioner of the province, and was confirmed in the appointment in December 1873. In that office he carefully revised the land assessments, which had been hurriedly settled, and created a separate establishment to administer encumbered taluqdari estates.

On the retirement of Sir John Strachey [q. v. Suppl. II] in July 1876, Couper was made acting lieutenant-governor of the north-western provinces, while retaining his control of Oudh. The long-pending reform of partial amalgamation of Oudh with the larger province under a single head was thereby accomplished. On 17 Jan. 1877 Couper became the first 'lieutenant-governor of the north-western province and chief commissioner of Oudh.' The change was unwelcome to the taluqdars; but Couper's tact rendered the new union thoroughly successful.

Couper handled a widespread famine in 1877-8 with strict business-like efficiency. By careful conservation of provincial resources, which was occasionally censured as parsimony, he was able to initiate a policy of canal and light railway construction, and to leave accumulated balances of about a million sterling for its development by his successor, Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall [q. v. Suppl. II]. Owing to the decision of the government of India not to allow the railways to be 'provincial' undertakings, the united provinces of Agra and Oudh, as they have been named since 1901, did not reap full financial benefit from Couper's economy. But his programme of construction was closely followed. Material progress was the keynote of his policy; he developed the agricultural department, so that it became a model for other provinces; and he heartily encouraged Indian industrial enterprises, such as the 'Couper' paper mills at Lucknow. He was created K.C.S.I and a councillor of the empire in January 1877, and C.I.E. a year later. On his retirement in April 1882 he declined, with characteristic modesty, the proposal of the Husainabad Endowment Trustees, Lucknow, to erect a statue in his memory, and as an alternative they built a clock tower.

After residing at Cheltenham for a few years Sir George settled at Camberley, where he died on 5 March 1908, being buried in St. Michael's churchyard there. Couper married on 29 April 1852 Caroline Penelope, granddaughter of Sir Henry Every, ninth baronet, of Eggington Hall, Burton-on-Trent; she died on 28 Nov. 1910, and was buried beside her husband. By her Couper had a family of five sons and four daughters; one of the latter, who died young, was born in the Lucknow residency during the siege. The eldest son, Sir Ramsay George Henry, succeeded as third baronet.

 COUSIN,. ANNE ROSS (1824–1906), hymn-writer, only child of David Ross Cundell, M.D., an assistant surgeon of the 33rd regiment at Waterloo, was born in Hull on 27 April 1824, her family removing soon after to Leith. Educated, privately, she became an expert pianist under John Muir Wood. In 1847 she married William Cousin, minister of Chelsea presbyterian church, who was subsequently called to the Free church at Irvine, Ayrshire, and thence in 1859 to Melrose. He retired to Edinburgh in 1878 and died there in 1883. Mrs. Cousin survived him for twenty-three years, dying in Edinburgh on 6 Dec. 1906. In 1910 a stained-glass window to her memory was placed in St. Aidan's United Free church, Melrose. She had four sons and two daughters. A son, John W. Cousin, who died in December 1910, compiled 'A Biographical Dictionary of English Literature,' published in Dent's 'Everyman's Library.'

Mrs. Cousin is best known by her hymn 'The sands of time are sinking,' written at Irvine in 1854. 'I wrote it,' she said, 'as I sat at work one Saturday evening, and though I threw it off at that time, it was the result of long familiarity with the writings of Samuel Rutherford, especially his Letters.' The original was in nineteen stanzas, and appeared first in 'The Christian Treasury' in 1857, under the heading 'Last Words of Samuel Rutherford.' It did not become generally known until the Rev. Dr. J. Hood Wilson, of the Barclay church, Edinburgh, introduced a shortened version of five verses (only the fourth and 