Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cumming, James (d.1827)
CUMMING, JAMES (d. 1827), official in the India Office, son of Alexander Cumming [q. v.], watchmaker, of Bond Street, entered the service of the board of control in 1793 as a clerk. In 1807 he was appointed head of the revenue and judicial department under the board of control, which post he held until 1823, when he retired with his health broken down by overwork. According to the statement drawn up by himself and published in 1825, with a view to obtaining a pension equal to his salary of 1,000l. a year, he assisted in drawing up the fifth report of the select committee of the House of Commons on the internal government of Madras, for which he was voted a gratuity of 500l. in 1814, and 300l. in 1816. He also quotes in this pamphlet the minute of the board of control on his retirement in 1823, and the testimony of Canning, the Right Hon. John Sulivan, Lord Teignmouth, and Lord Binning to the efficiency of his services. In 1824 Lord Liverpool gave his sister, Miss Cumming, a pension of 200l. a year, after a laudatory notice of his services in a speech of Lord Binning's on the Superannuation Bill in the House of Commons on 12 June 1854. He died at Lovell Hill Cottage, Berkshire, on 23 Jan. 1827, and as in the notice of his death he is spoken of as an F.S.A., he is probably the same James Cumming, F.S.A., who published an edition of Owen Felltham's ‘Resolves’ in 1806, with a dedication to the Duke of Gloucester.
[Gent. Mag. February 1827; Brief Notice of the Services of Mr. Cumming, late head of the Revenue and Judicial Department in the office of the Right Hon. the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, 20 July 1825.]