The idea of the Indian National Union took shape and Hume initially had some support from Lord Dufferin for this, although the latter wished to have no official link to it. Dufferin's support was short-lived and in some of his letters he went so far as to call Hume an "idiot", "arch-impostor", and "mischievous busy-body." Dufferin's successor Lansdowne refused to have any dialogue with Hume. Other supporters in England included James Caird (who had also clashed with Lytton over the management of famine in India) and John Bright. Hume also founded an Indian Telegraph Union to fund the transfer of news of Indian matters to newspapers in England and Scotland without interference from British Indian officials who controlled telegrams sent by Reuters. It has been suggested that the idea of the congress was originally conceived in a private meeting of seventeen men after a Theosophical Convention held at Madras in December 1884 but no evidence exists. Hume took the initiative, and it was in March 1885, when a notice was first issued to convene the first Indian National Union to meet at Poona the following December.