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Mehdi Hasan Khan
‐
Civil servant, writer and Chief Justice of Hyderabad
Other names
Mahdi Hasan Khan Fath Nawaz Jung
Place of birth
Date of arrival to Britain
Date of time spent in Britain
14 March – 29 September 1888
About
Mehdi Hasan Khan was a Hyderabadi civil servant of Lucknow origin. Born in around 1852, he met and married Ellen Gertrude Donnelly, the daughter of the Irish Resident of Lucknow. In 1883 he got a job in Hyderabad and became Chief Justice in 1886. In 1887 he was given the title Fath Nawaz Jung by the Nizam.
In 1888 he was deputed by the Nizam to travel to London regarding a case involving the Hyderabad (Deccan) Mining Company. During his time in Britain, Khan wrote a diary of observations. This was first partly published in a few edited extracts by Mary Hobhouse in the Indian Magazine in 1890. It was then also published for private circulation in 1890.
Associated with Syed Ahmed Khan and the Aligarh College, Khan arrived in England with introductions to relatives and colleagues of English officials. He was received in London by Theodore Beck's sister and invited to a 'drawing room' held by Queen Victoria in Buckingham Palace on 9 May 1888. The diaries deal with his visits to various landmarks and towns in England, describe the people he met and also provide some social commentary on British life.
Annual Cutlers' Feast at the Cutlers' Hall, Sheffield, 6 September 1888 (see The Times, 7 September 1888)
Lord and Lady Hobhouse, Miss E. A. Manning, Lord Northbrook.
Extracts from the Diary of the Nawab Mehdi Hasan Khan Fathah Nawaj Jung (London: Talbot Bros, 1890)
Khalidi, Omar (ed.) An Indian Passage to Europe: The Travels of Fath Nawaj Jang (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006)
My main objects in projecting a visit to England were to study the question of difference of nationality, to see the broad principles, political and social, wherein the Indian races differ from the English, to see how far we can meet on a common ground, to study minutely the institutions and customs of England, and to form some opinion as to the class of people that we get to rule us.
From Preface to Extracts from the Diary of the Nawab Mehdi Hasan Khan Fathah Nawaj Jung (London: Talbot Bros, 1890), pp. 3–4
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
