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Pherozeshah Merwanjee Mehta
‐
Barrister who trained in London and was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress
Place of birth
Date of arrival to Britain
Location(s)
London
WC2A 3TL
United Kingdom
Place of death
India
Date of time spent in Britain
1865–8
About
Pherozeshah Mehta travelled to London on a Rustomjee Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy scholarship to train as a barrister from 1865. He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 16 January 1865 and was called to the Bar on 30 April 1868. During his time in London he met with Dadabhai Naoroji and became involved in the East India Association. He returned to Bombay in 1868 to take up a career as a barrister and a legal advisor to princely rulers.
In Bombay, Mehta was involved in the Bombay branch of the East India Association and the reformist Bombay Association. With K. T. Telang and Badruddin Tyabji, he founded the Bombay Presidency Association in 1885 and was one of the prominent organizers of the first session of the Indian National Congress in 1885. He served as its President in 1890.
Mehta founded a leading English-language nationalist newspaper in Bombay, the Bombay Chronicle. He died of a heart attack in 1915. He is remembered as one of India’s leading nationalists.
Jeejeebhoy, J. R. B. (ed.) Some Unpublished and Later Speeches and Writings of the Hon. Sir Pherozeshah Mehta (Bombay: Commercial Press, 1918)
Masselos, Jim, ‘Mehta, Sir Pherozeshah Merwanjee (1845–1915), politician and Indian nationalist’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/]
Mody, Homi, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta: A Political Biography (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1963)
Roxburgh, Ronald (ed.) The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn: The Black Books (London: Lincoln’s Inn, 1968)
Sharafi, Mitra, ‘Indian Constitutionalism, the Rule of Law, and Parsi Legal Culture’, Indian Law Review 7.3 (2023), pp. 259–80
Image credit
Pherozeshah Mehta, 1996 stamp of India
Copyright Government of India, licensed under the Government Open Data License – India (GODL), via Wikimedia Commons
