Keshub Chunder Sen

Submitted by obl7 on
1
Date of birth
City of birth
Calcutta
Country of birth
India
Current name city of birth
Kolkata
Date of death
Location of death
Calcutta, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain
Dates of time spent in Britain

21 March 1870 - 17 September 1870

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About

Keshub Chunder Sen was a Brahmo Samaj reformer. He visited Britain for six months in 1870. During this trip, Sen toured Britain to deliver sermons and met with a variety of political leaders, including W. E. Gladstone. Sen met Queen Victoria, who later presented him with two books.

On a visit to Bristol. Sen stayed at the house of Mary Carpenter. It was during this meeting that they decided to form the National Indian Association in aid of Social Progress, which was run by Carpenter in Britain.

Upon his return to India, Sen was involved in controversy when he arranged the marriage of his daughter (Sunity Devee) to the son of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, despite the fact that she was only thirteen years old and violated the reforms that he and the Brahmo Samaj had been campaigning for.

Connections

Annette Beveridge (née Akroyd), Mary Carpenter, Frances Cobbe, Sophia Dobson Collett, Sunity Devee, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Max Müller, Hodgson Pratt, Reverend Robert Spears.

 

Organizations
3
Published works

Diary in England (Calcutta: Brahmo Tract Society, 1886)

Secondary works

Mozoomdar, P. C., Life and Teachings of Keshub Chunder Sen (Calcutta: J. W. Thomas, Baptist Mission Press, 1887)

Kopf, David, The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (New Delhi: Archives Publishers, 1988)

Carpenter, J. Estlin, The Life and Work of Mary Carpenter (London: Macmillan, 1881)

Raychaudhury, Tapan, 'Sen, Keshub Chunder Sen (1838-1884)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004)  [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/47672]  

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Archive source

Photo, National Portrait Gallery

Letter to Rev. Robert Spears, Unitarian Minister, 1872, Mss Eur A159, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras