Mehdi Hasan Khan

Submitted by obl7 on
Other names

Mahdi Hasan Khan Fath Nawaz Jung

1
Date of birth
Precise DOB unknown
Y
City of birth
Fathpur (30 miles from Lucknow)
Country of birth
India
Date of death
Date of 1st arrival in Britain
Dates of time spent in Britain

14 March - 29 September 1888

2
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 Sayyid Ahmad 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, the people he met and also provide some social commentary on British life.

Connections

Lord and Lady Hobhouse, Miss E. A. Manning, Lord Northbrook.

Organizations
Involved in events

Annual Cutlers' Feast at the Cutlers' Hall, Sheffield, 6 September 1888 [see The Times, 7 September 1888]

3
Published works

Extracts from the Diary of the Nawab Mehdi Hasan Khan Fathah Nawaj Jung (London: Talbot Bros, 1890)

Reviews

Hobhouse, Mary, 'London Sketched by an Indian Pen', Indian Magazine 230 (February 1890), pp. 61-73

Hobhouse, Mary, 'Further Sketches by an Indian Pen', Indian Magazine 231 (March 1890), pp. 139-49

Daily News, 4 February 1890 (review of Hobhouse's article).

Secondary works

Khalidi, Omar (ed.), An Indian Passage to Europe: The Travels of Fath Nawaj Jang (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006)

4
Example

From Preface to Extracts from the Diary of the Nawab Mehdi Hasan Khan Fathah Nawaj Jung (London: Talbot Bros, 1890) pp. 3-4.

Extract

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.