The National Indian Association was formed in Bristol by Mary Carpenter. The London branch was formed the following year.[ timeframe? ] After the death of Mary Carpenter, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning (E. A. Manning) became secretary and the organisation moved to London where its activities became synonymous with Manning.
The National Indian Association in Aid of Social Progress in India was formed by Mary Carpenter in 1870 in Bristol. [1] Its first objective was to improve education for Indian women. [1] Carpenter had visited India in 1866 and she had written about her six months there. She was particularly concerned by the lack of female teachers to educate Hindu girls. [2] The London branch of the association was formed the following year by Charlotte Manning and her step daughter Elizabeth Adelaide Manning. [3] Cities in both the UK and India had local branches of the society. [1]
From 1874 to her death in 1878 Princess Alice was President of the association, she was also the first to subscribe to the Indian Girls' Scholarship Fund, a fund set up by the Association to grant annual scholarships for Indian girls in government inspected schools. [4]
In 1881 the society spawned an offshoot named the Northbrook Indian Society (NIA) after the Earl of Northbrook, ex-viceroy of India, who was the new society's Honorary President. The Northbrook society had been conceived two years before and in 1880 the new society was running a reading room stocked with both English and Indian newspapers. This society grew to also supply lodgings for visiting Indian students. [5] In 1882 the NIA launched Medical Women for India which was an initiative to train female doctors so that they could work on assisting women in India. The NIA also took an interest in students from India who were studying in Britain. E. A. Manning created a book of guidance called Handbook of information relating to university and professional studies etc. for Indian students in the United Kingdom. Manning's help was not just theoretical, [6] in 1888 Cornelia Sorabji wrote to the National Indian Association from India for assistance in completing her education. This was championed by Mary Hobhouse, and Manning contributed funds together with Florence Nightingale, Sir William Wedderburn and others. Sorabji arrived in England in 1889 and stayed with Manning and Hobhouse. Sorabji became the first woman to complete a law degree at Oxford and kept in contact with the NIA during her later career. [7]
In 1904 E. A. Manning was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal by the King for services to the British Raj. [8] She died the following year and Emma Josephine Beck was appointed as the new secretary. Beck was at an NIA event in 1909 where William Hutt Curzon Wyllie was assassinated by Madan Lal Dhingra. [9]
In 1910 the society was at 21 Cromwell Street in South Kensington where it shared premises with the Northbrook Society and the Bureau for Information for Indian Students. [5]
The association went into a decline in the 1920s but it did not formally end operations until 1966. The organisation had merged with the East India Association after India left the British Empire and it eventually became part of the Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon. [1]
Thomas George Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook, was a British Liberal statesman. Gladstone appointed him Governor-General of India 1872–1876. His major accomplishments came as an energetic reformer who was dedicated to upgrading the quality of government in the British Raj. He reduced taxes and overcame bureaucratic obstacles in an effort to reduce both starvation and widespread social unrest. He served as First Lord of the Admiralty between 1880 and 1885.
Bedford College was founded in London in 1849 as the first higher education college for women in the United Kingdom. In 1900, it became a constituent of the University of London. Having played a leading role in the advancement of women in higher education and public life in general, it became fully coeducational in the 1960s. In 1985, Bedford College merged with Royal Holloway College, another constituent of the University of London, to form Royal Holloway and Bedford New College. This remains the official name, but it is commonly called Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL).
Mary Carpenter was an English educational and social reformer. The daughter of a Unitarian minister, she founded a ragged school and reformatories, bringing previously unavailable educational opportunities to poor children and young offenders in Bristol.
Sarah Emily Davies was an English feminist who founded Girton College, Cambridge. She campaigned as a suffragist and for women's rights to university education. In her early life, she attended meetings of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science and befriended Barbara Bodichon and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. After moving to London with her mother in 1862, she wrote for and edited the English Woman's Journal and joined the Langham Place Group. She co-founded the London Schoolmistresses' Association and the Kensington Society, which pressured for universal suffrage, although she herself believed only unmarried women and widows should gain the vote.
The London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW) established in 1874 was the first medical school in Britain to train women as doctors. The patrons, vice-presidents, and members of the committee that supported and helped found the London School of Medicine for Women wanted to provide educated women with the necessary facilities for learning and practicing midwifery and other branches of medicine while also promoting their future employment in the fields of midwifery and other fields of treatment for women and children.
The Kaisar-i-Hind Medal for Public Service in India was a medal awarded by the Emperor/Empress of India between 1900 and 1947, to "any person without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex ... who shall have distinguished himself by important and useful service in the advancement of the public interest in India."
Helen Mary Mayo was an Australian medical doctor and medical educator, born and raised in Adelaide. In 1896, she enrolled at the University of Adelaide, where she studied medicine. After graduating, Mayo spent two years working in infant health in England, Ireland and British India. She returned to Adelaide in 1906, starting a private practice and taking up positions at the Adelaide Children's Hospital and Adelaide Hospital.
Cornelia Sorabji was an Indian lawyer, social reformer and writer. She was the first female graduate from Bombay University, and the first woman to study law at Oxford University. Returning to India after her studies at Oxford, Sorabji became involved in social and advisory work on behalf of the purdahnashins, women who were forbidden to communicate with the outside male world, but she was unable to defend them in court since, as a woman, she did not hold professional standing in the Indian legal system. Hoping to remedy this, Sorabji presented herself for the LLB examination of Bombay University in 1897 and the pleader's examination of Allahabad High Court in 1899. She became the first female advocate in India but would not be recognised as a barrister until the law which barred women from practising was changed in 1923.
Dame Mary Ann Dacomb Scharlieb, DBE was a pioneer British female physician and gynaecologist in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. She had worked in India and by her persistence she returned to the UK to become a qualified doctor. She returned to Madras and eventually lectured in London. She was the first woman to be elected to the honorary visiting staff of a hospital in the UK and one of the most distinguished women in medicine of her generation.
Shasipada Banerjee was a teacher, social worker and leader of the Brahmo Samaj who is remembered as a champion of women's rights and education and as one of the earliest workers for labour welfare in India. He was the founder of several girls' schools, a widow's home, temperance societies, a workers' organisation and the editor of the journal Bharat Sramajibi.
The Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship (1901–present) is a voluntary charitable organisation that connects people from Commonwealth countries. There are currently branches in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand with affiliated organisations in Canada and the USA. It is headquartered in Bayswater, London, United Kingdom.
Mary Poonen Lukose was an Indian gynecologist, obstetrician and the first female Surgeon General in India. She was the founder of a Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Nagarcoil and the X-Ray and Radium Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, served as the head of the Health Department in the Princely State of Travancore and was the first woman legislator of the state. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri in 1975.
Charlotte Manning was a British feminist, scholar and writer. She was the first head of Girton College.
Elizabeth Adelaide Manning was a British writer and editor. She championed kindergartens. She was one of the first students to attend Girton College. Manning was active for the National Indian Association which championed education and the needs of women in India.
Rukhmabai was an Indian physician and feminist. She is best known for being one of the first practicing women doctors in colonial India as well as being involved in a landmark legal case involving her marriage as a child bride between 1884 and 1888. The case raised significant public debate across several topics, which most prominently included law vs tradition, social reform vs conservatism and feminism in both British-ruled India and England. This ultimately contributed to the Age of Consent Act in 1891.
Hon. Emily Kinnaird CBE or Emily Cecilia Kinnaird was an English missionary and writer. She was active for the Young Women's Christian Association and she had a long association with India.
Francina Ford Sorabji was an Indian educator.
Alice Maude Sorabji Pennell OBE was an Indian physician and writer. She was the daughter and wife of Christian missionaries, and the first woman in India to earn a bachelor of science degree.
Dwarkanath Gangopadhyay was a Brahmo reformer in Bengal, British India. He made substantial contributions towards societal enlightenment and the emancipation of women. Ganguly dedicated his life to the latter cause, encouraging women to participate in politics and the social services. He was the husband of the first female Indian physician, Kadambini Ganguly.
Susila Anita Bonnerjee was a medical doctor, educator and suffragist who advocated for women's education and health in England and India in the late 1800s.