Gooroodas Banerjee

Sir Gooroodas Banerjee (also Gurudas Bandyopadhyay, 26 January 1844 – 2 December 1918) was a judge of the Calcutta High Court in British India. In 1890, he also became the first Indian Vice-Chancellor of University of Calcutta.

Education

He received his early education at the Oriental Seminary, and the Hare School at the Presidency College Calcutta, the General Assembly's Institution (now Scottish Church College), the University of Calcutta. He obtained an M.A. with a focus on Mathematics in 1865, winning a University medal for attaining first place in his examinations, and passed the B.L. examination in 1866. The Tagore Law Lectures were later published as a legal text on Hindu marriage laws. He was also the President of the Board of Mathematics and Sanskrit during this time. The professor who holds this post comes to be known as Sir Gooroodas Banerjee Professor. There are two undergraduate colleges in Kolkata that commemorate his name, the Gurudas College and the Sir Gurudas Mahavidyalaya. In memoirs of him, Sir Gurudas Banerjee Halt railway station was established in sub urban railway of Kolkata.

Banerjee was quite well known for his devotion to his mother who was very orthodox in her ways of life. Every day, he would bring the sacred Ganges water for her mother. She, on her deathbed, ordered her son Sir Gurudas to invite Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar to her obsequies. Vidyasagar had by this time become an object of attack by the orthodox Brahmins owing to his introduction of widow remarriage. Defying all social obstacles, Sir Gurudas invited Vidyasagar to his mother's funeral to fulfill her last wish.