Vembaukum Sadagopacharlu

Vembaukum Sadagopacharlu (died 1863) was an Indian lawyer, jurist, banker, and statesman, who was the first native Indian member of the Madras Legislative Council, serving from 1861 to until his 1863 death, and one of the first Indians to achieve wealth and renown in the courts of British India, doing both alongside his brother, religious reformer and minor polymath V. Rajagopalacharlu, in the judicial system of the Madras Presidency, in which they were leading Vakils, he himself being the first Indian to become one. He belonged to the influential Vembaukum family.

Early life Sadagopacharlu hailed from the village of Vembakkam near Kanchipuram. He matriculated from the Presidency College, Madras in 1858 and studied law. Soon, he enrolled himself as a lawyer, and along with his reportedly "even more brilliant" At a time when the typical remuneration of a lawyer of the Madras High Court was 10,000 rupees for participating in a case, His younger brother would also die prematurely, at 38, shortly after accidentally shooting and killing their sister's husband in 1878.

Politics Sadagopacharlu was nominated to the Madras Legislative Council in 1861 and served until his death in 1863. Gazulu Lakshminarasu Chetty was appointed to fill the seat left by his death.