Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee

Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee (or Umesh Chandra Banerjee; 29 December 1844 – 21 July 1906) was an Indian independence activist and barrister who practised in England. He was a secretary of the London Indian Society founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1865. He was one of the founders and the first president of Indian National Congress in 1885 at Bombay, serving again as president in 1892 at Allahabad. Bonnerjee financed the British Committee of Congress and its journals in London. Along with Naoroji, Eardley Norton and William Digby he started the Congress Political Agency, a branch of Congress in London. He unsuccessfully contested the 1892 United Kingdom general election as a Liberal party candidate for the Barrow and Furness seat. In 1893, Naoroji, Bonnerjee and Badruddin Tyabji founded the Indian Parliamentary Committee in England.

Family Bonnerjee was born on 29 December 1844 at Calcutta (now Kolkata), in the present-day state of West Bengal.

Early days

Bonnerjee studied at the Oriental Seminary and the Hindu School. On his return to Calcutta in 1868, he found a patron in Sir Charles Paul, Barrister-at-Law of the Calcutta High Court. Another barrister, J. P. Kennedy, also greatly helped him to establish his reputation as a lawyer. Within a few years he became the most sought after barrister in the High Court. He was the first Indian to act as a Standing Counsel, in which capacity he officiated four times 1882, 1884, 1886-87. In 1883 he defended Surendranath Banerjee in the famous contempt of court case against him in the Calcutta High Court. He was the fellow of Calcutta University and was the president of its law faculty In the 1886 session held at Calcutta, under the presidency of Dadabhai Naoroji, he proposed the formation of standing committees of the Congress in each province for the better co-ordination of its work and it was on this occasion that he advocated that the Congress should confine its activities to political matters only, leaving the question of social reforms to other organisations. He was the president of the Indian National Congress again in the 1892 session in Allahabad He moved to Britain and practised before the Privy Council. When Bonnerjee became the Congress president Naoroji along with him, Eardley Norton and William Digby opened The Congress Political Agency, a branch of Congress in London. while another daughter, Susila Anita Bonnerjee was a doctor, teacher, and suffragette. Among Bonnerjee's grandsons through his daughter Pramila Chaudhuri were General Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri, 5th Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army, and Kali Prasad Choudhuri, a pilot officer in the Royal Indian Air Force killed in action in 1941.

Bonnerjee died at his Croydon home 'Kidderpore', 8 Bedford Park, on 21 July 1906. His estate, assessed for probate on 17 August at £8,884 15s. 4d. (equivalent to £ in ), was left to his widow, who subsequently returned to India, surviving him by four years.