started with three distinguished men
on 15th May 1878.
These three were
Ananda Mohan Bose,
Shibchandra Deb and
Umesh Chandra Datta.
These three were
initiated into the
Brahmo Samaj of India by Keshub
Chandra Sen . Shibchandra Deb
became the first secretary of the
Samaj and Ananda Mohan Bose the
first president with Gurucharan
Mahalanobish as the Treasurer. The
foundation stone of the new mandir
was laid on 23rd January 1879 by
Shibchandra Deb. It was 49 years
since Rammohun Roy had
consecrated his first theistic church
on the same day in 1830.
The principal members
of the progressive
faction that formed this
Samaj were as follows.
Sivnath Shastri (1847 -
1919) - educationist,
Shibchandra Deb (b.
1811) - civil servant, Monomohan
Ghosh - barrister, Durga Mohan Das
- barrister, Dwarkanath Ganguli -
journalist and educator,
Umeshchandra Datta - educator,
Ananda Mohan Bose - India's first
wrangler from Cambridge and
barrister and Nagendranath
Chatterjee - missionary. A Building
sub committee was formed to
oversee the construction of a new
chapel and the Executive committee
donated a months salary in this
regard. The committee purchased a
suitable piece of land on Cornwallis
Street (now Bidhan Sarani).
Debendranath Tagore on hearing the
plea of the committee donated seven
thousand rupees as a sympathy with
this project. As a result the
construction was commenced. The new
mandir was consecrated on 22nd
January 1881.
The said building of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj of 211, Bidhan Sarani as
seen in the picture.
A. B.
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