Bonnerjee

Susila Anita Bonnerjee

About: 

Susila Bonnerjee (known as Susie) was the daughter of W. C. Bonnerjee and his wife, Hemangini. Born in India, she first moved to England as a child and lived in the family house in Croydon. Her parents travelled between England and India frequently with the intention to educate all their children in England. Susila attended the Croydon High School for Girls and then gained admission to Newnham College, Cambridge in 1891 (as her sister had). Susila was awarded a second class in her Part 1 exams in 1894. She then joined the London School of Medicine for Women, and was attached to the Royal Free Hospital. Susila gained her MB degree in 1899.

A little later she returned to India and worked in Calcutta and at the St Stephen's Mission at Delhi. After her father's death in 1906, Susila took up research work at Cambridge. She was Demonstrator of Physiology in Balfour Laboratory, Newnham College, 1910-12, and was in private practice at Ealing for five years. In 1911 she became Secretary of the Indian Women’s Education Association, which was involved in raising funds to educate Indian women in England in methods of teaching. During the war, in 1915, she went to Calcutta but returned to England in early 1916. She left for India again in 1918 due to declining health and died in September 1920 in Lahore.

Connections: 

W. C. Bonnerjee, Janaki Agnes Majumdar (sister).

Through the Indian Women's Education Association: Countess of Minto (President), Lady Lyall and Princess Sophia Duleep Singh (Vice-President), Maharani of Cooch Behar, B. Bhola-Nauth, Sarala Ray, Lolita Roy.

Reviews: 

Obituary by Harihar Das,  Britain and India 1.9 (Oct-Dec. 1920), pp 360-1

The Times (28 Feb. 1912)

Secondary works: 

Burton, Antoinette (ed.), and Majumdar, Janaki Agnes Penelope, Family History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Archive source: 

London School of Medicine for Women Archives, Royal Free Hospital Archives Centre, London

Newnham College Archives, Newnham College, Cambridge

Sir William Wedderburn mentions Miss Bonnerjee in a letter to Mrs Fawcett, 25 Feb 1916, 7MGF/A/1/162, The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University

Involved in events: 

Indian Women's Education Association's promotion of Kumar Sambhava or The Coming of the Prince, Court Theatre, March 1912

City of birth: 
Calcutta
Country of birth: 
India
Current name city of birth: 
Kolkata
Current name country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Susie

Locations

Bedford Park, Croydon London, CR0 2BS
United Kingdom
51° 23' 10.824" N, 0° 2' 58.7364" W
Hamilton Road, Ealing London, W4 1AL
United Kingdom
51° 29' 23.0532" N, 0° 16' 7.7952" W
Newnham College, Cambridge , CB3 9DF
United Kingdom
52° 12' 0.6336" N, 0° 6' 26.0028" E
Date of death: 
25 Sep 1920
Location of death: 
Lahore, India (Pakistan)
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1874-1918 (with spells in India during this period)

Location: 

'Kidderpore', 8 Bedford Park, Croydon, London (family home from c. 1890)

43 Hamilton Road, Ealing, London (location of her home and private practice)

Janaki Agnes Penelope Majumdar

About: 

Janaki Agnes Penelope Majumdar was the daughter of the Hemangini and W. C. Bonnerjee, the first president of the Indian National Congress in December 1885. Born in Calcutta, in June 1886, Janaki, her mother and siblings settled in England from 1888. They soon moved into a house they named 'Kidderpore' in Croydon. Janaki spent 1893-5 back in India and then returned to England and went to Croydon High School for Girls.

She studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1904, and was the first Indian woman to receive a degree in Natural Sciences. Following the death of her father in 1906, 'Kidderpore' was sold. Janaki began a teacher's training course at the London Day Training College in 1907 and did voluntary work at the Charity Organization Society's Newington Branch. In 1908, she returned to Calcutta with her mother and met P. K. Majumdar. He had studied at Birmingham University and trained as a barrister in London. They were married in 1909 and lived in Calcutta. She returned to London following her husband's death in 1947.

In 1935, Janaki wrote a family memoir about her childhood, her father and her husband, with a major emphasis on her mother, Hemangini. It tells of a South Asian family living in England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This memoir, Family History, was edited by Antoinette Burton and published in 2003.

Published works: 

Pramila: A Memoir (London: Contemprint Ltd, n.d.)

Example: 

Majumdar, Janaki Agnes Penelope, Family History, edited by Antoinette Burton (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 73

Date of birth: 
26 Jun 1886
Content: 

Majumdar is describing her early childhood in the family home in Croydon.

Connections: 

Susila Anita Bonnerjee (sister), W. C. Bonnerjee (father), Jaipal Singh (son-in-law).

Reviews: 

Obituary, The Times, 10 June 1963

Extract: 

Sundays were special days at Kidderpore. They were started with breakfast in bed, as when the elder sisters began their medical work in London they had a very early start and a late return all the week and liked to get up late on Sundays to make up, and we younger ones thought it a marvellous idea, so my mother would send up as many as six trays sometimes! Attendance at the Iron Room was compulsory for the younger ones, and on our return we usually found two or three young Indian students and other friends awaiting us who had arrived for lunch - Mr K. N. and Mr P. Chaudhuri were frequent visitors, also Basanta Mullick and his brothers, Sir B. C. Mitter, Sir B. L. Mitter, Mr. C. C. Ghose, and a great many others.

Secondary works: 

Burton, Antoinette, 'House/Daughter/Nation: Interiority, Architecture, and Historical Imagination in Janaki Majumdar's "Family History"', Journal of Asian Studies 56.4 (November 1997), pp. 921-946.

Majumdar, Janaki Agnes Penelope, Family History, edited and with an introduction by Antoinette Burton (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003)

City of birth: 
Calcutta
Country of birth: 
India
Current name city of birth: 
Kolkata
Other names: 

(nee Bonnerjee)

Locations

Newnham College, Cambridge, CB3 9DF
United Kingdom
52° 13' 42.168" N, 0° 4' 41.8332" E
Kidderpore House
8 Bedford Park
Croydon, CR0 2BS
United Kingdom
51° 22' 43.9104" N, 0° 5' 44.8764" W
Date of death: 
01 Jan 1963
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Subscribe to RSS - Bonnerjee