Sir Pherozeshah Mehta (1845-1915) was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, a member of the Imperial Legislative Council of India, and an outstanding leader of the Bombay municipality.

Pherozeshah Mehta was probably born in Bombay, of respectable middleclass Parsi parents. He was one of the first Indians to secure Western higher education and the first Parsi to take the master's degree. He also became a barrister-at-law in London, where he absorbed the ideals of Gladstonian liberalism, which thereafter guided his political life.

By 1872 Mehta was prominent in the Bombay municipality, and it was to his leadership that the city owed its Magna Charta, the Act of 1888. The Duke of Connaught stated that the municipal constitution of Bombay was the product of Mehta's genius. Mehta was also the founder of the Bombay Presidency Association, which, under his tutelage from 1885 to 1915, was the organizational arm of the...