38 LIFE OF MB, WOOMES CHUNDER BONNERJEE. CHAPTER II. HIS CAREER AS A B ARRI STE R-AT-LAW. It was in the year 1864, Mr. Rustomjee Jamsetjee Jeejeebhai of Bombay made over 3 lacs of rupees to the Supreme Government for the purpose of es- tablishing five scholarships, to be competed for by Indian youths to study law in England. Out of these five scholarships, three were to be given to Bombay, and one respectively to Bengal and Madras. The Supreme Government, in order to select a candi- date from Bengal, appointed a representative com- mittee having Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Campbell, one of the Judges, of the Calcutta High Court as its President, and Sir Henry Sumner Maine, Mr. John Rose, Babu Prusuna Kumar Tagore, Nawab Amir Ali Khan Bahadoor, and Mr. G. S. Fagan, the then Chief Judge of the Calcutta S. C. Court as some of the Members, and Mr. W. L. Heeley as its Secretary. There were some twelve candidates for this scholar- ship among whom Mr. W. C. Bonnerjee, the late Henry Raymond Fink and Babu Umbika Churn BOse, now a pleader of the Calcutta High Court, were promi- nent men. A viva voce examination having been held, Mr. W. C. Bonnerjee was considered to be the best eligible candidate. With this scholarship, he left for England on the 16th October 1864 to enter the Bar. He studied hard at the Middle Temple, and read under such eminent jurists and distinguished legal practi- tioners as the late Mr. J. Henry Dart/ then one of the conveyancing Counsel to the Court of Chancery, Mr. (now Sir) Edward Fry fc one of the Lord Justices
