Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/234

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TWELVE MEN OF BENGAL

institutions in Behar he was one of the chief promoters. The Temple Medical School, named after the Lieutenant-Governor of the day and the Behar School of Engineering also met with his generous support. These, however, are but a few and the best known instances of his generosity and the encouragement he gave to all works of public utility. There are innumerable unrecorded gifts to schools and colleges, hospitals and dispensaries, clubs, societies, mosques and public buildings, to all of which he liberally subscribed. Those donations that have been recorded form a long list and it was typical of the large-heartedness and public spiritedness of the man that his charities were not confined to his own country and his own co-religionists. He was ready to subscribe as generously to relieve distress abroad as in Behar.

During the famine of 1874, he took a prominent part in relieving the distress, contributing no less than a lac of rupees to the relief funds and himself taking an active part in their distribution. In 1874, Lord Northbrook, the Viceroy of India, paid a visit to Behar and, granting Syed Walayet All Khan a private audience, he consulted him in a long conversation concerning the condition of Behar. In the cold weather of 1875-6 His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales paid his memorable visit to India, and among those invited to Calcutta to meet him was Syed Walayet Ali Khan, who took part in