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Unsuccessful FRS nominations from colonial India

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Abstract

In the early decades of the twentieth century, several pioneers of modern science in India were nominated for the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Apart from those who got elected, the others who were not elected also had high reputation among their peers and were usually nominated by British scientists who were aware of their scientific contributions. This paper discusses six Indian scientists who were nominated for FRS during the era 1913–1939 but were not elected: P.C. Ray, D.N. Mallik, Raghavendra Row, N.R. Dhar, S.K. Banerjee, L.K. Ananthakrishna Iyer. In some of the cases, their nomination certificates (available at the Archives of the Royal Society) are the best compact statements of their scientific achievements, and it is not easy to find more information about some of them.

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Acknowledgements

After attending the 335th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union at the University of Exeter, I halted in London to consult the Archives of the Royal Society during 24 and 25 July 2017. This study could be possible only because of the tremendous help and co-operation I received from the staff of these Archives. They smilingly and courteously brought out a huge number of documents for me in those two days and afterwards answered several of my e-mail queries. The financial support for attending the conference was provided by a J.C. Bose Fellowship awarded to me by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (although my stay in London was self-sponsored).

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  1. Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012, India

    Arnab Rai Choudhuri

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Choudhuri, A.R. Unsuccessful FRS nominations from colonial India. Indian J Hist. Sci. 56, 131–148 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43539-021-00010-4

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