Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/273



holder of these proud titles was the direct representative of the old Nawab Nazims of Bengal, round whom for generations the whole history of the Province had centred. From the time when the Musulman Emperors at Delhi first sent a representative to preside over the destinies of the far off eastern Province until the establishment of British supremacy, the Nawab Nazims had been the real rulers of Bengal. With the fall of Siraj-ud-Dowlah, however, their long period of absolute power came to an end. Mir Jaffer, placed on the Musnud by Lord Clive after the battle of Plassey, was the first of the new line of Nawabs under British suzerainty. The father of the Nawab Bahadur, the subject of this sketch, was the last to hold the title of Nawab Nazim, a title which he resigned to the British Government on the first of November, 1860. His son Sir Syed Hassan Ali was the first of a new line of hereditary Nawab Bahadurs, the acknowledged Premier nobles of Bengal.

Sir Syed Hassan Ali was born on the 25th of August 1846. He was the eldest son of a family consisting of nineteen sons and twenty-one daughters. As the eldest son and heir of the Nawab Nazim his birth was the occasion of great rejoicings, which were made especially memorable by a fire that