Ram Singh Nehra – the full story now online in one accessible document

 Guest post by Philip Grant

Regular readers may remember a short series of local history articles which Martin published last December about “a Wembley Indian in the 1930s”.

 

Ram Singh Nehra in London, c.1930. (Courtesy of Tyrone Naylor)

 

By good chance, the “Wembley Matters” blog for Part 1 was found on the internet by one of Nehra’s grandchildren, living in Canada. He provided me with some extra information and images. Some of those were used in the Part 3 article, but I was able to include more, and make some minor corrections, when preparing a single, accessible version of Ram Singh Nehra’s story for Brent Archives.

 

Ram Singh Nehra, as a newly qualified barrister in 1921. (Courtesy of Tyrone Naylor)

 

After my “Wembley Matters” articles had been shared with other members of the family, I was put in touch with two more granddaughters, and with Nehra’s daughter by his second marriage. One of the corrections I’ve had to make was how Ram Singh met his first wife, Myfanwy. He was visiting another lawyer’s office, soon after qualifying as a barrister of the Middle Temple, when they noticed that a button had come loose on his suit. The lawyer called in his secretary and asked her to sew the button back on. Ram Singh was impressed with her sewing, and with the secretary! She got to know him better, and later sailed to Mombasa to marry him.

 

Eileen Myfanwy Brazel in the early 1920s. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Sansom)

 

My articles quoted from articles which Nehra had written in a magazine he published, called “The Indian”. The full version includes several more interesting snippets, as well as illustrations from the magazine itself.

 

A cover, and a column, from “The Indian” in 1935. (Images from the internet)

 

My original article mentioned that Nehra had been an early member of The League of Coloured Peoples, founded in 1931 by the Jamaican-born doctor, Harold Moody. In the accessible version of the story, I’ve been able to include a photograph taken, at a garden party held for the League, at the Nehra’s Chalkhill Road home around 1936. Ram Singh Nehra is the man in the white suit, with Harold Moody, wearing glasses, just behind him.

 

Members of The League of Coloured Peoples at a garden party in Wembley, c.1936.
(Courtesy of Tyrone Naylor)

 

Ram Singh Nehra’s story tells us a lot about Britain and its Empire the 1930s, through the eyes of an Indian lawyer. It also shares an insight into the man himself, and his efforts to break down prejudice between races and religions, through his own example. 

 

You can find the accessible pdf on the Brent Archives local history articles Google Drive , by “clicking” on the link. I hope you will read it, and share it with others. 

 

Thank you.

Philip Grant.