History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP. II] FIRST PARSI SHE RIFF. 73

his public worth and private virtues. He was one of the first native justices of the peace, a member of the Government Board of Education, a member of the Parsi Panchayet, a commissioner of the old Court of Requests (now constituted a court of small causes), vice-president of the Bombay Association and of the Parsi Law Association. In recognition of his worth he was appointed by Government Hich Sheriff of Bombay in the year 1859. In social life he was affable but wplain-speaking, and contributed in a variety of ways to the happiness and welfare of his tellow-creatures. In the year 1856 he endowed a charitable dispensary at Kurla, a suburban village near Bombay. His death in Bombay at the comparatively early age of fifty-five caused universal regret among all classes of the community. On the day following his death all houses of business, shops, schools, Her Majesty's dockyard, and other places were closed. Shortly afterwards a public movement was set on foot to commemorate his name, so that it might be handed down to posterity in a durable form. Subscriptions were accordingly raised, and an influential committee formed, which resulted in the building from an excellent design by Mr. Rienzi Walton, executive engineer to the Municipal Corporation of Bombay, of a colossal memorial fountain bearing the name of Bamanji Hormasji Wadia, with an illuminated clocktower, in the busiest and central part of the fort, and