25 Mill Road, Palm Villa

History of 25 Mill Road

25 Mill Road

In 1891 the Dutt family was living at 147 Gwydir Street.

Caro Wilson of the Mill Road History Society wrote in Dec. 2018:

“Did you know that 25 Mill Road, now the home of the Petersfield Surgery, was set up as a surgery by Upendra Dutt, who first travelled to Britain from India about 1875 as a Gilchrist Scholar to read medicine. He and his family lived in the house and during the 1890’s he and his politically active wife, Anna Palme held meetings of the Majlis Society whose members included Subhas Chanda Bose and Jawaharal Nehru, both important figures of Indian Nationalism. His sons, Clemens Palme Dutt and Rajani Palme Dutt were founder members of the British Communist Party, as well as of the Indian Nationalist Movement, both, it is believed, inspired by their father’s experiences as a doctor in a very poor working class area.”

As part of an Open Cambridge event Mill Road Celebrates India the Mill Road History Society created a poster to be displayed in the surgery. It is no longer on show but you can read it here.

• An Indian Doctor and His Family (PDF)

The Lost Cambridge website also has an entry that talks about Upendra Dutt.

• https://lostcambridge.wordpress.com/2020/08/28/doctors-zacharias-peter-fernandez-and-upendra-dutt/

CENSUS

1901 Palm Villa

Upendra K Dutt, 43, surgeon, b Calcutta India

1913 (25)

Uphendra K Dutt, surgeon

1970

Alex Playfair, physician