Cornelia Sorabji

Born in Nashik in 1866, Cornelia Sorabji grew up in a family deeply involved in education and social reform. She studied at Deccan College in Pune, then went to England and became the first woman to study law at Oxford, a remarkable step at a time when women faced major barriers in higher education and the legal profession.

Back in India, she devoted much of her career to helping women living in seclusion, often called purdahnashins, who needed legal advice but had little direct access to courts or lawyers. She is widely remembered as the first woman to practice law in India, and her work opened doors for later generations of women in the profession.

She also wrote extensively, publishing memoirs, essays, and books that drew on her experiences in India and Britain. That mix of legal pioneering and literary talent makes her an especially compelling figure: someone who not only made history, but also left behind her own account of what that struggle felt like.