Sarala Roy was an educationist and is remembered as founder of the Gokhale Memorial School at Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

 (previously known as Calcutta), at present the capital of the east India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n state of West Bengal

West Bengal

West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...

.

Life

She was daughter of the renowned Brahmo reformer Durga Mohan Das

Durga Mohan Das

Durgamohan Das was a Brahmo Samaj leader and a social reformer with notable contribution in the field of widow remarriage and women’s emancipation.- Early life :...

, sister of S.R.Das

Satish Ranjan Das

Satish Ranjan Das was the Advocate-General of Bengal and later the Law Member of the Executive Council of the Viceroy; he was sometime treasurer of the Boy Scouts of Bengal and the Lodge of Good Fellowship, and a prominent member of the reformist Brahmo Samaj in Bengal...

, Abala Bose

Abala Bose

Abala, Lady Bose was a social worker well-known for her efforts in the field of women’s education and her contribution towards the alleviation of the condition of widows.-Family:...

 and Sailabala Das, and cousin of Chittaranjan Das

Chittaranjan Das

Chittaranjan Das was an eminent Bengali lawyer and a major figure in the Indian independence movement.-Personal life:...

 and Sudhi Ranjan Das

Sudhi Ranjan Das

Sudhi Ranjan Das was the Chief Justice of India from 1955 to 1955 and then again 1 December 1955 to 31 January 1959. He retired from the Supreme Court 30 September 1959.-Background and education:...

 ( Chief Justice of India ). She belonged to the famous Das family of Telirbagh, Dhaka, now in Bangladesh. She was married to Dr. P.K.Roy

Prasanna Kumar Roy

Prasanna Kumar Ray , better known as Dr. P. K. Ray, was a well-known educationist and the first Indian to be principal of Presidency College, Kolkata.-Early life:...

, the first Indian to become principal of Presidency College, Kolkata. Renuka Ray, a Union Minister, Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee

Subroto Mukerjee

Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee, OBE was the first Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force . Born in a Bengali family of repute, he was educated in India as well as England. He joined the Royal Air Force and later was one of the first recruits of the Indian Air Force...

, and Prasanta Mukherjee, a General Manager of the BNR were her grandchildren.

Along with her husband she used to stay or visit regularly Hazaribagh, which had a small Brahmo community.

Educationist

She was amongst the early students of Banga Mahila Vidyalaya

Banga Mahila Vidyalaya

Banga Mahila Vidyalaya was the first women’s liberal arts college in India. Established at Kolkata on 1 June 1876, by the liberal section of the Brahmo Samaj, it was successor of Hindu Mahila Vidyalaya set up on 18 September 1873 by Annette Akroyd...

 and Bethune School

Bethune College

Bethune College is a women's college in India. It was founded as a school in 1849 by John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune and in 1879 developed as the first women's college in India. It is located at 181, Bidhan Sarani, Kolkata -700006, just opposite the current campus of Scottish Church College,...

 (established by Bethune

John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune

John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune , previously John Elliot Drinkwater, a barrister and law member of the Governor-General's Council, was an Anglo-Indian lawyer and a pioneer in promoting women's education in 19th-century India....

) and devoted her life to the cause of women’s education. She established a girl’s school and a mahila samiti (organisation of women) at Dhaka, when she lived there with her husband. On her return to Kolkata she was a member of Swarnakumari Devi

Swarnakumari Devi

See Tagore for disambiguationSwarnakumari Devi was an Indian poet, novelist, musician and social worker. She was the first among the women writers in Bengali to gain prominence.-Family and early life:...

’s “Sakhi Samiti”. She inspired women from aristocratic families to participate in dance dramas. Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...

 composed his dance-drama Mayar Khela at her request and it was first staged at Bethune School.

All-India Women’s Conference

Apart from her founding the Gokhale Memorial School, she was the first woman to be secretary of Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya

Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya

≥Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya, popularly called "Brahmo Girls School", located at 294 APC Roy Road, Kolkata 700009, is a Bengali-medium girls' school founded by the Brahmo Samaj...

, member of Calcutta University’s senate and one of the leaders of the all-India women’s conference.

The all-India women’s conference, founded in 1927 under the leadership of Margaret Cousins but soon run completely by Indian women, was the most important women’s organisation in its time. It had an effective Bengal branch under capable leaders like Sarala Ray, Renuka Ray, Phulrenu Guha and Ashoka Gupta.