Lal Behari Dey was born on 18 December 1824 to a Bengali Suvarna Banik caste family at Sonapalasi near Bardhaman. He was an Indian writer and journalist, who converted to Christianity and became a Christian missionary himself.
He studied from 1834 to 1844. (Duff’s Institution is now the Scottish Church Collegiate School; he was one of the first five boys admitted by Duff.) Under Duff’s tutelage, he formally embraced Christianity on 2 July 1843. In 1842, a year before his baptism he had published a tract, The Falsity of the Hindu Religion, which had won a prize for the best essay from a local Christian society.
He contributed articles to Calcutta Review and Hindu Patriot. He was a member of many associations like the Bethune Society and the Bengal Social Science Association.
He was made a Fellow of the University of Calcutta in 1877.
Lal Behari Day died on 28 October 1892.
