Hary Singh Gour was a poet, barrister, educator and social reformer. He studied law at Cambridge and was admitted to the Inner Temple, London. While a student at Cambridge, he earned a reputation for himself as a poet, and made the acquaintance of George Bernard Shaw and [Tennyson?]. In 1909 he published Stepping Westward and Other Poems. Following this, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Upon his return to India, Gour became a major reformer for the rights of women, introducing bills which raised the age of consent for girls, allowed women to practice law, legalised inter-caste marriages and gave rights to children born out of wedlock, and protected inheritance rights for women heirs. In 1946, he founded the University of Saugor, later renamed Dr. Harisingh Gour University, and dedicated his first collection, Stepping Westward, to Viceroy Ripon.