Sir Ganga Ram
Engineer and philanthropist called the father of modern Lahore, who built its museum, post office and colleges and founded the Ganga Ram hospital.
Ganga Ram was born in 1851 in Mangtanwala, near Nankana Sahib, and trained as an engineer at Roorkee. As executive engineer of Lahore he built or designed much of the British city: the General Post Office, the Lahore Museum, Aitchison College, the Mayo School of Arts, the Hailey College of Commerce and the chemistry laboratories of Government College.
On land he leased at Renala Khurd in Montgomery district he built a hydroelectric scheme to lift water to dry fields, and turned desert into farms. He gave his fortune away: a widows' home, a commercial school, and in 1921 the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, still one of the largest hospitals of Lahore.
He died in London in 1927 and his ashes were brought back to Lahore. When rioters attacked his statue in 1947, Saadat Hasan Manto turned the scene into a bitter little story.