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{{short description|Indian historian}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019}}
[[File:K. P. Padmanabha Menon.jpg|thumb|K. P. Padmanabha Menon (1857-1919)]]
'''K. P. Padhmanabha Menon''', [[Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland#Members and fellows|MRAS]] (1857-1919) was an Indian historian and lawyer.<ref name="HistoryOfKerala"/> He is best known as the author of ''History of Kerala'' and ''History of Cochin''.

==Early life==
He was born in October 1857 at Elamakkara, near [[Edappally]]. He was the son of P. Sankunni Menon, Diwan Peishcar of [[Travancore]] and the author of ''A History of Travancore'', one of the earlier scholarly works on the history of Travancore, and Parvati Amma. He was the youngest of the three children born to the couple. After graduating in law, Menon became an apprentice under Sir H. H. Sheppard, who was the then [[Advocate-General]] to the Government of Madras. Sheppard subsequently became a judge of the [[Madras High Court]] and later served as the legal adviser to the [[Secretary of State for India]].<ref name="HistoryOfKerala">{{cite book |last= Menon|first= K.P. Padhmanabha|title= History Of Kerala Vol I|year= 1924|publisher= Cochin Govt. Press|location= [[Ernakulam]]|url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.76712/2015.76712.History-Of-Kerala-Vol-I#page/n15/mode/2up}}</ref>

In 1885, in order to care for his mother during her advanced years, Menon settled in Ernakulam, where he began legal practice before the Appeal Court of the Cochin State. In 1899, he moved to Travancore. He was thereafter nominated by the Government of Travancore as a non-official member of the Legislative Council. Subsequently, Menon was elected by the public as a member of the Marumakkathayam Committee, which was constituted to reform the laws and customary practices of the [[Nair|Nayar]] community. He later served on a committee appointed by the Government of Cochin, whose report ultimately led to the enactment of the Nayar Regulation.<ref name="HistoryOfKerala"/>

==Writing career==
Menon's ''History of Kerala'' in four volumes with 2,500 pages was completed in 1910. Padmanabha Menon used a portion of the [[Aluva Palace]] for this work. The work was published in 1924, five years after his death.<ref>{{cite news|title="The men who belonged to history"|url=http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/the-men-who-belonged-to-history/article6090485.ece|accessdate=20 January 2018|newspaper=The Hindu online|date=7 June 2014|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180120084731/http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/the-men-who-belonged-to-history/article6090485.ece|archivedate=20 January 2018}}</ref> Menon also wrote ''History of Cochin'' (''Kochirajya Charitram''), a history of the [[Kingdom of Cochin]], in two volumes, published in 1912 and 1914 respectively.<ref name="Calicut">{{cite book |title=Recent Perspectives on Social History of Medieval Kerala |url=http://sdeuoc.ac.in/sites/default/files/sde_videos/HIS3E06.pdf |publisher=[[University of Calicut]] |accessdate=11 February 2023 |page=7 |archive-date=12 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230212104312/http://sdeuoc.ac.in/sites/default/files/sde_videos/HIS3E06.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> K. P. Padmanabha Menon introduced the method of social history and is regarded as the first modern historian of Kerala.<ref name="Calicut"/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menon, KP}}
[[Category:Historians from British India]]
[[Category:Historians of India]]
[[Category:Historians of Kerala]]
[[Category:1857 births]]
[[Category:1919 deaths]]
[[Category:Scholars from Kerala]]
[[Category:Malayalam-language writers]]
[[Category:Indian male writers]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian historians]]
[[Category:Writers from Kochi]]
{{India-historian-stub}}

K. P. Padmanabha Menon - Revision history

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