May Oung ( my, မေအောင်, also spelt May Aung; 6 January 1880 - 5 June 1926) was a Burmese legal scholar, judge and politician who served as

Minister of Home Affairs An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

during the colonial era. He was known for his expertise in Burmese Buddhist law and one of the founders of the Young Men's Buddhist Association Burma. May Oung was the first law professor at

Yangon University '') , mottoeng = There's no friend like wisdom. , established = , type = Public , rector = Dr. Tin Mg Tun , undergrad = 4194 , postgrad = 5748 , city = Kamayut 11041, Yangon , state = Yangon Regio ...

Early life and education

May Oung was born on 6 January 1880 in

Sittwe Sittwe (; ; formerly Akyab) is the capital of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Sittwe, pronounced ''sait-tway'' in the Rakhine language, is located on an estuarial island created at the confluence of the Kaladan, Mayu, and Lay Mro rivers empt ...

to parents Tha Do Phyu and Hnaung Dway, the second eldest of three sons. His parents died when May Oung was a child, so he was raised by his mother's brother, Hla Aung and his wife, Mya May, who sent him to India for his formative education. He studied law at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

from 1904 and 1907, and pursued an

LLM A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...

at Cambridge in 1922.

Career

He was one of only two Burmese judges appointed to the High Court when it was established by the British administration in 1922.

References

{{authority control 1880 births 1926 deaths Academic staff of the University of Yangon Judges from British Burma Alumni of the University of Cambridge