Who is The European on the Train to Maritzburg from Gandhi, the Man and what is their importance?

The man who saw Gandhi, then a young lawyer, dressed as a gentleman, sitting in the first-class compartment of a train and insisted by way of calling the police that Gandhi sit in the third-class compartment. It was Gandhi's first acquaintance with the unreasonably harsh treatment of a group of people based solely on their race, and impassioned Gandhi with the cause of empowering and defending oppressed people wherever they could be found.