Bhownaggree settled in the United Kingdom in 1891, becoming a lawyer. He was the head of the Parsi organization in Europe and chairman of the Indian Social Club. He joined the Conservative Party and was selected as the party's candidate in the 1895 general election for N.E. Bethnal Green. His compatriot Dadabhai Naoroji was in the 1892-5 parliament, but Bhownaggree was the only other Indian of that time to enter the House of Commons, and the only one to be re-elected (1900). He was made a Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in 1886, and was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) upon the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.