He was the third son of a rich and famous scholar, who joined and became an official in the Cần Vương association of Quảng Nam in 1885.

Having earlier met Phan Bội Châu (Sào Nam) in 1903, in early March 1906, he went to British Hong Kong then Guangdong to meet with him again at Liu Yongfu (ông Lưu)'s house.

They stayed in Yokohama, where they had set up a two-story Japanese house to teach students, which they called Bính-Ngọ-Hiên (Fire Horse Lodge).

[3]: 73  Back in Vietnam he continued to receive letters from Sào Nam arguing about his opposition to the monarchy and his belief that the French could be used.

[3]: 90 In the summer of 1906, Phan Châu Trinh returned Vietnam, along with Huỳnh Thúc Kháng, Trần Quý Cáp continued renovation campaign, not only in Quảng Nam but also in neighboring provinces, made it a whole Duy Tân Movement [vi] with slogan "Broaden the People’s Mind, Invigorate the People’s Spirit, then Enrich the People’s Well-being" (Vietnamese: Khai dân trí, chấn dân khí, hậu dân sinh).

[6] By the end of the year 1906, he wrote a letter titled Đầu Pháp Chính phủ thư to the governors-general of French Indochina Paul Beau.

He called on France to develop modern legal, educational, and economic institutions in Vietnam and industrialise the country, and to remove the remnants of the mandarin system.

[7][4] In 1907, he and associates Lương Văn Can, Nguyễn Quyền opened a patriotic modern school in Hanoi for young Vietnamese men and women.

The school was called Tonkin Free School (Vietnamese: Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục), used new translated books like Kang Youwei's Datong Shu and Liang Qichao's Ice-Drinker's studio Collection (Vietnamese: Lương Khải Siêu – Đại đồng Thư, Khang Hữu Vi – Ẩm Băng thất Tùng thư) .

Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh, Phạm Duy Tốn were responsible for applying for the open license of school.

[10][11] His funeral was attended by over 60,000 people and caused big protests across the country demanding the end of French colonial occupation.

Please stay on in Tokyo to take a quiet rest and devote yourself to writing, and not to making appeals for combat against the French.

That is to say, he wished to overthrow the monarchy in order to create a basis for the promotion of popular rights; I, on the contrary, maintained that first the foreign enemy should be driven out, and after our nation's independence was restored we could talk about other things.

Nowadays, the Phan Châu Trinh memorial site covers 2,500 square meters, including his temple, his tomb and an artifacts gallery.

[12] Hanoi city also has a road and a ward named after Phan Châu Trinh in its central district – Hoàn Kiếm.