The outbreak of infectious diseases caused by different pathogenic bacteria and the development of resistance to common antibiotic becomes a matter of urgency. To overcome the wide spread of drug resisting pathogens relatively abundant and inexpensive element Iron (III) complexes with resorcinol alone, H[FeR2] and mixed with 1, 10-phenantroline, H[FeR2(Phen)] were synthesized and their antibacterial activity were assessed. The structure of the synthesized complexes were characterized using various analytical, thermal and spectroscopic viz. UV-Vis, FT-IR, 1H-NMR, ESI MS techniques, and the metal content was determined by using ICP-OES. Based on the analytical and spectroscopic data square planar geometry for the precursor complex, H[FeR2] and octahedral geometry for the final complex H[FeR2(Phen)] was assigned. Furthermore, the synthesized metal complexes were evaluated for their in vitro antibacterial activity against some Gram-positive (staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus pyogenes) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella Pneumonia) bacteria by Disc Diffusion method and the results obtained were compared with the antibacterial activity of commercial drug gentamicin. The result showed that both the synthesized complexes are active towards bacteria under this investigation, particularly on Gram-negative bacteria, Escherichia coli, even greater than the standard drug, gentamicin.