Fort William College (also known as the College of Fort William) was an academy of

oriental studies Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studi ...

and a centre of learning, founded on 18 August 1800 by

Lord Wellesley Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, (20 June 1760 – 26 September 1842) was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator. He was styled as Viscount Wellesley until 1781, when he succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of M ...

, then

Governor-General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, located within the Fort William complex in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

. Wellesley started the Fort William College to train the European Administrators. He backdated the statute of foundation to 4 May 1800, to commemorate the first anniversary of his victory over Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam. Thousands of books were translated from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

, and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Indian languages and, in the process, fostered the development of languages such as Bengali and Urdu.Sarkar, Nikhil, ''Printing and the Spirit of Calcutta'', in ''Calcutta, the Living City'', Vol. I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, pp. 130–2, Oxford University Press, . The period is of historical importance. In 1815,

Ram Mohan Roy Raja Ram Mohan Roy ( bn, রামমোহন রায়; 22 May 1772 – 27 September 1833) was an Indian reformer who was one of the founders of the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, the precursor of the Brahmo Samaj, a social-religious reform m ...

settled in Calcutta. It is considered by many historians to be the starting point of the Bengali Renaissance.Sengupta, Nitish, 2001–02, ''History of the Bengali-speaking People'', UBS Publishers’ Distributors Pvt. Ltd., . Establishment of The Calcutta Madrassa in 1781, the

Asiatic Society The Asiatic Society is a government of India organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of "Oriental research", in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions. It was founded by the p ...

in 1784 and the Fort William College in 1800, completed the first phase of Kolkata's emergence as an intellectual centre.Majumdar, Swapan, ''Literature and Literary Life in Old Calcutta,'' in ''Calcutta, the Living City'', Vol I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, pp. 107–9,

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, . Teaching of Asian languages dominated: Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit, Bengali. Later, Marathi and even Chinese were added. Each department of the college was staffed by notable scholars. The Persian department was headed by Neil B. Edmonstone, Persian translator to the East India Company's government since 1794. While notable scholars were identified and appointed for different languages, there was no suitable person in Calcutta who could be appointed to teach Bengali. In those days, the Brahmin scholars learnt only Sanskrit, considered to be the language of the gods, and they did not study Bengali. The authorities decided to appoint Carey, who was with the Baptist Mission in

Serampore Serampore (also called ''Serampur'', ''Srirampur'', ''Srirampore'', ''Shreerampur'', ''Shreerampore'', ''Shrirampur'' or ''Shrirampore'') is a city of Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarter of the Srirampor ...

. He, in turn, appointed Mrityunjoy Vidyalankar as head pandit, Ramnath Bachaspati as second pandit and

Ramram Basu Ramram Basu (c. 1751 – 7 August 1813) ( bn, রামরাম বসু) was born in Chinsurah, Hooghly District in present-day West Bengal state of India. He was the great grandfather of Anushree Basu, notable early scholar and translator o ...

as one of the assistant pandits.Mukhopadhyay, Prabhatkumar, Rammohun O Tatkalin Samaj O Sahitya, 1965, pp. 47–51, Viswa Bharati Granthan Bibhag . Along with teaching, translations were organized. The college employed more than one hundred local linguists. There were no textbooks available in Bengali. On 23 April 1789, the ''Calcutta Gazette'' published the humble request of several natives of Bengal for a Bengali grammar and dictionary.

Location

The college was located at the corner of Council House Street and the parade ground, (now named

Maidan Maidan is an originally Persian word for a town square or public gathering place, adopted by various other languages: Urdu (''maidān''); Arabic (''maydān''); Turkish ; Bangla ময়দান, meaning field, and Crimean Tatar, from which ...

). After the college closed the building had a series of occupancies. First it was ''The Exchange'' of Messrs. Mackenzie Lyall & Co., then offices of the

Bengal Nagpur Railway The Bengal Nagpur Railway was one of the companies which pioneered development of the railways in eastern and central India. It was succeeded first by Eastern Railway and subsequently by South Eastern Railway. History The opening of the ...

,Cotton, H.E.A., ''Calcutta Old and New'', 1909/1980, General Printers and Publishers Pvt. Ltd. and lastly the

Raj Bhavan Raj Bhavan () is the common name of the official residences of the governors of the states of India and may refer to: List of Raj Bhavan See also * Raj Niwas *Rashtrapati Bhavan *Rashtrapati Nilayam *Rashtrapati Niwas The Rashtrapati Niwas ...

('Government House').

Library

The College library of Fort William was an important centre of learning and housed a magnificent collection of old manuscripts and many valuable historical books from across

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

. Multiple MS copies were printed. When the college was dissolved in 1854, the books of the collection listed for preservation were transferred to the newly formed Calcutta Public Library, now the

National Library A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public library, public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, o ...

. Some books were transferred to the School of Oriental Languages in Paris and are now held at BULAC. .

Hurdles

The court of directors of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

were never in favour of a training college in Calcutta, and for that reason there was always a lack of funds for running the college. Subsequently, a separate college for the purpose, the

East India Company College The East India Company College, or East India College, was an educational establishment situated at Hailey, Hertfordshire, nineteen miles north of London, founded in 1806 to train "writers" (administrators) for the Honourable East India Company ( ...

at Haileybury (England), was established in 1807. However, Fort William College continued to be a centre of learning languages. With the British settling down in the seat of power, their requirements changed.

Lord William Bentinck Lieutenant General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (14 September 177417 June 1839), known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman who served as the Governor of Fort William (Bengal) from 1828 to 1834 and the First G ...

announced his educational policy of public instruction in English in 1835, mostly to cater to the growing needs of administration and commerce. He clipped the wings of Fort William College, and the Dalhousie administration formally dissolved the institution in 1854.

Eminent scholars

Fort William College was served by a number of eminent scholars. They contributed enormously towards development of Indian languages and literature. Some of them are noted below: * William Carey (1761–1834) was with Fort William College from 1801 to 1831. During this period he published a Bengali grammar and dictionary, numerous textbooks, the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

, grammar and dictionary in other Indian languages.Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali (editors), 1976/1998, ''Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan'' (Biographical dictionary) Vol I, . * Matthew Lumsden (1777–1835) *

John Borthwick Gilchrist John Borthwick Gilchrist (19 June 1759 – 9 January 1841) was a Scottish surgeon, linguist, philologist and Indologist. Born and educated in Edinburgh, he spent most of his early career in India, where he made a study of the local languages. ...

(June 1759 – 1841) Catalogue des ouvrages conservés au Fort William College

* Mrityunjay Vidyalankar (c. 1762 – 1819) was First Pandit at Fort William College. He wrote a number of textbooks and is considered the first 'conscious artist' of Bengali prose.Acharya, Poromesh, ''Education in Old Calcutta'', in ''Calcutta, the Living City'', Vol I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, pp. 108–9, Oxford University Press, . Although a Sanskrit scholar he started writing Bengali as per the needs of Fort William College. He published ''Batris Singhasan'' (1802), ''Hitopodesh'' (1808) and ''Rajabali'' (1808). The last named book was the first published history of India. Mrityunjoy did not know English so the contents were possibly provided by other scholars of Fort William College. * Tarini Charan Mitra (1772–1837), a scholar in English, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic and Persian, was with the Hindustani department of Fort William College. He had translated many stories into Bengali. *

Lallu Lal Lallu Lal (1763–1835) was an academic, author and translator from British India. He was an instructor in the Hindustani language at Fort William College in Hastings, Calcutta. He is notable for ''Prem Sagar'', the first work in modern literary ...

(also spelt as Lalloolal or Lallo Lal), the father of Sanskritized Hindustani prose, was instructor in Hindustani at Fort William College. He printed and published in 1815 the first book in the old Hindi literary language

Braj Bhasha The Braj language, ''Braj Bhasha'', also known as Vraj Bhasha or Vrij Bhasha or Braj Bhāṣā or Braji or Brij Bhasha or Braj Boli, is a Western Hindi language. Along with Awadhi (a variety of Eastern Hindi), it was one of the two predominant ...

, Tulsidas's Vinaypatrika. *

(1757–1813) was with the Fort William College. He assisted William Carey,

Joshua Marshman Joshua Marshman (20 April 1768 – 6 December 1837) was a British Christian missionary in Bengal, India. His mission involved social reforms and intellectual debates with educated Hindus such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Origins Joshua Marshman was b ...

and William Ward in the publication of the first Bengali translation of the Bible. *

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar CIE ( bn, ঈশ্বর চন্দ্র বিদ্যাসাগর; 26 September 1820 – 29 July 1891), born Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay, was an Indian educator and social reformer of the nineteenth century. ...

(1820–1891) was head pandit at Fort William College from 1841 to 1846. He concentrated on English and Hindi while serving in the college. After discharging his duties as academician, and engagements as a reformer he had little time for creative writing. Yet through the textbooks he produced, the pamphlets he wrote and retelling of Kalidasa's ''Shakuntala'' and

Shakespeare's William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

''A Comedy of Errors'' he set the norm of standard Bengali prose.

Location

Library

Hurdles

Eminent scholars

References

Further reading