চ্যারিটি স্কুল, কলকাতা, স্থাপনা c১৭২৬-১৭৩১
The first Charity School in Calcutta was founded somewhere between 1726 and 1731. The Charity School and later, its successor, the “Free School” began life as the School, on a site on which today stands the Scottish Church, in Dalhousie square, adjacent to Writer’s Buildings. The Mayor’s Court moved to this two-storied building belonging to Charity School in 1732, which also accommodated the Town Hall of Calcutta for a while. The School was established to provide education for European orphans and children of poor Anglo-Indians in the city. The education given by the School is of a ‘plain practical character and the boys generally become signalers in the Telegraph department, assistant apothecaries, writers in Government offices and mercantile houses, overseers of plantations, or obtain employment on Railways or in printing establishments, printing being an art successfully taught in the School.’ The Calcutta Review of 1866.
The Free School, engrafted on the Old Charity School, founded in 1742, and later settled in “the garden house near the Jaun Bazar *, 1795.” The purchase and repair of the premises cost Rs. 56.800. The public subscriptions towards the formation of the charity amounted to Rs. 26,082, of which Earl Cornwallis gave Rs. 2000. The Free School at this period (1792,) was located in “the second house to the southward of the Mission Church.” – All these we know from ‘Good old days’ of Rev. William Carey.
In the lapse of time the education imparted by the School became quite inadequate to the demand for education; and in consequence of the necessity for providing instruction for the offspring of the poor, the Free School Society was established on the 21st December, 1789. Shortly afterwards the children commenced their schoolwork at no. 8, Mission Row. The property—where once stood the house of Impey’s colleague, Mr. Justice Le Maistre—was purchased in 1795, and for some years to come the School profited much from the proceedings of the annual Calcutta lotteries. In 1841 Free School Street was made by the Lottery Committee, and the Governors of the School were enabled to extend and define their boundaries of the School grounds. A great storm in 1852 played serious havoc with the already decayed buildings, and so in the following year, a New Boys’ School was commenced by Messrs. Mackintosh, Burn & Co. from designs prepared by Col. W. Forbes.
– The photograph taken in recent time by unknown photographer shows the edifice of St Thomas Church, which is bound up with that of old Calcutta Free School, now known as St. Thomas’ School. The Church was dedicated to St. Thomas, the Patron Saint of India and the Free School was founded on the festival of that apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today, part of the land houses the food and rationing offices. It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that the authorities decided that the “Free School Street Premises” was “Unsuitable” and thought of shifting the school to Ranchi. The idea was abandoned as parents objected and the choice fell on “Kidderpore House” at 4, Diamond Harbour Road. In 1914 the “Free School Society” approached the government for “Kidderpore House” and the school started in full from there in 1916. In 1917 it was decided, that the “Free School” would be converted, into the St. Thomas’ School for better management and in 1923 the “Calcutta Free School” was officially named St. Thomas’ School after the Apostle on whose day the original “Free School Society” had been founded. See for More
The featured Coloured aquaint by Francis Swain Ward, painted in c1760s, and published in 1804 ln: Views in Indostan by William Orme, Plate 17
PURONOKOLKATA 