Fort William College (1800), Calcutta (Kolkata): First Indian educational institution under the British

Navrang India July 12, 2025

.Fort William College, Calcutta (Kolkata). puronokolkata.com 

Above image:  Ft William, Calcutta. It founded on July 10, 1800, within the Fort William complex .The academy  came up (with foundation laid on May 4, 1800)  to commemorate the first anniversary of the victory over Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam. It was  more a center of Oriental studies established by Lord Richard Wellesley, then Governor-General of British India to help the officials run the expanded  territories  with skill...........

Haileybury  College today, England. en.wikipedia.org

 Above image: Once the seat of  East India company college. Haileybury College today, England..........


Fort William College, established on July 10, 1800, by Lord Richard Wellesley, then Governor-General of British India, was a pioneering institution of Oriental studies aimed at training British civil servants in Indian languages. Located within the Fort William complex in Calcutta (Kolkata), the college was named after King William III of England. It was part of a broader strategy following the British victory over Tipu Sultana arch enemy of  the British  at Srirangapatna in 1799—a campaign that cleared obstacles for the East India Company in southern India.  With the death of Tipu the  coast  was clear for the company to gobble up more lands  in the south. The  Law to found a college was passed on May 4, 1800, exactly a year after that decisive triumph.

As the land  expanded over along period, EIC needed more  men power with language skill to run the administration in an organized manner. The main objective of the college was to train East India Company officials in Indian languages like Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Urdu, and Hindi, to improve their administrative efficiency. Eminent scholars such as Henry Thomas Colebrook (Sanskrit), John Borthwick Gilchrist (Urdu), and William Carey (vernacular languages) led the departments. However, early challenges included the lack of trained Bengali teachers, as most pundits were only proficient in Sanskrit.

Fort William College played a significant role in the Bengal Renaissance by promoting Bengali and other regional literatures and fostering translation and printing of classical Indian texts. It also complemented the intellectual atmosphere created by institutions like the Asiatic Society (1784) and Calcutta Madrasa (1781). The college relied heavily on old manuscripts and printing presses to build its curriculum and learning resources.

Despite its contributions, the college lost favor due to rising costs and opposition from the East India Company directors, who preferred training administrators at the newly founded East India Company College at Haileybury (1806).  Lord Wellesley failed to  get  the needed permission  from the company's directors. With the political shift after the 1857 revolt and Lord Dalhousie's administrative reforms, Fort William College was eventually closed, becoming a forgotten yet foundational chapter in India’s colonial education history.

https://www.peepultree.world/livehistoryindia/story/places/fort-william-college-its-ironic-legacy?

https://alchetron.com/Fort-William-College