Fort William College (also known as theCollege of Fort William) was an academy oforiental studies and a centre of learning, founded on 18 August 1800 byLord Wellesley, thenGovernor-General ofBritish India, located within theFort William complex inCalcutta. Wellesley started the Fort William College with the original intention that it would serve as a training ground for future European administrators. He backdated the statute of foundation to 4 May 1800, to commemorate the first anniversary ofhis victory over Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam.[1][2] Numerous books were translated fromSanskrit,Arabic,Persian,Bengali,Hindi, andUrdu into English at this institution.
Wellesley's position on efficient administration was quite different from his predecessor,Lord Cornwallis, who insisted that an honest administration of British India by the company's servants could be ensured only by paying them adequate salaries. Wellesley, on the other hand, believed that an honest administration of British India by the company's servants could be ensured by adequate training and education, by combining efficiency with honesty.[3]
Lord Wellesley initially intended this to be the "Oxford of the East", but his idea was scaled down to a school for Indian languages as a compromise over a long tussle with the Court of Directors of theEast India Company led byCharles Grant, who had threatened to close the college, the creation of which it had not authorized.[4][5][6]
Fort William College aimed at training British officials inIndian languages and, in the process, fostered the development of languages such as Bengali and Urdu.[7] The period is of historical importance. In 1815,Ram Mohan Roy settled in Calcutta. It is considered by many historians to be the starting point of theBengali Renaissance.[8][9]: 212 Establishment ofThe Calcutta Madrassa in 1781, theAsiatic Society in 1784 and the Fort William College in 1800, completed the first phase of Kolkata's emergence as an intellectual centre.[10]
The East India Company's administration needed Bengali printed works not only for the training of civil servants at the Fort William College, but also for codifying Company regulations and to provide a wider audience for British Orientalist scholars.William Carey established the first Bengali printing press as theSerampore Mission Press in 1800; with Carey's appointment as a teacher of Bengali in Fort William College that year, the Mission joined the efforts of the college in printing and publishing suitable textbooks in the vernacular. Between 1802 and 1852, books on diverse subjects-including history, legend, and moral tales- as well as a grammar and a dictionary were printed for Fort William College. Indigenous printing enterprises were not far behind: The first local entrepreneur was Babu Ram, who in 1807 set up his Sanskrit Press in Khidirpore to provide textbooks in Hindi and Sanskrit to Fort William.[11]
Teaching of Asian languages dominated: Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit, Bengali. Later, Marathi and even Chinese were added.[12] Each department of the college was staffed by notable scholars. The Persian department was headed byNeil B. Edmonstone, Persian translator to the East India Company's government since 1794.[13] 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 inSerampore. He, in turn, appointed Mrityunjoy Vidyalankar as head pandit, Ramnath Vachaspati as second pandit andRamram Basu as one of the assistant pandits.[14]
Along with teaching, translations were organized. The college employed more than one hundred local linguists.[12] There were no textbooks available in Bengali. On 23 April 1789, theCalcutta Gazette published the humble request of several natives of Bengal for a Bengali grammar and dictionary.[14]
The college was located at the corner of Council House Street andDalhousie Square (now B. B. D. Bagh). After the college closed the building had a series of occupancies. First it wasThe Exchange of Messrs. Mackenzie Lyall & Co., then offices of theBengal Nagpur Railway[15]: 271 and later the localHSBC Bank office.[15]: 544
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 acrossSouth Asia. Multiple MS copies were printed.[12][16] 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 theNational Library.[12] Some books were transferred to theSchool of Oriental Languages in Paris and are now held atBULAC.[17]
The Court of Directors of theBritish East India Company were never in favor 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, theEast India Company College at Haileybury (England), was established in 1807. However, Fort William College continued to be a center of learning languages.[12][13]
With the British settling down in the seat of power, their requirements changed.Lord William Bentinck announced his educational policy of public instruction in English in 1835, mostly to cater to the growing needs of administration and commerce.[9]: 236 He clipped the wings of Fort William College, and theDalhousie administration formally dissolved the institution in 1854.[13]
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:
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