3-011-575 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

St. Thomas's School, Howrah, Calcutta, 1864. '...the Anglo-Indian population of Howrah has been variously estimated at from 800 to 1000. It is the custom in India for the higher classes of the civil and military officers of Government, as well as for the more wealthy members of the mercantile community, to send their children to England for education as soon as they are of a proper age; but, as this system is a highly expensive one, it is evident that the middle and lower classes of English and East Indian parents must have their children educated in India, if at all...[The school,] which was opened by the Bishop of Calcutta...is one of the earliest fruits of Bishop Cotton's Anglo-Indian educational scheme...The building is a handsome edifice in the Elizabethan style...It consists of two large school-rooms - one above and one below, for girls and boys respectively...with smaller rooms at the back for the residence of the teachers, and a verandah in front. [It]...has generally an average of about fifty children under instruction. The school is supported partly by public subscription, partly by school fees, and partly by a Government [ie British government in India] grant in aid'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.