Why Was Fort William College Opened In Calcutta?
Fort William College was established by Lord Wellesley on July 10, 1800, in Kolkata, British, India. The major goal of founding this institution was to train British officials in Indian languages to streamline administration.
Fort William College (also recognized as the College of Fort William) was created on July 10, 1800, by Lord Wellesley, the then-Governor-General of British India, within the Fort William complex in Calcutta.
Wellesley founded Fort William College to educate European Administrators. In honor of the first anniversary of his triumph against Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam, he backdated the statute of the establishment to May 4, 1800.
This organization has translated thousands of works from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu into English.
Languages In Fort William College
Fort William College attempted to educate British officials in Indian languages, fostering the growth of Bengali and Urdu. The period is historically significant. Ram Mohan Roy arrived in Calcutta in 1815.
Many historians believe it to be the beginning of the Bengali Renaissance. The establishment of The Calcutta Madrasa in 1781, the Asiatic Society in 1784, and the Fort William College in 1800 marked the conclusion of the initial phase of Kolkata's rise as an intellectual center.
The following languages dominated the teaching of Asian languages: Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit, and Bengali. Marathi and even the Chinese have introduced afterward. Distinguished academics operated each department of the university.
Since 1794, Neil B. Edmonstone has served as the government's Persian translator for the East India Company. While prominent scholars were discovered and hired to teach other languages, there was no acceptable candidate in Calcutta to teach Bengali.
In those days, Brahmin intellectuals studied only Sanskrit, which was regarded as the language of the gods, but not Bengali. Carey, a member of the Baptist Mission in Serampore, was appointed by the government.
He then nominated Mrityunjoy Vidyalankar as the chief pandit, Ramnath Bachasapati as the second pandit, and Ramram Basu as one of the supportive pandits.
In addition to instruction, translations were organized. The university hired around a hundred native linguists.
There were no Bengali textbooks accessible. The Calcutta Gazette posted on April 23, 1789, the humble plea of various Bengali locals for a Bengali grammar and dictionary.
Fort William College Library
Fort William's College library was an effective learning center with a great collection of antique manuscripts and other rare historical texts from South Asia.
There were many MS copies printed. When the institution was dissolved in 1854, the volumes on the preservation list were given to the newly established Calcutta Public Library, now the National Library. Some volumes were moved from the School of Oriental Languages in Paris to BULAC.
Fort William college Hurdles
Since the court of directors of the British East India Company was never in favor of a training college in Calcutta, there was never enough money to operate the institution.
In 1807, a separate college, the East India Company College at Haileybury (England), was formed for this purpose. However, Fort William College remained a center for language study.
As the British assumed control of the government, their needs changed. Lord William Bentinck declared his educational policy of English-only public teaching in 1835, primarily to meet the expanding requirements of administration and trade.
In 1854, the Dalhousie government formally disbanded the college when he cut the wings of Fort William College.
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