St Paul’s Cathedral Mission College, Kolkata has a glorious history of about one hundred and fifty years, to its credit, beginning from 1865. The college is one of the oldest academic institutions of the city and is situated in
the academic hub of the city with the University of Calcutta and other notable academic institutions on College Street, as its neighbours. It may be safely asserted that this institution played a significant role in the academic field of Bengal since the mid-nineteenth century and is continuing to do the same till date. The College was established in 1865 by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) who felt that it was necessary to set up ‘First Arts’ and Undergraduate Colleges through which an increasing number of students could be prepared for the higher University degree. Thus was born a new college The Cathedral Mission College on January 25th, 1865 at the rented premises of 25 Sookeas Street (now Kailash Bose Street). The College later shifted to 22 Mirzapur Street or 12 Old College square (now Surya Sen Street) and finally shifted to the present location of 33/1 Raja Rammohan Roy Sarani in July 1908. The college was renamed as St Paul’s Cathedral Mission College in 1914.From a mere strength of 193 students and 6 teachers, the college now has a strength of over 1500 students and as many as 11 Honours Courses, and some general ones. The thrust of this institution has always been to create good and worthy individuals, apart from creating excellent students. The alumni of this college have not only seen thousands of successful students, but also stalwarts in various creative, performative and socially useful fields.
The responsibility of the College now rests with the Calcutta Diocesan Trust Association (Private) on behalf of the Diocese of Calcutta after the CMS left in 1947. The college received its affiliation from the University of Calcutta as early as 1865, but the first subject to receive affiliation at the Honours Standard was English, in 1915. Other subjects in the Humanities namely History and Philosophy followed in 1917, while Economics was granted the same in 1929. Pure Science began to be taught in the College in the Intermediate Standard since 1921, but it was not until the 1950s that Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry received affiliation at the Honours level. Newer subject Political Science Microbiology, Physiology, Zoology and Sociology were introduced in 2003-04 while Honours in Hindi began in 2009-10.
St Paul’s Cathedral Mission College has witnessed phenomenal growth in the field of intellectual advancement and has celebrated it Sesquicentenary (150 years) in 2014-15. It has already seen two NAAC Peer Team visits, one in 2005 and the other in 2011 where the College has been placed in Grade B for performance. The Peer Team has also recommended the introduction of a Post-Graduate curriculum in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Economics and English. The Department of English has begun its Post-Graduate Section, since November 2013, the first to do so in the College.