Hooghly Collegiate School

Hooghly Collegiate School or HCS, established in 1812, is one of the oldest and prestigious schools not only in the Hooghly district but also in West Bengal, IndiaHistoryHCS's early provenance is sketchily documented in Karuņāsāgar Vidyāsāgar, quoting from 'Education Committee' reports, periodicals and other print media of that period.The name of the school changed once or twice, till it came to be known as 'Hooghly College' and thence 'Hooghly Collegiate School' when the college wing was created. The location underwent changes, too. The so-called 'new building' (to the 'Ṣāṇḍeśvar Talā' end of the prayer ground, to house the laboratories and the classes IX to XI of the new Higher Secondary scheme) and the box-like, stand-alone crafts-cum-smithy building were completed in 1956-57. The oldest building of the school and part of the adjoining Mohsin College were Hazi Mohammad Mohsin's personal property.It was rumoured to have a subterranean passage, purpose unknown, from below the main staircase of the old building to a ghat on river Bhāgīrathī on the lower terrace of the prayer ground (which had two walled terraces); part of the tunnel had collapsed and the school authority saw it fit to seal off the school-side entrance in the mid-1950s.Notable alumni Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay Ramesh Chandra Majumdar Syed Amir Ali Brahmabandhab Upadhyay (1861-1907) (admitted into Hooghly Collegiate School in 1874)