Madura College, Madurai

The Government had started a Zilla School in 1856 as an outcome of Macaulay's Dispatch of 1854 on Education. In 1880 a College Department was added to it and it was functioning on the premises where the Madura College Higher Secondary School now stands.

An organization called the Madura Native High School committee was then managing two schools in Madurai, the Native High School in Annakkuzhi Mandapam in West Chitrai Street and this School had a branch in the Velli Ambalam Mandapam in South Chitrai Street. The Government lent the Zilla School building to the Madura Native School Committee in 1888. The Committee saw potentialities in the situation. It offered to take over the Zilla School. In 1889 the School and the College Departments were both taken over by this Committee which then renamed itself as the Madura College Committee. The School was then called the Madura Native College. The Committee went on to acquire another school in the city which had been started by a British Lawyer. In 1903 it also took over the Setupathi High School and the Town Primary School when their managers found it difficult to run them. Then the Committee got itself registered under the Indian Companies Act of 1882 under the nomenclature "The Madura College Board". The Madura Native High School was renamed as the Madura College High School and the College, the Madura College. In 1906, a section for girls was opened in the Town Primary School marking an early step in the direction of women's education in this part of the country.

The present premises of the Madura College are about 43 acres in area.