Skip to main content

Church of Scotland India and Nepal Collection

 Fonds
Identifier: CSWC 41

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of: (1) volume giving details of the missionaries and mission council in Rajputana, north-west India (1868-1976); (2) papers, reports and correspondence relating to the work in Calcutta in particular to the Scottish Churches Mission and educational work (1880-1930); (3) minutes of the Santal (Santhal) missionaries' committee (1950-1976); (4) minutes of the meetings of the Madras Christian College governing board in Edinburgh (1909-1949); (5) material relating to the constitution and building work at Wilson College, Bombay (1958-1968); (6) lists of goods sent to missionaries in the Central Provinces (Madyha Pradesh, 1941-1956); (7) correspondence concerning the visit of the Moderator to India and Nepal (1985); (8) maps; (9) Laubach wall charts; and (10) a photograph album of typical Indian scenes.

Dates

  • Creation: 1868-1985

Language of Materials

English Hindi

Conditions Governing Access

Contact the repository for details.

Conditions Governing Use

Contact the repository for details.

Biographical / Historical

The Foreign Mission Committee (later Board of World Mission and Unity) of the Church of Scotland was responsible for the Church's mission work around the world. In 1824 the Church's General Assembly resolved to become involved in educational work in India. In 1829 Alexander Duff, the first Church of Scotland missionary, was appointed and he arrived in India in 1830. He founded the General Assembly's Institution to be run on western principles of higher education using the English language and the work was an immediate success with a number of Indians from high caste families being converted. With the Disruption of 1843 Duff joined the Free Church of Scotland and founded another college in Calcutta which, after his death, was named Duff College. After some years of tension between the two churches in Bengal there was an increasing desire for co-operation, an example of which was the merger of the two colleges in 1908 to form the Scottish Churches College. Both the Church of Scotland and the Free Church had by this time established mission stations in other areas of India. In Madras a similar college to the one founded by Duff had been opened in 1837 by John Anderson. Originally the Central Institution it was later named the Madras Christian College and became an outstanding centre of Christian higher education. Its success was due largely to William Miller, a Free Church missionary, who took charge of the school in 1862 and in 1887 persuaded the Church Missionary Society and the Weslyans to join to make the College interdenominational. The Free Church did not concentrate just on education, it tried to establish Christian communities and churches amongst Indians and amongst various other tribes. In the 1870s the Free Church began working among the Santal (Santhal) people of Bengal and Bihar, an undertaking which expanded to several stations with churches, schools and medical care. In Rajputana the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which had been formed in 1847, had been working since the 1860s and when the Church joined with the Free Church in 1900 this work was continued under the United Free Church. In 1929 all missionaries became once again the responsibility of the Foreign Mission Committee of the Church of Scotland when the United Free Church joined with the Church of Scotland.

Extent

2 boxes

Arrangement

The material is arranged as described above.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The collection was presented to the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World by the Church of Scotland in the 1990s.

Accruals

None expected.

Related Materials

The archives of the foreign missions of the Church of Scotland are held by the National Library of Scotland, some of the material in that collection may duplicate this material. The Centre has many pamphlets and journals and some bound minutes relating to missions in India, some of which came from the Church of Scotland and has other collections of archives relating to the Church of Scotland, including large sets of slides and lantern slides.

Also within the ArchivesHub the Edinburgh University Library collection of Records of the Church of Scotland General Assembly may be of interest.

General

The administrative history was compiled using the following material: (1) the collection itself, (2) Latourette, K. S. A History of the Expansion of Christianity. Vol.6. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1945.

Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Repository Details

Part of the University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections Repository

Contact:
Centre for Research Collections
University of Edinburgh Main Library
George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9LJ Scotland
+44(0)131 650 8379