Bethune College: Difference between revisions

{{about||the [[Residential college|constituent college]] of York University in [[Toronto|Toronto, Canada]] |York University#Colleges and residences|the college in the United States|Bethune-Cookman College}}

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| principal = Professor Krishna Roy

The college was founded as the Calcutta Female School in 1849 by [[John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune]],<ref name="Chaudhuri1990">{{cite book |last=Acharya |first=Poromesh |chapter=Education in Old Calcutta |year=1990 |editor-last=Chaudhuri |editor-first=Sukanta |editor-link=Sukanta Chaudhuri |title=Calcutta: The Living City |volume=Volume I: The Past |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=87 |isbn=978-0-19-563696-3}}</ref> with the financial support of [[Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee]]. The school started in Mukherjee's home in [[Bowbazar|Baitakkhana]], with 21 girls enrolled.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bagal |first=Jogesh Chandra |author-link=Jogesh Chandra Bagal |year=1949 |chapter=History of the Bethune School & College (1849–1949) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/BethuneSchoolAndCollegeCentenaryVolume18491949/page/n31 |editor1-last=Nag |editor1-first=Kalidas |editor1-link=Kalidas Nag |editor2-last=Ghose |editor2-first=Lotika |title=Bethune School & College Centenary Volume, 1849–1949 |publisher=Bethune College |pages=11–12}}</ref> The following year, enrolment rose to 80.<ref name="Forbes1999">{{cite book |last1=Forbes |first1=Geraldine Hancock |author-link=Geraldine Forbes |year=1999 |title=Women in Modern India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hjilIrVt9hUC&pg=PA39 |series=The New Cambridge History of India |volume=IV.2 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=39 |isbn=978-0-521-65377-0}}</ref> In November, on a plot on the west side of Cornwallis Square, the cornerstone for a permanent school building was laid. The name "Hindu Female School" was inscribed on the copper-plate placed in the stone and on the ceremonial silver trowel made for the occasion.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bagal |first=Jogesh Chandra |author-link=Jogesh Chandra Bagal |year=1949 |chapter=History of the Bethune School & College (1849–1949) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/BethuneSchoolAndCollegeCentenaryVolume18491949/page/n31 |editor1-last=Nag |editor1-first=Kalidas |editor1-link=Kalidas Nag |editor2-last=Ghose |editor2-first=Lotika |title=Bethune School & College Centenary Volume, 1849–1949 |publisher=Bethune College |pages=15–16}}</ref> Support for the school waned after Bethune's death in August 1851.<ref name="Forbes1999" />

The government took it over in 1856, renaming it Bethune School after its founder in 1862–63.<ref name="Chaudhuri1990" /> In 1879 it was developed into Bethune College, the first women's college in India and Bethune school was first women's school in whole Asia.<ref name=":0" />

*[[Chandramukhi Basu]] (1860–1944), one of the first two female graduates of the British Empire<ref name="Ray1990">{{cite book |last=Ray |first=Bharati |chapter=Women in Calcutta: The Years of Change |year=1990 |editor-last=Chaudhuri |editor-first=Sukanta |editor-link=Sukanta Chaudhuri |title=Calcutta: The Living City |volume=Volume II: The Present and Future |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=34 |isbn=978-0-19-563697-0}}</ref>

*[[Abala Bose]] (1864–1951), social worker<ref name="Southard1993">{{cite book |last=Southard |first=Barbara |date=May 1993 |title=Colonial Politics and Women's Rights: Woman Suffrage Campaigns in Bengal, British India in the 1920s |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=405–406 |jstor=312775}}</ref>

*[[Kamala Das Gupta]] (1907–2000), freedom fighter nationalist<ref name="Ghosh2013">{{cite book |last=Ghosh |first=Durba |date=August 2013 |title=Revolutionary Women and Nationalist Heroes in Bengal, 1930 to the 1980s |journal=Gender & History |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=355–375}}</ref>