Colvin Taluqdars' College

History

Sir Auckland Colvin, Lieutenant Governor of the North West Provinces, while functioning as Lieutenant Governor of Avadh and Agra in 1889, conceived the idea of a school with the object of imparting education to the children of the British administrators and the landed aristocracy who were known as Taluqdars. The 'wards' class, founded in 1884, formed the nucleus for the establishment of the Taluqdars' College. The first Principal was Henry George Impey Siddons, the son of a Captain in the Indian Army, who graduated at Oxford and returned to India to teach. From 1875 to 1884 he had been first headmaster, then Principal, of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh, subsequently holding other teaching posts in India.

Only when the British left India in 1947 did it open its doors to the general public. By that time, it had along with, Rajkumar College, Raipur, Aitchison College in Lahore and Mayo College in Ajmer acquired reputation as the top school in the Indian plains. The Governor of the state of Uttar Pradesh is the patron of the College. Lord Minto visited Colvin during its grand 'Darbar Day' in November, 1908.

Education

The school is affiliated to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination, New Delhi. Day scholars as well as boarders study at Colvin which has no religious affiliations. The school has a library and an online media-access lab. The school has become co-educational up to class V . The college has produced 100% pass in ICSE, and ISC both in the session 2015 which is a record since the opening of ISC in the school in 1983. Earlier session's result in ISC was 100% with fresh pass out in I.I.T.

Hostels

The three boys' hostels, Avadh, Anjuman and Hind, have dormitories capable of housing around 300 students each. The erstwhile Raja of Balrampur, Maharaja Bahadur Sir Bhagwati Prasad Singh, the Raja of Shivgarh and Raja of Daryabad, contributed to the construction of the hostels, circa 1930. Anjuman hostel remains operational with 60 student occupants.

Houses and fraternities

The College has five houses: Ajanta (yellow), Nalanda (navy blue), Sanchi (magenta), Taxila (sky blue) and Ujjain (saffron). Students are allotted to one of these five houses, named after the five centres of education in Ancient India.

Darbar day

The annual sports and alumni day of the college is called Darbar Day, celebrated every December. It is the culmination of a week long festivities which include sports events and activities between alumni and present students. The chief guest of honour in 2007 was Sheila Dikshit, Former Chief Minister of Delhi. In 2009 the event was presided by Atul Kumar Gupta, Chief Secretary of the Government of Uttar Pradesh and an alumnus, while Banwari Lal Joshi, the Governor of Uttar Pradesh and patron of the college was the chief guest. In 2010 Khalid Hameed, Chief Executive Officer of the London International Hospital, presided the function, followed by lyricist Javed Akhtar in 2011and in the year 2015 sir APJ Abdul Kalam was the chief guest.