Abstract
The Governor-General of India, Richard Wellesley (1760-1842), established Fort William College (FWC) in Calcutta in 1800. The purpose of this college was to educate the junior officers of the East India Company who were to be assigned to administrative posts in India. Several subjects were taught at FWC, including law, natural science and Indian languages.
Because of opposition from the East India Company Court of Directors, FWC was scaled down within the first five years. Hence, it could not successfully educate these junior officers, although this was necessary. However, it succeeded in producing several competent individuals given the education it provided in Indian languages.
In this thesis, I examine the subjects that were taught at FWC. They were Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Hindustani, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Modern Languages, Greek, Latin, Hindu law, the laws and regulations of the British Government in India, and Experimental Philosophy. After FWC began to scale down only Indian languages were taught. Among these languages, some were considered important, while others were not. As Persian was adopted as the official language of the East India Company and Hindustani was widely used by the native people in India, these two languages were emphasised. Bengali was not considered necessary, but teachers at FWC had to give this language importance because it was popular among the students. Arabic and Sanskrit were not considered important, but they were also taught because Arabic was necessary to study the Persian language and Islamic law while Sanskrit assisted in the understanding of traditional Indian concepts.
