When Bishop Cotton Boys’ School (BCBS) was founded in 1865, it is doubtful whether its founder Rev. Samuel Thomas Pettigrew would have had the slightest notion that he was founding an institution whose name would endure for 150 years. The school was founded in the memory of Bishop George Edward Lynch Cotton who was the Bishop of Calcutta. With its list of illustrious alumni having spread all over the world, it is fitting that an old boy of the school, Aditya Sondhi, has published a book that briefly traces the life trajectories of many of these boys to coincide with the sesquicentennial year of the school’s founding.
The school, which was modelled on prominent British public schools of the Victorian period, has made a mark for itself in the educational landscape of Bangalore and beyond. Occupying prime property on St. Mark’s Road in the centre of the city it is hard to miss its imposing entrance as one passes by this venerable institution. BCBS has been the first school of choice for many of Bangalore’s leading families for Sondhi was captain of the school in 1993 and is a successful advocate in the city.
His first book, a more detailed work on select BCBS alumni, was published in 2003. In this second work on the same theme, he has made the scope of his research much wider. His list spans old boys spread across the globe and his tedious research has taken him right back to the early days of the school, when it was situated where Ballabrooie Guest House currently stands. This comprehensive list of prominent alumni is partly a nostalgic indulgence for the author which the reader also will partake of, especially if he’s an Old Cottonian. The book is divided thematically according to the careers that old boys choose to make their mark in.
The early students of the school were mainly Britons who, for various reasons, could not go back to England for their school education. Many of them had active roles in the two World Wars and several were martyred in the line of duty on various battle fronts. Among Indians, one prominent Bangalore-based family whose fourth generation descendants have also gone to the Cottons boys’ and girls’ schools is that of Dewan Mysore Matthan, a high-ranking official of the Mysore court whose sons were some of the first Indian students to have attended the school around 1910.
Boys from Coorg were also significant on the rolls of the school after this time and many of them joined the British Indian Army and continued to have prominent roles in the post-independent Indian Army like Gen. K. S. Thimayya who went on to become the Chief of Army Staff. The school has also produced notable bureaucrats like G. K. Pillai, ambassadors (Akbar Mirza Khaleeli), royalty (from the families of Karnataka, Hyderabad and Bombay presidency), politicians (Dinesh Gundu Rao), technology czars (Nandan Nilekani, Phaneesh Murthy etc.), authors (Kenneth Anderson, Timeri N. Murari, Vikram Sampath etc.), artists/ actors (Feroz Khan, Lucky Ali), sportsmen (Colin Cowdrey, Brijesh Patel) etc.
The list is only a very cursory selection of the hundreds of notable alumni who started their life with baby steps at Cottons and went on to take giant strides in their chosen While the book will fascinate all Cottonians, old and current, it will also appeal to people who are interested in the history and sociology of Bangalore as the school has inextricably linkages with the growth of modern Bangalore. Readers who are interested in education, especially the origins and growth of the British-influenced public school system in India will also find the book useful.
Titled ‘The Order of the Crest: Tracing the Alumni of Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, Bangalore (1865-2015)’, the book will be launched on January 24 at Smriti-Nandan, Palace Road (Opp. NGMA) at 5 p.m.
