College History

The city of Batala was founded in the fifteenth century A.D. largely at the initiatives of Ramdev, a revenue collector of Sultan Bahlol Lodi, Ramdev realized that the area around

Batala was fertile and hence would yield a considerable amount of revenue to the state exchequer. The first to contribute substantially to the growth of Batala, as a town was Shamshir Khan, the karori (revenue collector) of Batala, during the reign of Akbar. Shamshir Khan’s activity included the laying out of a garden, the construction of a large tank and of a building suitable for a hakim(administration of superior authority).

On April 1, 1878 the Batala, Boys Boarding School started classes in the palace of the late Maharaja Sher Singh, called the Anarkali. On its first day there were only fifteen students enrolled in the school, all of whom had come with Francis Henry Baring from Amritsar where he had started a school for the sons of the upper class Indian Christians. The three staff members and the students lived together in the Anarkali. Thus what was once a country palace for a Maharaja now became a school with dormitories, class rooms and a chapel? The beginnings were made for the establishment of western education in Batala town and tehsil.

On  January 1 , 1884   Herbert Udnay Weitbrecht, a German  missionary in the C.M.S., became the first Principal of  Baring High School ,Weitbrect had earned his Ph.D in 1873 from the University of Tubingen and , before coming to India , had done some pastoral

Work in Britain . He was soon elected President of the Batala Muncipal Board .John Anthony Wood, a former student of Christ College, Cambridge succeded Corfield as Principal of the school in 1990 .Wood decided to open the school to day scholars as well and as early as 1901-02, there were as many as six day scholars in a total strength of 48 students enrolled in the school. 

The period 1934 to 1948 is one of transition in the developed of Baring High School to Baring Union Christian College, John Emmanuel Shukla as the first Indian Principal of the School .Khushal Singh came to Batala with a mendate from the Church Missionary Society to establish a college at Batala by further upgrading the Baring High School to an intermediate college. The need for an intermediate college was felt by the CMS as early as 1880. The C.M.S thought it wise to have a college at Batala as it would provide the students of this area as opportunity to grow study and mature further within their own cultural context before they flocked to center of higher learning generally situated in the major metropolitan cities, such as Delhi and Lahore .

On 29^th June, 1994 , Baring Christian College came into existence when the District and Sessions Judge of Gurdaspur. Mr. S. Burke I.C.S cut the ribbon at the Anarkali and the first boys and girls enrolled in the college filled the main buildings, which once had housed exclusively the sons of the upper class Christian families of the Punjab . There were at the time of its inception in 1944 about 75 students predominantly from Hindu, Muslim and Sikh backgrounds. By 1946 the enrollment figures increased to 155.

In 1947, services rendered by the college to the Hindus and Sikhs, who had fled from Pakistan and come as refugees to Batala was equally significant. Terence Khushal Singh was appointed Refugee Relief Commandant by the District Commissioner of Gurdaspur. Khushal Singh made use of the school and the college students in carrying out relief operations to the refugees and the facilities of water and sanitation taken care of by the college community.

The Partition left Baring College as the only Christian College in East Punjab . In 1947 –48 a special committee was established by the Presbyterians to asses the problems of the Baring Christian College , Batala and make recommendations for its functioning. On November 20, 1948 , these united efforts brought about a meeting of the different churches to consider the question of Batala becoming the seats of a Union College .

On Febuary 19, 1949, Ranjit Chet Singh came to Batala as the First Principal of Baring Union Christian College. He came with a definite vision and an objective for the college. The Baring School would be closed on the last day of May, 1949. In fact during this period a lively controversy developed as to whether Baring Union Christian College should remain at Batala or not. Some Christians, who were involved with the development of Christian higher education in India , suggested that the college be shifted to an urban center in the Punjab , preferably Chandigarh where the University was also situated. Shifting the college to an urban center would, in the first place, deprive the people of the tehsil of the advantages of education which the College has provided. Despite these constraints and difficulties, Chet Singh was able to provide the Union College with the services of a well trained staff drawn from all over the country and abroad. He left the college a satisfied individual and his work was continued by his successor John A. Peters, a former student of Forman Christian College , Lahore , who took charge as the new Principal of the college.

JohnA. Peter’s arrival as Principal of the College started on an inauspicious note. In October, 1955 the College was flooded for fifteen days as a result of which buildings, constructed during Egerton Corfield’s tenure were ruined. In 1956, just one year after the floods, the staff and students of the Baring Union Christian College under the supervision of Carlos Welch, began the construction of the open air theatre. As many as one hundered and eighty members from the student body worked on the project. About two thirds of the theatre. Peters himself regarded this events as “the most rewarding…. from the standpoint of the student – staff relations” Peters tenure as Principal of the Union College ended on April  25 , 1959