Who among the following belonged to Serampore Mission? 1. William Carey 2. Joshua Marshman 3. William Ward 4. David Hare Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a)1 and 2 only
- (b)1 and 3 only
- (c)1, 2 and 3 only
- (d)2, 3 and 4 only
Correct — C, 1, 2 and 3 only. William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward are the men known in Indian educational history as the Serampore Trio. Carey, a Baptist shoemaker turned missionary, reached Bengal in 1793; Marshman, a schoolteacher, and Ward, a printer, joined him in 1799. Because missionaries were barred from working in territory controlled by the East India Company, the three based themselves at Serampore, then a Danish settlement on the Hooghly, and from there ran a printing press that produced grammars, dictionaries and scriptural translations in a long list of Indian languages, and in 1818 issued the prospectus for Serampore College, offered as a college for the instruction of Asiatic, Christian and other youth in Eastern literature and European science, open regardless of caste, colour or country. David Hare, item 4, belongs to the same city and the same decades but not to this mission: he was a Scottish watchmaker and philanthropist, and he was expressly not a missionary.
- (a)1 and 2 only — Leaves out William Ward, the printer of the three. The Serampore press is the reason the mission mattered to Indian education at all, and Ward ran it.
- (b)1 and 3 only — Leaves out Joshua Marshman, the schoolteacher of the group, who with Carey and Ward is one of the three names the phrase Serampore Trio refers to.
- (d)2, 3 and 4 only — Drops William Carey, who founded the mission, and adds David Hare, who was not part of it. Hare worked with Rammohan Roy and Alexander Duff on Hindu College in 1817 and on the School Book Society, and Christian missionaries would not even give him a place in their cemeteries when he died, on the view that he was not a believer.
Serampore was Danish territory until 1845, which is why it could host a mission the East India Company would not permit in Calcutta. The press there printed in dozens of Indian languages and did much to standardise Bengali prose; Carey also taught Bengali and Sanskrit at Fort William College, which Wellesley had founded in 1800 to train the Company's own civil servants in Indian languages and law. The College at Serampore received a Danish charter in 1827 giving it the power to award degrees, a power it retains, which makes it one of the oldest degree-granting institutions in Asia.
The item works by putting four early-nineteenth-century Calcutta educationists together and asking which three belong to one specific institution. The discriminator is missionary against layman. Carey, Marshman and Ward were Baptist missionaries whose educational work grew out of a translation project; Hare was a private philanthropist whose whole point was that he did not proselytise. Once that line is seen, the option list resolves at once, and the same distinction sorts most questions on this period — Alexander Duff and William Carey on the missionary side, David Hare and Rammohan Roy on the other, with Hindu College the joint venture between them.
- The Serampore Trio: William Carey (1761-1834), Joshua Marshman (1768-1837) and William Ward (1769-1823).
- Carey reached Bengal in 1793; Marshman and Ward joined him in 1799.
- They worked from Serampore, a Danish settlement, because missionaries were not permitted in Company territory.
- The prospectus for Serampore College was issued on 5 July 1818; a Danish royal charter of 1827 gave it degree-granting power.
- David Hare (1775-1842) was a Scottish watchmaker and philanthropist who helped found Hindu College in 1817 and the School Book Society, and was not a missionary.
- Counting David Hare among the missionaries; he was a layman and made a point of it.
- Treating Serampore as British territory in this period; it was Danish until 1845, which is the whole reason the mission was there.
- Confusing Serampore College with Hindu College; different founders, different purposes, and eight years apart.
As a who-belonged-to-which-institution item, as a founder-to-institution match, or as a chronology of early modern education in Bengal.
In collaboration with David Hare and Alexander Duff, who of the following established Hindu College at Calcutta?
- (a) Henry Louis Vivian Derozio
- (b) Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
- (c) Keshab Chandra Sen
- (d) Raja Rammohan Roy
Answer(d) Raja Rammohan Roy
Where David Hare actually belongs. UPSC places him at Hindu College in 1817 with Rammohan Roy and Alexander Duff, which is exactly why he is the odd name out in the Serampore list.
Wellesley established the Fort William College at Calcutta because
- (a) he was asked by the Board of Directors at London to do so
- (b) he wanted to revive interest in oriental learning in India
- (c) he wanted to provide William Carey and his associates with employment
- (d) he wanted to train British civilians for administrative purpose in India
Answer(d) he wanted to train British civilians for administrative purpose in India
The other Calcutta institution of these years, and it names Carey in a distractor for a reason — he taught Bengali and Sanskrit there. Fort William College existed to train Company servants, not to support the Serampore mission.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Serampore Mission established its press in Danish-held Serampore chiefly because
- (a)the Hooghly was navigable only up to that point
- (b)missionaries were not permitted to work in East India Company territory
- (c)paper was manufactured only in Serampore
- (d)the Company had ordered the mission out of Madras
Answer(b) missionaries were not permitted to work in East India Company territory — Serampore was Danish, and therefore outside that bar.
- practice — not a real PYQ
David Hare is associated with the founding of which one of the following institutions?
- (a)Serampore College
- (b)Fort William College
- (c)Hindu College, Calcutta
- (d)Aligarh Muslim University
Answer(c) Hindu College, Calcutta — founded in 1817 with Rammohan Roy and Alexander Duff, and later renamed Presidency College.