Which one of the following statements is not correct about William A.J. Archbold ?

Question

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Correct — B, 'He was the Principal of Lahore College, Lahore.' This is the statement that is not correct, and in a 'not correct' question that makes it the answer. William Arthur Jobson Archbold was a Cambridge man — admitted to Peterhouse in October 1884, a first in the Law Tripos with a B.A. and LL.B. in 1887 — who spent fifteen unbroken years in Indian colleges, and the Cambridge alumni record accounts for every one of them: Principal of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh, 1905-09; Principal of Dacca College, 1909-18; Principal of Muir Central College, Allahabad, 1918-20. He then returned to Cambridge, where he worked for the Local Examinations and Lectures Syndicate and as Secretary of the Board of I.C.S. Studies, and he died on 1 June 1947. There is no gap in that sequence into which a Lahore principalship could fit, and no Lahore appointment appears anywhere in his record. Options (a), (c) and (d) each name a post he genuinely held, so only (b) can be the false statement.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) True, so it cannot be the answer. Archbold was Principal of Dacca College from 1909 to 1918 — a government college, and the longest of his three Indian postings. He moved there directly from Aligarh, and the transfer is worth noticing: Dacca was where the All-India Muslim League had been founded in December 1906, months after the deputation Archbold helped arrange.  (c) True, and it is the post that gives Archbold his place in Indian history. He was Principal of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh from 1905 to 1909, and in 1906, while he was in Simla, Mohsin-ul-Mulk asked him to convey to the Viceroy the request of a group of Muslim leaders for an interview. That request produced the Simla Deputation to Lord Minto on 1 October 1906.  (d) True. Archbold was Principal of Muir Central College, Allahabad, from 1918 to 1920 — his last Indian post, taken up after nine years at Dacca. Muir Central College had been founded in 1872 by Sir William Muir and was the institution around which the University of Allahabad grew.

Concept: Archbold matters to Indian history for one episode, not for a career. As Principal of the MAO College at Aligarh he stood at the point where the Aligarh movement of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan met the British administration. In the summer of 1906 he was at Simla; Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, secretary of the college and the leading figure at Aligarh after Sir Syed's death, asked him to pass on to the Viceroy a request that a Muslim delegation be received. Lord Minto agreed, and on 1 October 1906 a deputation of some thirty-five Muslim notables led by the Aga Khan waited on him and asked that Muslim representation in the coming reforms be settled not by numbers alone but by weight and political importance. Minto's sympathetic reply is the origin of separate electorates. The All-India Muslim League was founded at Dacca on 30 December 1906, and separate electorates were written into law by the Indian Councils Act of 1909, the Morley-Minto Reforms.

State PCS 2024 Q136 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q136 — History PYQ with Answer