La Martiniere Kolkata

In 1752, a 17-year-old Frenchman named Claude Martin came to India as a humble private in the armies of the East India Company. But Claude Martin was no ordinary soldier of fortune. He rose rapidly to the rank of Major General and also spent many years in the service of Shuja-ud-daulah, the Nawab of Oudh. By the time of his death in September 1800, he had amassed property worth over half a million pounds sterling.

So far, Claude Martin’s career reads like that of so many other Europeans who found fame and fortune under the powerful patronage of the East India Company. And indeed, if that was all there was to the man, he would have soon been forgotten in the musty pages of history.

However, Claude Martin was a man of vision and he left generous endowments to start schools in Lucknow, Kolkata and in Lyon, in his native land of France. La Martiniere Schools, Kolkata, were the result of his desire to start an educational institution for the “public good of the town of Calcutta.”

It took 30 years to dispose off the litigation arising out of Claude Martin’s will. Finally, as a result of a Supreme Court decision, La Martiniere Schools opened in Kolkata, on 1st March, 1836.

La Martiniere for Boys offers an all-round education up to the Higher Secondary level. It is affiliated to the Council for the ISC Examinations New Delhi, which conducts the ICSE & ISC Examinations at the close of Classes X & XII.

The school has a very wide spectrum of co-curricular activities which receive as much importance as the academic disciplines. Through this extensive range of activities, the students are exposed to varying situations and issues. They regularly participate in Inter-School Competitions at the local, State, National and occasionally, at the International level.

The scholastic, the intra and the extra-mural programmes of La Martiniere are geared to nurturing academic excellence, independent and creative thought, tapping of diverse talents, leadership training and a deep commitment to serving the community.

Sir Catchick Paul Chater, a Foundationer and ward of the school studied in La Martiniere from 1856–1863. From an early age Chater displayed academic brilliance and a limitless capacity for hard work. After completing school, Chater entered the world of trade and commerce and prospered. By the second decade of the 20th Century, he was a very rich, famous and deeply respected banker in Hong Kong. His philanthropy was already legendary and earned him a knighthood from the British Crown.

In the meanwhile, La Martiniere Schools, Calcutta were in dire financial straits and, in a desperate bid to keep bankruptcy at bay, were forced to sell two large buildings near either gate of the Boys' School. It will remain to the eternal credit of the Martinere teachers of this period, that they volunteered for a substantial cut in their salaries in a heroic but vain bid to save the school. Unfortunately, all these efforts failed to solve the schools' financial dilemma and, La Martiniere prepared to close down.