Robert Money High School and Junior collage, since 1835

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— at Grant Road railway station.

Robert Cotton High School Marks 175th Anniversary

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18 Feb 2011 — Built at a cost of Rs9,065, the school had only 185 students. “The school has a fascinating history. It has been through many struggles, but ...

 

The Robert Money School was founded in 1836 in memory of  Robert Cotton Money of the Honourable East India Company, second son of Sir W.T.Money, Consul General of Venice. Mr. Money served in the Bombay State, first on the Revenue Department and later in the Educational Department as Secretary to Government. In this capacity, he worked earnestly to realise his dream of imparting to the youth of this country the benefits of a sound English education.

He had excellent and enlightened ideas about education. One statement of his is worthy of note because we have it now as a truism: "I would assume it as an undisputed truth that it is the duty of every Government to educate its subjects". Mr. Money was an enthusiastic lover of India and the Indians, and it is interesting to note that he asked government to send him to a rural district so that he could try and ameliorate the condition of the depressed cultivators of that district. This was his last appointment, for, as the old record has it: "In the midst of these benevolent desires, and in the strength of his days, for he was only 32, he had an attack of jungle fever which caused his death in January 1835" . Shocked by this untimely arrest of a most promising career, his many friends in India determined that his work should not die with him, and, collecting funds, enabled the Church Missionary Society to found the School which was opened the following year and named after him "that his memory might be perpetuated and that his virtues might be handed down to the imitation of posterity."

In December 1936, the Robert Money School celebrated its Centenary when His Excellency the late Lord Brabourne, Governor of Bombay at the time, presided. In the course of his address, His Excellency the Governor remarked: "There can be a few school in India with such a long history or so well-maintained a reputation as this one. It is a very remarkable tribute to Robert Cotton money that is friends should have chosen to give his name, which would otherwise have been forgotten with the lapse of time, to a school intended to be moulded on his character, and to have founded scholarship to enable that class of boy to attend the school which it had always been his chief object to assist."

Robert Cotton High School Marks 175th Anniversary

The school was built in 1836 to tackle illiteracy in the city in memory of Robert Cotton Money of the East India Company. Money served as secretary to the government in Bombay State, first in the revenue department and later in the education department

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TNN | Posted December 15, 2010 02:18 PM

Mumbai: One could glance over this quaint red building on Proctor Road, Grant Road (East), but not its history. Every brick in the Robert Money Technical High School has a story to tell. Be it about secret meetings held in the hallway by freedom fighters or about how a high school became the country’s first technical school. But the students cannot care less. Because they are busy preparing for the schools 175th anniversary, that falls on the weekend.

The school was built in 1836 to tackle illiteracy in the city in memory of Robert Cotton Money of the East India Company. Money served as secretary to the government in Bombay State, first in the revenue department and later in the education department.Later, he quit his job and became a missionary to spread education across India. After Moneys early death, his friends made a donation to the Church Missionary Society, which established the school with the funds.

The school holds a place of importance in the country’s history. It was started at a time when education was not considered vital for ones development, said Kishore Shete, who passed out of the school in 1964 and is now the treasurer of the alumni body Old Moneyans Association (OMA).

Located close to Jinnah Hall and behind Congress House on Lamington Road, the school hosted eminent leaders during the freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel, besides others, used to hold meetings in secret in this very building, said Raghavanand Haridas, an active member of the OMA.In 1947, the last viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, laid the foundation stone of the first technical school in the country in the premises of the Robert Money School. The technical wing was built when Mumbai’s government initiated steps for the establishment of technical schools in various cities, Haridas said. The then principal of the school, C A Christie, who held the position for 27 years (1941-68), carried out other major reforms.

Since this was the only technical school in this area in the early 1960s, the students were known as blue labourers of the red factory. Many of my batch mates hold big positions in various companies across the world, Shete said.

Despite its sterling history, the school has suffered decline. It once boasted of long queues during admission season, but today it struggles to attract students. There was a time when the rich and mighty of south Bombay would send their wards to our school. We even had to refuse some. Today, the school serves people belonging to the middle and the lower middleclass. We keep requesting for more students so that we are able to keep the school running, said Rev Sharad Balid, the schools administrator.

He said the Marathi medium and junior college sections receive grants from the government, while the rest is run by the Bombay Diocesan Society. The school has about 55 teachers and 800 students.The alumni have fond memories of and hold warm feelings for the school. Many have come down for the 175th anniversary, which has all signs of being a grand affair.