BISHOP COTTON

Bishop Cotton School started with a sermon preached on 28th July, 1859, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Calcutta. On this day, observed even now as ‘Founder’s Day’, Bishop George Edward Lynch Cotton, spoke of starting a School in the Hills. Bishop Cotton was a Churchman by fate, but a Schoolmaster by choice. His apprenticeship was served under the Greatest of all Headmasters at Rugby, Thomas Arnold, and he is believed to be ‘the model young master’ referred to in ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’. He went on to become the Master of Marlborough and is often thought of as its second founder. Both Schools have houses named after him.

 

Bishop Cotton personally chose the site of the School and appointed Dr. Samuel Slater as the First Headmaster, before tragically drowning in 1866. The School has been witness to many ups and downs and has its own eventful history, through a steady rise in reputation, and stands today as one India’s premier schools, producing men of success and honour in every vocation, trade and occupation. The one thing common to all of them is a love for their School and the principles they learnt here. They share an uncommon bond of brotherhood, across miles and years and a brotherhood across the globe. A Cottonian is rarely, if ever, alone!