La Martinière College is an elite educational institution located in Lucknow, the capital of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The college consists of two schools on different campuses for boys and girls. La Martinière College (for boys) was founded in 1845 and La Martinière Girls' College was established in 1869. La Martiniere Boys' College is the only school in the world to have been awarded royal battle honoursDeefholts, Margaret. 'History's ghosts in Old Lucknow' accessed June 2007 for its role in the defence of Lucknow and the Lucknow residency during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

The two Lucknow colleges are part of the La Martinière family of schools, founded by the French adventurer Major General Claude Martin. There are two La Martiniere Colleges in Kolkata and three in Lyon. La Martiniere provides a liberal education and the medium of instruction is the English language. The schools cater for pupils from the age of 5 to 17 or 18, and are open to children of all religious denominations, the boys' school has a Chapel, a Hindu Temple and a Mosque on its campus and has remained a non-denominational school since its inception, unlike the two La Martiniere Schools in Calcutta which are Christian schools, controlled by the Anglican Church of North India. Both the schools have day scholars and residence scholars (boarders).

The Economist has described its Constantia building as "perhaps the best-preserved colonial building in Lucknow".

Major-General Claude Martin

La Martinière Boys' College was founded by an endowment from the wealthy eighteenth-century Frenchman, Major-General Claude Martin (1735–1800), who was an officer in the French and later the British East India Company. Constantia, the palatial building which now houses the Boys' College, was built in 1785 as Martin's country residence, but was not completed until 1802,'La Martinière (??), the house of Colonel Martin, at Lucknow'. From the British Library's Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections on the Collect Britain website. accessed July 2007 two years after Martin's death on 13 September 1800. Historians believe that the house takes its name from the school motto Labore et Constantia (Work and Constancy) which represents Martin's personal philosophy. There is a more romantic, though unproven, notion that the building was named after Constance, a young French girl who was supposedly Martin's first love.An article by the Lucknow historian Ms. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones in Taj magazine accessed June 2007

Martin never married and he had no heirs. In his will, dated 1 January 1800, he left the bulk of his estate to provide for the establishment of three schools to be named La Martinière in his memory. The schools were to be located in Lucknow, Calcutta and at Lyon, his birthplace in France. The residue of his estate after bequests had been made to be used for the maintenance of these schools. He directed that the school in Lucknow should be established at Constantia and that the house should be kept as a "school or College for teaching young men the English language and Christian religion if they found themselves inclined".A synopsis of the history of La Martinière College, Lucknow accessed June 2007 Martin instructed in his will that his 'body be salted, put in spirits or embalmed', and placed in a lead coffin in a vault beneath the house.Extract from "Quest for Kim – In search of Kipling's Great Game" by Peter Hopkirk. London: John Murray, 1996. . Transcribed by Tony Mooar in a posting on the India-L Rootsweb Mailing List on 23 April 1999 accessed June 2007

It is popularly believed that Martin was motivated not just by vanity but by a desire to protect his property after his death and to prevent his friend, the nawab, from acquiring it. By having himself, a Christian, buried beneath Constantia, he knew that the building would be permanently desecrated in the Muslim nawab's eyes. Chandan Mitra, in his book Constant Glory, thinks otherwise. He writes "Constantia's plans show that the basement mausoleum was part of the original scheme for the building and not included as an afterthought to guard against requisition."Mitra, Chandan. Constant glory: La Martinière jai mata di saga 1836–1986. Calcutta: Oxford University jai mata di Press, 1987.

Martin was duly interred in a specially prepared vault in the basement of the house. Thus, Constantia became both a school and a mausoleum. It is the largest European funerary monument in India, and the historian William Dalrymple has described it as "The East India Company's answer to the Taj Mahal".Prachi jai mata di Pratap, "La Martinière and the Mutiny", on Tornos India accessed July 2007

Early years After Martin's death there were protracted disputes in the Calcutta High Court and consequently his will was not proved until 1840. In the interim the Constantia building was used as a guest house for visiting Europeans. The school finally opened on 1 October 1845 with some seventy boys on roll. The first Principal was John Newmarch.

Unlike the Calcutta La Martinière, the Lucknow school was technically established outside British territory so right from its inception its interaction with local society was frequent. There was also a native branch of the school in the Maqbara Amjad Ali Shah at Hazratganj in the centre of Lucknow. There were plans to move the native school to a different location, although it is not known whether this actually took place.

The first major challenge for the La Martinière School was the events of 1857 when it had to leave its premises and assisted in the defence of the Lucknow Residency.

La Martinière during the 1857 uprising

In the events of 1857, eight staff members, sixty seven boys and one ensign (old boy) participated.

After 1857

La Martinière Lucknow, like its counterpart in Calcutta, expanded rapidly after the rebellion of 1857 There were 148 students on its rolls in 1859, but the number had increased to 277 by 1862. Boarders came from all over the province from districts like Pratapgarh, Mirzapur, Gorakhpur, Allahabad, Kanpur and Etawah.

The records show that in 1865 over 120 boys qualified for admission to the higher department of the Civil Engineering College at Roorkee.

In 1869, the La Martinière Girls' School was founded and in 1871 it moved to its present location in the compound of Khurshid Manzil. Initially the Girls' School was under the management of the Boys' School. The La Martinière College Principal was in overall charge of both the Boys' and Girls' Schools, with the Girls' school headed by a Lady Superintendent.

In 1945, the college celebrated its Centenary.

In wake of threat of invasion by the Japanese during the Second World War, the Calcutta Schools were re-located to Lucknow.

After Indian Independence, the curriculum was changed in 1947, with Urdu being dropped as a compulsory subject and replaced by Hindi. Many Anglo-Indians both students and Masters left for Britain and Australia. This trend was to continue till almost the mid-seventies.

In 1951, Meredith Doutre was appointed as the first Indian principal of the college. He was succeeded by Col HRH Daniels in the 1960s and then by Mr. DEW Shaw in the mid-1970s. The bulk of the students were drawn from the upper middle and middle classes.

In 1960, there was flooding of the grounds by the Gomti River resulting in the evacuation of staff and boys to higher ground. In 1962 and 1971 again major floods occurred which threatened the building. The Government constructed a protective bund in 1973–74 which separated the school lake from the main vista thus substantially reducing the earlier picturesque setting.

In 1976, the school was affiliated to the Indian Council for Secondary Education system of education. This entailed the exam for the Certificate of Secondary Education (class X) and the School Leaving Certificate (class XII).

In 1995, the school celebrated its sesquicentennial anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, a history of the college, Bright Renown, was released, an exhibition on the history of the school was organized, and for several days the Constantia was lit up in the night. The President of India released a postage stamp to recognize the contribution of La Martinière Lucknow.

In 1997 one of the teachers was murdered in the early hours of the morning on 7 March. Thirty-year-old Anglo-Indian Frederick Gomes, the college's assistant warden and physical training instructor, was murdered in his bungalow on the perimeter of the school grounds. Two people were seen firing shots through a broken window at the back of the building, but the culprits were not identified and the murder remains unsolved. However, the murder created a sensation in India at the time, especially when it was found that the school's students had access to guns. Newspaper columnist Saeed Naqvi, Ashank Mehrotra former pupils at the school commented: "The killing is a metaphor of our times. For such a level of violence to reach the sacred precincts of La Martinière is symbolic of the way that Lucknow, like so much of India, has completely ceased to be what it once was."

History of the Girls' School Unlike the schools in Calcutta and Lyons there had been no provision to found a girls' school in Lucknow. However funds were found from a female education fund and a school was started at Moti Mahal. The Lucknow Girls' School, as it was then known, was run by Mrs. Saunders Abbott. Following a land grant from the government the school was moved to its present location at Khursheed Manzil in 1871 and incorporated and established as a branch of La Martinière College.History of the Girls' College accessed June 2007

Principals

Boys' School

Source: John Newmarch was the first Principal of La Martinière, Lucknow, in 1845. Leonidas Clint (1845–1855), was the Principal of La Martinière, Lucknow, from about 1845 to 1855. He was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. After leaving Martinière. Clint returned to the UK to take up holy orders. He was ordained as a deacon in 1859 and as a priest in 1861 (St David's). He was curate of Lamphey, Pembrokeshire (1859–1861), Hereford (1861–1863), Presteigne, Powys (1863–1865), and Brockhampton, Herefordshire (1865–1874). He was the vicar of Lingen, Herefordshire from 1874 to 1893. He was the editor of Dryden's Flower and Leaf and the author of Conic Sections. He died in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, aged 85.Venn, J. A., comp., Alumni Cantabrigienses. London: Cambridge University Press, 1922–1954. George Schilling (November 1855 - December 1855) Previously assistant master at La Martiniere Calcutta.Rees, L. E. "Mr. Rees and Mr. Martin Gubbins" (letter to the Editor). The Times, 24 July 1858. He was the Principal during the siege of Lucknow in 1857. James W.H. Stobart (1855 - 1859) Thomas Gaskell Sykes (1859 - 1879) Lieutenant Thomas Percival Wood (1879 – 1909), was educated at Dulwich College, London, and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was English 'Proviseur' at the Lycée Ampere in Lyons from 1906 to 1907. He was appointed Principal of La Martinière Lucknow in 1910. Wood was an officer of the Lucknow Volunteer Rifles, and offered his services in August 1914. He was promoted to the position of lieutenant in the Indian Army reserve in February 1915. After spending four months with the 1/7th Gurkha Rifles in Quetta, he was drafted to the Expeditionary Force in France, where he joined the 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles in September 1915. He was killed at the Battle of Loos while gallantly leading his men in action.Fallen officers: The Times list of casualties', The Times, 23 May 1916 His name is commemorated on the Neuve-Chapelle memorial in France.Commonwealth War Graves' Commission accessed June 2006 CLS Garnett was the Principal from 1915 to 1920. Lt. Colonel Ralph S. Weir (1920-1926)