Bishop Heber College: A Legacy of Education and Religious Heritage

Bishop Heber College, a religious minority educational institution in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India, boasts a rich history rooted in 19th-century religious schools. Officially established in 1873, the college has evolved into a prominent institution of higher learning, offering a wide array of programs and earning recognition for its academic excellence.

Historical Roots and Establishment

The college's historical roots extend to the mid-19th century through various local religious schools. The institution was formally established in 1873 and is located in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu.

Rankings and Recognition

Bishop Heber College has consistently achieved high rankings in national assessments. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranked it 33rd among colleges in India in 2024 and 46th in 2025. The college is approved by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and has been accredited with an ‘A’ grade by NAAC. In 2001, it was awarded 5 Stars by NAAC and accredited with Grade ‘A+’. In the 3rd cycle Reaccreditation by NAAC, the College was Accredited with 'A' Grade with a CGPA of 3.58 on a 4 Point Scale on 3rd March 2015. The college has also been recognized by the UGC as a ‘College with Potential for Excellence’ since September 2011. The College secured 4th rank at National Level Awarded by MHRD in the year 2017.

Academic Programs

Bishop Heber College offers a diverse range of academic programs, including thirteen undergraduate, eighteen postgraduate, and four postgraduate diploma programs, along with three diploma programs. The college also provides research programs leading to M.Phil and Ph.D. degrees.

Undergraduate Programs

Bishop Heber College offers conventional degree courses at the undergraduate level in various specializations. Some of the top programs available include B.Voc and B.Com. To be eligible for admission into undergraduate programs, candidates must have completed the 10+2 (Class 12) examination from a recognized board, typically with a minimum of 50% marks. Specific programs like engineering and medicine may require entrance exams such as JEE Main and NEET, respectively.

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Postgraduate Programs

The college offers Master’s degrees in a number of disciplines and professional courses such as MCA and MBA. All PG courses are of two years duration except for MCA which is of three years duration. Applicants must have a bachelor's degree in a relevant field from a recognized university, typically with a minimum of 50% marks. Certain programs, such as MBA and M.Tech, may require entrance exams like CAT, XAT, MAT, GMAT, and GATE, respectively.

Postgraduate Courses Offered:

M.A. Tamil
M.A. English
M.A. History
M.Com
M.Li.Sc.
MSW (Clinical Social Work, Community Development, Manager Human Resource Management)
M.Sc. Mathematics
M.Sc. Chemistry
M.Sc. Environmental Sciences
M.Sc. Actuarial Science
M.Sc. Biotechnology
M.Sc. Botany
M.Sc. Computer Science
M.Sc. Information Technology
M.C.A. (Master of Computer Applications)
M.B.A. (Master of Business Administration)
P.G.D.C.A. (Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Applications)
P.G.D.A.S.

Diploma and PG Diploma Programs

Bishop Heber College also provides PG Diploma courses that require a Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline, where admissions are granted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Admission Process

The admission process at Bishop Heber College generally includes the following steps:

Eligibility Check: Verifying that the candidate meets the minimum academic qualifications.
Entrance Exams (if applicable): Appearing for required entrance exams such as TANCET for MBA and MCA programs.
Application Submission: Submitting the application form online or offline.
Document Verification: Providing necessary documents to verify eligibility and academic background.
Merit List / Counseling / Interview: Being evaluated based on merit, counseling sessions, or interviews.
Admission Offer & Fee Payment: Receiving an admission offer and paying the required fees.
Enrollment: Completing the enrollment process to become a student.

Required Documents

When applying for admission, candidates typically need to provide several essential documents, including:

Academic transcripts and certificates
Entrance exam scorecards (if applicable)
Identity proof
Passport-sized photographs
Category certificates (if applicable)

Courses Offered

Bishop Heber College offers 79 diverse courses across multiple disciplines. These programs are thoughtfully designed to equip students with industry-relevant skills, covering fields such as General, Accounting Taxation and Auditing, Computer Applications, International Accounting and Finance, and Professional Accounting.

Campus and Facilities

The college campus is known for its beautiful gardens and well-furnished ICT classrooms. It features an A/C and Wi-Fi-enabled library with a vast collection of textbooks, reference books, and national and international journals. The library has a collection of over 15830 textbooks and 5276 reference books. It is subscribed to 51000 e-books and 2100 e-journals. All the 68 ICT classrooms are well furnished.

Collaborations and Outreach

Bishop Heber College has collaborations with several international institutions, including:

Union Christian College, Shillong, Meghalaya
Albert Einstein Science Institution, Shillong, Meghalaya
Liverpool Hope University, UK
Appalachian State University, USA
Waddesdon Church School England, UK
Neoma Business School, France
Wolverhampton University, UK
Kingston University, London, UK
University of Burgundy, France
GORNO - Altasia State University, Russia
DAVIDSON - North Carolina, USA
IESEG, France
Kavin Bioresearch, Chennai
K.S. Classrooms

The Heber Au Sable Institute of Environmental Sciences of the College is an International Outreach Centre of the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Sciences, USA. The Heber Au Sable Institute conducts a number of programmes educating students of Schools and Colleges on environmental issues. A Course on Ecology of Indian Tropics is being offered to American and Indian students teaching them at a variety of eco system preserves and National park in Tamilnadu, Kerela and the Andaman Islands.

Scholarship Programs

Bishop Heber College offers various scholarships to eligible students based on academic merit, reserved quotas, and financial need. These include:

SC/ST Student Scholarships
BC/MBC Student Scholarships
Adhoc Merit Scholarships
Bright Student Award
Intelligent Student Award
National Merit Scholarships
Freedom Fighter Scholarships
Physically Handicapped student Scholarships
C. M. Bishop

Key Historical Events

1826: Reginald Heber, the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, visited Tiruchirappalli.
1864: Bishop Heber College (BHC), Tiruchirappalli was established.
1873: The college was originally established.
1882: It became a First Grade College, known as S.P.G College.
1920s: The College came to be known as Bishop Heber College.
1925: Honours courses in History and Mathematics were introduced.
1934: The college was closed, and the Bishop Heber Hall emerged at Madras Christian College, Tambaram.
1964: Doctor Solomon Doraisawmy began efforts to revive the College.
1966: The college was re-established.
1968: The Department of History was established.
1985: The College started offering programmes in the Self-Financing stream.
2001: It is accredited with Grade ‘A+’ and awarded 5 Stars by NAAC.
2004: It is affiliated to Bharathidasan University and granted ‘Autonomy’.
2011: The college has been recognised by the UGC as ‘College with Potential for Excellence’.
2015: The College was Accredited with 'A' Grade by NAAC.
2016: The college celebrated its Golden Jubilee.
2017: The College secured 4th rank at National Level Awarded by MHRD.
2019: Ranked 2 for Engineering by JEE Cutoff.

About Reginald Heber

Reginald Heber (21 April 1783 - 3 April 1826) was an English Anglican bishop, a man of letters, and hymn-writer. He served as Bishop of Calcutta until his death at the age of 42. The son of a rich landowner and cleric, Heber gained fame at the University of Oxford as a poet. Ordained in 1807, he took over his father's old parish, Hodnet, Shropshire. He was consecrated Bishop of Calcutta in October 1823. He travelled widely and worked to improve the spiritual and general living conditions of his flock. Arduous duties, a hostile climate and poor health led to his collapse and death after less than three years in India. Memorials were erected there and in St Paul's Cathedral, London. A collection of his hymns appeared soon after his death, including "Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty".

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Early Life and Education

The surname "Heber" probably derives from "Haybergh", a hill in the Craven district of Yorkshire, where the family originated. In 1752 Richard Heber received the manor and estate of Hodnet Hall in Shropshire as a bequest from a cousin of his wife. This included patronage of the parish of Hodnet. At the age of eight the younger Reginald began five years at the local grammar school at Whitchurch. In 1796 he was sent to Bristow's, a small private school in Neasden. There were family connections with Brasenose, Heber's brother Richard being a fellow at the time and his father was a former fellow. The head of the college was William Cleaver, a friend of Reginald Senior and frequent visitor to Hodnet Hall.

University and Early Career

In his first year, Heber won the University Prize for Latin Verse and began to develop local repute as a Romantic poet. In 1803 he entered a long poem, "Palestine", for the Newdigate Prize, and was helped in composing it by Walter Scott. The poem was enthusiastically received when Heber declaimed it at that year's Encaenia ceremony. It was later published and set to music by William Crotch and translated into Welsh by W. Owen Pughe. The death of Reginald Senior in February 1804 left the living of parish of St Luke, Hodnet vacant, and may have prompted Heber's decision to seek ordination, though he delayed it for some years. He took his bachelor's degree in the summer of 1804 and was elected to a fellowship of All Souls College, Oxford.

Travel and Ordination

Heber and Thornton had planned to follow their graduation with a Grand Tour of Europe. They then turned south-east, re-entered Sweden and travelled through Uppsala to Stockholm. Heber and Thornton had meant to remain in St Petersburg until after the New Year, then if possible return home through Germany, but this was thwarted by Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805 and the treaties that followed. Instead they extended their stay in Russia, leaving St Petersburg on 31 December 1805 by sledge for the 500-mile journey to Moscow, where they arrived on 3 January. They found it a hospitable city and made friends with many of its leading citizens and clergy. They left by stage coach on 13 March, heading south towards the Crimea and the Black Sea, through the Cossack country of the Don River Basin. In the Crimea, Heber observed the manners and practices of the region's large Muslim community. The course of the war in Europe had meanwhile shifted to allow Heber and Thornton to pass through Poland, Hungary, Austria and Germany to the port of Hamburg, by way of Austerlitz, where they heard accounts of the recent battle. On his return to England, Heber prepared for Holy Orders at Oxford, where he found time for literary pursuits, was active in university politics and led a busy social life. He was ordained as deacon at the end of February 1807 and received full priest's orders from the Bishop of Oxford on 24 May 1807. He was then inducted into the family living, as rector of Hodnet.

Parish Work and Marriage

At first he divided his time between his parish and Oxford, where he fulfilled duties at All Souls. On 9 April 1809 Heber married Amelia Shipley, the youngest daughter of the Dean of St Asaph. He withdrew from Oxford, having secured his M.A., and set himself up permanently in the Hodnet rectory; finding this too small for his wife's liking he had the house demolished and a larger replacement built. In September 1813 Heber preached a sermon in Shrewsbury to the British and Foreign Bible Society, a missionary organisation of which he had been a member since his undergraduate days. He refused an appointment as a canon at Durham, preferring to continue his work in Hodnet, assisted by his younger brother, the Revd Thomas Heber, who served as his curate until his death in 1816.

Later Literary Pursuits

The employment of a curate enabled Heber to devote more time to his literary pursuits, and to accept an invitation, in 1815, to deliver the Bampton Lectures at Oxford. In 1817 Heber accepted the post of canon at St Asaph, the relative proximity of which enabled the extra duties to be carried out without interfering with his parish work. His main literary task during these years was a biography and critical study of the complete works of the 17th-century cleric Jeremy Taylor; the works, with Heber's critique, were published in 15 volumes between 1820 and 1822. This period of Heber's life was saddened by the death, on 24 December 1818, of his infant daughter after a short illness. Two more daughters were born later, in 1821 and 1824 respectively; both lived to adulthood. In 1822 Heber was elected to the church office of Preacher of Lincoln's Inn, which would require a regular term of residence in London.

Hymn Writer

At the start of the 19th century the Anglican authorities officially disapproved of the singing of hymns in churches, other than metrical psalms, although there was considerable informal hymn-singing in parishes. Heber, according to the poet John Betjeman, was a professed admirer of the hymns of John Newton and William Cowper, and was one of the first High Church Anglicans to write his own. In all he wrote 57, mainly between 1811 and 1821. Heber wished to publish his hymns in a collection, in which he proposed to include some by other writers. In October 1820 he sought help from the Bishop of London, William Howley, in obtaining official recognition of his collection from the Archbishop of Canterbury. In a noncommittal reply Howley suggested that Heber should publish the hymns, although he proposed to withhold episcopal approval until public reaction could be gauged. Heber began preparing the publication, but was unable to complete arrangements before his departure for India in 1823. Betjeman characterised Heber's style as consciously literary, with careful choices of adjectives and vivid figures of speech. One whose popularity has waned is the missionary hymn "From Greenland's Icy Mountains", written in 1819 as part of a country-wide campaign on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG).

Bishop of Calcutta

The see of Calcutta had been established in 1814. It covered much of the Indian subcontinent and Ceylon, together with Australia and parts of southern Africa. The first bishop, Thomas Middleton, who had been consecrated in 1814, died in office in July 1822. At the time the head of the Indian Board of Control was Charles Williams-Wynn, an old Oxford friend of Heber's. Heber was attracted to the post, his interest in distant places having been stimulated by his early travels, but his initial response to the implied offer was cautious. He first asked Williams-Wynn whether there was a suitable local man for the appointment and he was told there was not. His next concern was whether his wife and infant daughter should be exposed to the rigours of the Indian climate, and also if his own health was adequate. After consultation with doctors and discussion with his family, Heber wrote to Williams-Wynn on 2 January 1823, refusing the post. Within days he had written again, regretting the refusal and asking if the post was still available, at which Williams-Wynn quickly obtained the formal approval of King George IV to the appointment. Heber spent the next few months at Hodnet preparing for his departure; during this period he gave a farewell sermon at Oxford, after which the degree of Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) was conferred on him. On 1 June 1823 Heber was formally consecrated as Bishop of Calcutta at Lambeth Palace, by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Work in India

The new bishop arrived in Calcutta on 10 October 1823. After his ceremonial installation by the Governor General, Lord Amherst, Heber preached his first sermon as bishop on Sunday 12 October, in St John's Cathedral Church. He faced many challenges arising from tasks unfinished at the time of his predecessor's death and from the long hiatus without a bishop. A major area of concern was Bishop's College, a training school for local clergy founded by Middleton in 1820, the development of which had stalled due to financial and management problems. Heber was interested in all aspects of Indian life and quickly made friends, both with the local population and with the representatives of non-Anglican churches. Occasionally his easy manner and lavish hospitality clashed with the principles of the more puritan and evangelical of his clergy; one such, Isaac Wilson of the CMS, used a sermon to mount a direct attack on the bishop after what he considered were excessive celebrations following a baptismal service.

Travels and Observations

On 15 June 1824 Heber set out on a tour of northern India, accompanied by his personal chaplain, Martin Stowe, and Daniel Corrie, the Archdeacon of Calcutta. Amelia remained in Calcutta; earlier in the year she had given birth to her third daughter, Harriet. The general plan was to travel by boat to the upper waters of the River Ganges, then overland into the foothills of the Himalayas before turning south and west, crossing Rajputana to reach Bombay. The journey was almost aborted near to its beginning when Stowe fell ill in Dacca (present-day Dhaka, Bangladesh) and died there; after some hesitation, Heber decided that the tour should continue. Early in August the party reached Benares (now Varanasi), the largest of the cities in the Ganges plain, where Heber spent several weeks. It was a wholly Indian city without a European population, sacred to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists but with a well-established CMS school and a substantial Christian minority. The party left Benares in mid-September. After reaching Allahabad they continued overland, accompanied by an armed troop of sepoys. On 28 November they reached their farthest northerly point, at Almora in the Kumaon region. Their subsequent path southward took them to Delhi, the ancient Mughal capital, where Heber was presented to the ageing emperor Akbar Shah II in his dilapidated palace; Heber wrote of the emperor as "the venerable ruin of a mighty stock". In the final stages of the journey to Bombay, at Nadiad, Heber met with Sahajanand Swami, the region's leading Hindu religious leader. Heber remained in Bombay for four months, and then decided that, instead of sailing directly for Calcutta, he would visit Ceylon on the way.

Final Tour and Death

Heber wished to pass on to the Governor General, Lord Amherst, much of what he had learned and observed on his long voyage, and on his return to Calcutta busied himself with a series of detailed reports. He also wrote to Williams-Wynn in London, strongly criticising the East India Company's stewardship of its Indian territories. In spite of the pressures on his time, Heber set out again on 30 January 1826, this time heading south for Madras, Pondicherry, Tanjore, and ultimately Travancore. One reason for the tour was to examine the issue of caste, which persisted in Southern India. In Tanjore on Easter Day, 26 March 1826, Heber preached to more than 1300, and on the following day conducted a confirmation service for a large Tamil congregation. On 1 April he moved on to Trichinopoly where, next day, he confirmed 42 people. On 3 April, after attending an early-morning service at which he gave a blessing in the Tamil language, Heber returned to his bungalow for a cold bath. He was found dead shortly afterwards; the cause of death was given as a stroke brought on by the shock of the cold water. He was buried the same day, in St John's church, Trichinopoly.

Legacy

Although Heber's episcopate had been brief he had made a considerable impression, and news of his death brought many tributes from around India. It took four months for reports of Heber's death to reach England. At Oxford, representatives of Brasenose and All Souls opened a fund for an appropriate memorial; this idea was taken over by Williams-Wynn, who wanted a national rather than an Oxford-based monument. From the large sum collected, Chantrey was paid £3,000 for a huge marble sculpture that was placed in St Paul's Cathedral, London. More modest memorials were raised in the parish churches at Hodnet and Malpas. At the time of Heber's episcopacy, Australia formed part of the Diocese of Calcutta and, following Heber's death, a schoolhouse.

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