City and College: St Stephen’s College, Delhi, 1858–1947
City and College: St Stephen’s College, Delhi, 1858–1947
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Go to cartISBN: 9789360338442
Bind: Hardbound
Year: 2026
Pages: 80
Size: 5.5 x 8.5 Inch
Publisher: Viva Books Originals
Sales Territory: Worldwide
Description:
“I wonder how it happens that one is pulled out of a known yet uncomfortable Australian environment and transferred to an unknown Asian environment, to write an account of a city, in this case Delhi; and of its foremost educational institution, St Stephen’s College.”
—D.E.U. Baker
In a short account of the interwoven journeys of St Stephen’s College and the city of Delhi, D.E.U. Baker traces the history of the College from the time that its founders from Cambridge struggled to shape a meaningful educational project in a city rebuilding itself from the ruins of a devastating conflict in 1857 to the end of World War II/1947, when the College’s basic rhythms had been set and it was ready to take its place in the new order of things. Baker’s focus is on the historical shaping of the College’s founding values – discipline, sound learning, well-rounded personality, community, camaraderie, syncretism and service – through the vision and motivation of its early Principals, and Staff; and the underlying dilemmas and challenges that informed this journey through the momentous changes in the city and the country in this period.
Marshalling a range of sources, from the College’s official documents and publications, to reports and letters of the founding scholars-missionaries, and of course, critical secondary writings, Baker writes at once with broad strokes and in sparkling detail, fashioning an evocative history of an institution and its city.
Target Audience:
The book is intended for academicians, historians, and the St Stephen’s community, but also accessible to general readers interested in Delhi’s past and the role of education in shaping society.
Contents:
Foreword
Editors’ Notes
A Block Tutor’s Prayer
Preface: Delhi, 1850–6
Acknowledgements
Introduction
I. Post-Revolt Delhi and the Founding of St Stephen’s College, 1858–81
II. The Beginnings of Christian Higher Education in Northern India: St Stephen’s College, 1881–1910
III. In the New Capital of India, 1911–19/23
IV. Between Two World Wars, 1919/23–1945/47
Postscript: Vignettes from the Life of St Stephen’s College in the Era of Independence, Partition and Beyond
Bibliography
Index
Principals of St Stephen’s College
Old and New Buildings of St Stephen’s College
About the Author:
David Edward Uther Baker (1932–2021) was a historian and long-serving faculty member at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. Born in Fremantle, Western Australia, he first arrived in India in the 1960s as a Ph.D. scholar from the Australian National University. He joined St Stephen’s College as a faculty member soon after, made India his home and served the College in various capacities till his passing.
One of the foremost historians of modern Central India, Baker’s publications on its history include three books – Changing Political Leadership in an Indian Province: The Central Provinces and Berar (1979), Colonialism in an Indian Hinterland: The Central Provinces, 1820–1920 (1993) and Baghelkhand, or the Tigers’ Lair: Region and Nation in Indian History (2007), all by Oxford University Press.
Besides being a formidable teacher, Baker served as a Block Tutor in the various Residence halls at St Stephen’s, where his legendary “teas” and disciplined mentorship shaped generations of students. For many, he was an embodiment of the College’s ethos of care, tradition and intellectual rigour. He also devoted years to organising and cataloguing the College’s archives, which have now been named after him as the David Baker Memorial Archive.
Despite declining health in the later years, and eventually in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, he persevered in writing a history of St Stephen’s College, leaving behind a manuscript that has now been posthumously edited and published by his students and colleagues in the form of this book.
