MCC founder member’s heir returns 19th century relics

John Murray Braidwood handed over the relics to Alexander Jesudasan, Principal, MCC, on Monday. “I am 85 years old. I am afraid after I pass away, these artefacts will go under the hammer. I felt it was my responsibility to return them to the place where they belong, which is the Madras Christian College. I wanted to add to the foundation of the college,” he said. 

John is the great-grandson of Rev Braidwood and Isabella Adams Murray. Both his ancestors embarked upon a journey from Edinburgh to teach in the then Madras as part of a mission of the Free Church of Scotland. They reached the shores of Chennai on September 5, 1840.

Rev Braidwood assisted Rev John Anderson and Rev Robert Johnston in setting up the school that would eventually grow into an institution of repute. Rev Braidwood chronicled the early days of the school in the book, True yoke-fellows in the mission field: The life and labours of Rev John Anderson and Rev Robert Johnston published in 1862. A copy of the book was part of the relics that were returned to the college.

Isabella took it upon herself to push forward the agenda of educating women in the city. Within a year of reaching Madras, she started the school for women with a strength of 25 students. Among the relics were a silver coffee pot that was presented to John’s ancestor as a token of love by the students, the book authored by Rev Braidwood, a bilingual prayer book with versus in English and Tamil used by Isabella, original photographs and tintypes (a photograph on a metal plate that was popular in the 19th century). 

Principal Alexander said, “The coffee pot was presented to the missionaries by their students in 1853 before they returned to Edinburgh. Now, the artefacts have come home in 2016.” The relics will be preserved at the Miller Memorial Library at the MCC.

Originally called General Assembly School and established in a rented building in the Armenian street in the George Town of Madras with just 59 students on April 1837, it was upgraded into college with introduction of two courses FA (1865) and later BA (1867). Rev William Miller transformed the institution into a ecumenical and social enterprise and named it Madras Christian College on January 1, 1877. The college was shifted to Tambaram in 1937,exactly after 100 years of stay in the heart of the city.