MADRAS CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

Madras Christian College (MCC) began as a small school for boys founded in 1835 by Church of Scotland chaplains, later developing into the General Assembly's School under missionary Rev. John Anderson. Officially founded in 1837, it grew under educationalist William Miller into a major institution, eventually relocating in 1937 to a 275-acre (later 365-acre) campus in Tambaram, on the outskirts of Chennai, due to space constraints in the city. The move, known as the Tambaram Project, was initiated under Rev. William Skinner and involved landscaping by Prof. Edward Barnes and architectural design by Henry Schaetti. The campus was formally opened in 1937 by Lord John Erskine, Governor of Madras. In 1938, MCC hosted the Tambaram Conference, a landmark World Missionary Conference. Women were admitted from 1939, with dedicated halls of residence developed over subsequent decades. The college became autonomous in 1978, with its first autonomous graduates in 1981, while remaining affiliated to the University of Madras. Chandran Devanesan became its first Indian principal in 1962. The campus is noted for its rich flora and fauna, including a lake and the second-largest scrub jungle in Asia, maintained by a series of faculty curators. In 2024, MCC was ranked 14th among colleges in India by the NIRF.