We trace our roots to the present Cathedral of St. Thomas at Fort, where in 1718, Rev. Richard Cobbe, Chaplain to the East India Company’s Factory at Bombay, founded not far from the Cathedral, in 1718, a small free school, where twelve poor boys were housed, clothed, fed and educated by just one master. This Charity school, was the grain of mustard seed from which Christ Church School, Byculla and Barnes School, Deolali have sprung into mighty trees.
Almost a hundred years later, the Venerable Archdeacon George Barnes, realized that the Charity school would not suffice to meet the needs of the hundreds of children without education, so he set up the Bombay Education Society in 1815 with Sir Evan Nepean, Governor of Bombay, as its first President, hence the BES is the oldest Society in the city working for the welfare and upbringing of children. As the numbers grew, new school buildings were opened in 1825, at Byculla, with Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay laying the foundation stone of the Boys’ school, and Lady Chambers and Lady West of the Girls’ school.