thumb|Emblem of Dr. Graham's Homes, 1900AD
Dr. Graham's Homes (formerly St. Andrew's Colonial Homes) was founded in 1900 by John Anderson Graham, a missionary of the Church of Scotland, who settled in Kalimpong and worked with the local community for several years during the turn of the 20th century. Whilst working in Edinburgh as a clerk in the civil service, Graham was influenced and encouraged by the minister of his church, John McMurtrie, to be ordained in the ministry.
History
John Anderson Graham arrived in Kalimpong in 1889 as a representative of Young Men's Guild of Scotland to do missionary work in the small village of Kalimpong which had recently been annexed by the British from Bhutan after the Dooars War of 1864–1865. In only a few years after arriving in Kalimpong, Graham had turned into a social reformer who aimed to find a solution to what contemporary observers at that time called the "poor white problem" of British India. The "poor whites" were unacknowledged mixed race children of British fathers and native mothers.
On 24 September 1900 Graham opened St. Andrew's Colonial Homes on land leased from the Government of Bengal below Deolo hill in a rented cottage with 6 children. He would soon lease 100 acres and then, over the years, a total of 400 acres as the Homes continued to grow. The Homes were established as a vocational training school where abandoned children of British army personnel, administrators and tea planters would be taught a vocation and shipped to British colonies such as New Zealand, Australia and Canada where they could establish themselves with the job skills learned in Kalimpong.
Gallery
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See also
- St. George's Homes