Church of Scotland / Free Church of Scotland
Duff believed that the surest way to reach India was through its schoolrooms. Reaching Calcutta as Scotland's first foreign missionary, he opened a school in 1830 teaching in English, betting that a new kind of learning would reshape how its students saw the world. When his church split in 1843 he walked away from the buildings rather than the cause, and started over — his ideas later shaping Indian education far beyond his own classroom.
He planted a school where others planted chapels, trusting that a mind taught to question would, in time, walk itself to the door he hoped it would reach.
Roles
Regions
What they did
- The Church of Scotland's first foreign missionary, who opened an English-medium school in Calcutta in 1830
- At the 1843 Disruption gave up his buildings to join the Free Church and rebuilt the work
- His educational strategy influenced wider reform and the later University of Calcutta
Society
Sources: duff-life-v2 p.1 · neill-history-1707-1858 p.331