First medical college in Orissa, Patna named after Prince of Wales to commemorate his visit

Patna:  Ninety-nine years ago on this day, the then Prince of Wales had arrived in Patna as part of his royal tour of India, and the first medical college of Bihar and Orissa was named after him to commemorate his visit to what was then a young provincial capital.

Edward, prince of Wales and son of British monarch King George V, had traveled across the Indian subcontinent from October 1921 to March 1922. And, the historic city of Patna was on his busy royal itinerary.

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On the morning of December 22, 1921, he reached Patna via train and steamer from Nepal.

According to archival records, Edward, after landing at the ''Commissioner''s Ghat in Patna'', drove in semi-state to a grand reception durbar that was hosted in his honour at the Bankipore Maidan -- now Gandhi Maidan.

In the afternoon, he played polo and after dinner at Government House, attended an informal reception there, to which a few guests were invited from the young province of Bihar and Orissa, officially born in 1912 with capital at Patna after the historic Delhi Durbar of King George V in 1911.

Among the invited guests was Rai Bahadur Radha Krishna Jalan of the legendary Quila House in Patna City. He was a businessman and a noted personality of his time.

Aditya Jalan, 43, the current scion of the Jalan family, and his great grandson, said R K Jalan was also a great collector of arts and meticulously preserved all the invitation cards and pamphlets related to the events that he attended in those days.

"The invites and other documents related to the royal visit of prince of Wales to Patna is in my archives now. The invitation cards, include for events like the grand durbar, separate one for him and his wife, and the Government House reception the same evening," Aditya Jalan told PTI.

Today is the exact day when 99 years ago, that historic durbar was held, but people have forgotten the history, he rued.

"The next day a garden party was given by the Behar Landholders Association to the Prince of Wales at the historic Hardinge Park during his two-day visit to Patna. The invitation card that was sent to my great grandfather has a rather royal look, with a photo of Prince Edward printed on top in an artistic frame, flanked by his royal crest and motto ''Ich Dien'' (I serve)," Aditya said.

The prince, who later became King Edward VIII, wrapped up his Patna visit and moved to Calcutta on the night of December 22 where he also spent Christmas and inaugurated the iconic Victoria Memorial Hall, whose foundation stone was laid by his father in 1906 during his royal tour as the then prince of Wales.

Four years after his visit, Bihar and Orissa's first medical college -- The Prince of Wales Medical College -- was established in 1925 in Bankipore, not very far from the Maidan where the durbar was held.

The new institution, officially inaugurated two years later after it was set up, to commemorate the royal visit of 1921, stands on the banks of Ganga as a "priceless heritage of the city".

However, a few decades after the Independence, it, too, was renamed Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) as it is popularly known today.

A huge marble plaque, bearing the old name of the college and the prince of Wales royal crest, installed right outside the principal''s office, however, tells the story of its inception and the prestige it enjoyed earlier, all but faded now.

The plaque reads that the college was established in 1925 and formally inaugurated by the then Sir Henry Wheeler, the then lieutenant governor of Bihar and Orissa, on February 25, 1927.

"An official opening ceremony was held and in my archives, I have also found an invitation card for the event sent to my great grandfather," Aditya said.

The sprawling college campus is dotted with historical buildings, including the Bankipore General Hospital and Women Hospital, which were equipped with special lifts in that era, the main administrative building, and physiology and anatomy departments, among other structures.

However, this heritage is threatened as its iconic, old buildings are proposed to be dismantled in multiple phases as part of a redevlopment plan of the Bihar government that was drawn up few years ago and faced opposition from its alumni spread across the world.

Prateek Nishant, a PMCH alumnus whose great grandfather, Tarini Prasad Sinha, was among the first-graduating batch in 1927, said: "It''s sad, this pioneering institution has been shorn of its glory first and now we might lose the old heritage, too, which should be preserved for posterity." 

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