History of The Department

The Department of Mathematics of Hindu-Presidency College started functioning since 1817, the foundation year of the college, although the earlier history is available only since 1857, the year of establishment of University Of Calcutta. In the next three decades from 1857 B.A. and M.A. Mathematics Honours classes were held. B.A. (Honours) and one-year M.A. courses were separated in 1884. During this time arts students opted for Science subjects in B.A. till 1902 when B.Sc. course was introduced. With the introduction of Indian University Act in 1904 Intermediate Arts and Intermediate Science courses were started followed by two-year course for M.A. / M. Sc. course. Pure Mathematics and Mixed Mathematics were the two streams of postgraduate Mathematics course since 1911. In 1936 Mixed Mathematics was renamed as Applied Mathematics. Later with the beginning of posgraduate teaching in University of Calcutta separate postgraduate teaching in the Department stopped although a few students enrolled in this College attended classes in the University till 2011. Intermediate courses were abolished in 1960. Since then there is the provision for only three-year Honours Degree courses. After establishment of Presidency University, the two year M. Sc. Course has been introduced.

There was an astronomical observatory attached to this department. As the subject Astronomy was excluded from the Mathematics syllabus on the new Degree course the well-equipped astronomical observatory attached to the Department lost its importance and significance since sixties of the last century.

The department can boast of a number of illustrated teachers and brilliant students. Amongst the brilliant students the first Indian Wrangler Sir Anandamohan Basu (1868), Gouri Sankar De (1867), Sir Asutosh Mukerjee (M.A. 1885), S. N. Bose (B.Sc. 1913), Meghnad Saha (B. Sc. 1913), Nirpendranath Sen (B.Sc in 1916) and Suddhodan Ghosh (B.Sc. 1918) were a few of them. Some of the distinguished teachers of the department who have enriched different branches of Mathematics are Sarada Prasanna Das (1900-1901, 1915-1930), C. E. Cullis (1902-1917), Debendranath Mullick ((1908-1921), Bhupendra Chandra Das (1926-1949), Bibhuti Bhusan Sen (1945-1951) and Sujit Kumar Bose (1960-1966) .