Murray College

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Murray College (formerly known as: Scotch Mission College), Sialkot was established by the Scottish missionaries belonging to the Church of Scotland Mission in 1889. The Church of Scotland came to Sialkot in January 1857 when the first Scottish missionary, Reverend Thomas Hunter, came to live with his wife, Jane Scott, and baby son near the Brigade Parade Ground, facing the Trinity Church (whose first stone was laid on March 1, 1852). The church was consecrated by the Bishop of Madras on January 30, 1857. Sialkot at that time was in the diocese of Calcutta in British India. (Thomas Hunter, his wife and baby son were murdered in Sialkot during the Indian War for Independence).

The Scottish missionaries who established the, what became Murray College, were a small band of people born and bred in the comparative comfort of bonny Scotland, deeply moral and ordained to the Christian ministry, each one of them possessing intellect of the highest order and educated to the highest levels of excellence in one of the five ancient universities of their country. They left their home country to live and work without recompense except for what will be barely essential to keep their and their families’ body and soul together, 7,000 miles away beyond seven seas in a strange land to educate people of a town very different from theirs.

John Garret consolidated the college and made it one of the finest in Northern India. Dr William Lillie was a man of great learning whose book on ethics may still be required reading at many universities of the world. Reverend Scott’s father was principal in the early years of the last century and Mr. Scott was born in Daska. He spent almost his entire life in Sialkot. His only absences were the time he spent every few years on furlough in Scotland. He married another Scottish missionary, Mary, and they had three children, Peter, Margaret and Agnes.

In 1972, the Government of Pakistan dismissed the Scottish missionaries – who had nurtured the cause of education in Sialkot for so long – unceremoniously from all further conduct of Murray College, Sialkot's affairs without a word of thanks and nationalized the institution.