John Franklin Goucher papers on Lucknow, India, 1890 -- 1919

John Franklin Goucher (1845-1922) was a Methodist Episcopal minister with a deep personal interest in international missions and education. He provided significant financial support to many of his colleagues in their efforts to establish schools in India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

Lucknow, India was the location of the British Residency that served as a refuge for approximately 3,000 British inhabitants during the Indian Revolt of 1857. Reid Christian Intermediate College was established in Lucknow in 1888 by the Methodist Episcopal Church as an American college serving Indian students under the protection of the British flag. In 1889 the college began offering bachelor's degree classes in Arts and Science, and in 1891 the cornerstone was finally laid for an actual building to house the college, on the same site that had been occupied by the Indian rebels in the adjoining Residency thirty-four years prior. Lucknow suffered under a famine that struck the northern India plain in 1897, and attendance at Reid Christian College that year dropped to only twenty-two, with most of the students coming from the poorer classes. The college slowly recovered, and eventually became Lucknow Christian Degree College, an associate post-graduate college of Lucknow University.