Henri Depelchin

Father Depelchin, then 37, was one of the men who was asked to come to India and help. He accepted, and he was appointed as the Superior of the new Mission. He and his group sailed from Antwerp and arrived at Calcutta on 29 November 1859.[1] They, along with the local Catholics, immediately set to gather the funds and build the new school. 12 days later, Depelchin announced in the newspapers that College of St. Francis Xavier would be opening on 6 January 1860. A prospectus had already been published and distributed. Designed by a Brother Koppes, S.J., the school opened eight days later than planned, with Father Jean Devos, S.J., as its first Rector.[1][5][6][7]

By that time, Depelchin had become so ill with cholera that he was not expected to live. However, he recovered in time. During his period of convalescence, he served as the military chaplain of the British troops at Fort William in Calcutta. He also served as the Rector of St. Xavier's College from 1864 to 1871. During these years, the enrolment of the College grew from 100 students to 500. To develop the science curriculum of the College, Depelchin recruited a young Belgian Jesuit priest, Eugène Lafont, S.J., the future leading figure in the scientific community of India.

After brief stints as a pastor in Midnapore (1871–1872) and Poona (1872–1873), in 1873, Depelchin was sent by the Superior General to Bombay (now Mumbai) to answer the appeal for help from the Apostolic Vicar of Bombay, Leo Meurin, S.J. Meurin had grouped four little school, including a seminary, to form a Catholic institution worthy of the growing power and prestige of the new metropolis of western India. Henri felt they needed a dynamic and experienced Rector. Thus, he asked the Superior General, Pierre Beckx, who promptly sent Depelchin. Under his administration, the new school became St. Xavier's College of Bombay. He also lectured in philosophy, exegesis, dogmatics and Church history at the College's seminary. When he finally left, a local columnist commented, "Father Depelchin left the Bombay Saint Xavier's in even a more prosperous state than the St Xavier's of Calcutta."

In 1878 Depelchin was recalled to Europe by Beckx, who assigned him to organise and head the Zambesi Mission in southeastern Africa. The Mission was to cover, in today's maps, all of Zimbabwe, most of Zambia and some of Mozambique. At that time, very few Europeans knew anything about that part of Africa. But finding funds and volunteers were not a problem. In 1879, Depelchin sailed for Cape Town in the Cape Colony with an international team of five other priests and five lay brothers from various Jesuit provinces. They then went to the Zambezia bush to establish a mission base in Bulawayo in Matabeleland (now western Zimbabwe). The journey took almost six months. It was the first of three successive expeditions, taken between 1879 and 1882, Each of them began in the town of Grahamstown (about 70 kilometres (43 mi) from the coast), also in the Cape Colony, and involved hundreds of miles (kilometers) in ox-carts in a painful climate and through a hostile environment. The goal was always the same – to ask the natives for the permission to open a mission station in their land. Each time, they said no, and Depelchin and his men were dogged by misfortunes, trails, diseases, accidents and even probably poison. His letters sent "from the lands of the Matabeles", "in the huts of the Batongas" and from "the valley of the Barotses", were published in Brussels as a two-volume set in 1882 and 1883. Under the title of Trois ans dans l'Afrique australe [Three Years in Southern Africa], the collection was an immediate best-seller, drawing more missionary vocations to the Church.[1][2][8][9][10]

In the end, the Zambesi Mission was a fiasco. It was cancelled in April 1883 by the superiors of the orders of the surviving missionaries. Ten missionaries, aged between 29 and 50, lost their lives. Depelchin himself was out with a broken leg from an ox-wagon accident.

Depelchin was recalled to Belgium in 1883 to regain his health and to allow his leg to heal. It took him four years to completely recover. He was assigned light duties at the schools in Aalst and Mons but his heart was still in the missions. So he went to the local parishes to speak about life in the missions, to encourage financial support for them and to recruit future missionaries. Like his books, his appearances were popular and successful. His letters and reports from India were also presented in numerous missionary periodicals in Europe.[1]

Statue of Henri Depelchin on the grounds of St. Joseph's School in Darjeeling

In 1887 Depelchin was sent back to India. This time, his mission was the establishment of a high school in Darjeeling, a town in the foothills in the Himalayas in the North Bengal. He was already 67 years old. With characteristic punctuality and efficiency, he began on 10 January 1888, the day he arrived in Darjeelling – and only six days after he came to Calcutta from Antwerp. He found a bungalow to temporarily house the new school in a place called Sunny Banks and it opened on 13 February with the name of St. Joseph's School. The first class had 25 students, with Father Depelchin as their first Rector. He also served as the pastor for the town.

Depelchin wanted newer, bigger and better buildings for his new school. To get them, he had to find land for the construction so he went out in search of it. In spite of apparently insurmountable obstacles, he used his powers of persuasion, sheer audacity and innate tact to find it at a place called "North Point" outside Darjeeling. The land was levelled and the largest of the buildings was finished in four years. The primary designer was Brother Eugène Rotsaert, S.J. Most of the costs were covered by Belgian benefactors as well as members of the Anglo-Indian Catholic community, and even the civil authorities. The new building was blessed on 8 December 1891 by Depelchin himself. Classes began there in February 1892 but with a new Rector – Alfred Neut.