Henri Depelchin

He was the son of Almable François Joseph Depelchin, the innkeeper, and his wife, Marie Anne Matroye.

After taking his first vows in 1844, he spent the next five years in his Juniorate teaching in Jesuit schools in Tournai and Aalst.

Belgium had just been freed from the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Catholic Church was now free to celebrate Mass and teach catechism in peace.

The Catholics of Calcutta had sent their request to Pope Pius IX for a Jesuit college to be established in their city for the natives.

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.

During his period of convalescence, he served as the military chaplain of the British troops at Fort William in Calcutta.

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.

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.

In 1878 Depelchin was recalled to Europe by Beckx, who assigned him to organise and head the Zambesi Mission in southeastern Africa.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Most of the costs were covered by Belgian benefactors as well as members of the Anglo-Indian Catholic community, and even the civil authorities.

At the age of 69, already known as the "Grand Old Man", Depelchin had been sent up the hills to Kurseong, where he was given the task of forming young Jesuit missionaries who were studying philosophy there.