[2][3] The first name of the college was Presidency School in 1882,[4] when it was handed over to Sri Banerjee on 1 January 1884.

That same year the Post-Graduate Department of Law was extended, and it was affiliated to the Calcutta University as an independent professional college in 1885.

Banerjee renamed the school the Presidency Institution and brought it to the status of a college affiliated to the F.A.

[7][8] The women's section of the college was founded in 1931 by Mira Datta Gupta, its first principal.

[9] In 1911, Rabindranath Tagore read out at this college one of his essays dealing with the twin subjects of separatism to be found among many of countrymen and national integration.