Welham Boys' School is a boarding school located in Dehradun, India. The school is a residential school for boys and is affiliated with CBSE. It is ranked as the no. 1 boys' boarding school in the country as per the Education World rankings 2022.
History
Welham was founded in 1937 as a preparatory school for boarding schools in England and India, by Miss Hersilia Susie Oliphant, an English lady, with a capital of £1000. There were no funds or staff, and no school buildings. Today the ratio of teachers to students on campus stands at 9:1.
She named the school after her home village of Welham, Nottinghamshire. She later founded a sister school, Welham Girls' School.
In 1956 Miss Oliphant donated all her assets to the Welham Boys' School, which presently is administered by a board of trustees. Mr. S. K. (Charlie) Kandhari took over as principal in January 1983. Today the Welham Boys' School (WBS) is an active member of the Round Square group of cooperation. The school hosts model united nations conferences as well as military awareness seminars
Campus
Some major sites are the Learning Resource Center (LRC), the Activity Center, the White House (the oldest structure on campus), Bethany (Dining Hall), the hospital, the main field, lower grounds and various other fields, courts and ranges for sports.
The residencies are primarily the Oliphant House for Junior School, Shikhar Hostel for Jamuna and Ganga houses, Triveni for Cauvery house and Woodseats for Krishna house.
Notable alumni
Lt. General Prabodh Chandra Bhardwaj - Ex-vice army chief and a War hero from the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 and member of the Board of Governors at the Welham Boys' School. Naveen Patnaik - Chief Minister of Odisha, India Mani Shankar Aiyar - Politician, ex-Cabinet Minister of India Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, Economist Shaad Ali - Film director Rajiv Gandhi - ex- Prime Minister of India Sanjay Gandhi - Politician Zayed Khan - Actor Vikas Kumar - Actor Jubin Nautiyal - Bollywood singer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi - Ex- Cricket captain of India, Nawab of Pataudi Vikram Seth - writer Kunwar Sushant Singh- MLA Barhapur Wajahat Habibullah- First Chief Information Commissioner of India Miangul Aurangzeb - last Wali Ahad (Crown Prince) of the former Swat State