Valpy French
Thomas Valpy French (1 January 1825 – 14 May 1891) was an English Anglican missionary who worked in India and Persia and became the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877. He also founded St. John’s College in Agra in 1853.
Born in Burton upon Trent, England, French was the son of Rev. Peter French. He attended Reading Grammar School and Rugby School, then studied at University College, Oxford, earning a BA in 1846 and an MA in 1849. He joined the Church Missionary Society in 1850 and sailed to India, arriving in Agra in 1851.
In Agra he founded St. John’s College, which opened in 1853 after he had begun teaching a small group of boys. He learned seven languages—Hindustani, Punjabi, Urdu, Persian, Pashto, Arabic and more—to run the school and served as its first principal.
In 1861 French moved to the Punjab to begin a new mission, the first there, but ill health sent him back to England by 1863. In 1877, on St Thomas’ Day at Westminster Abbey, he became the first Anglican Bishop of Lahore, a position he held until 1887. He helped establish the Lahore Divinity College (opened 1870) and worked on translations of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Hindustani and Pashto. He also visited Kashmir and Iran in 1883.
Health problems continued, and he returned to England in 1887. He went to Muscat, Oman in February 1891 to continue his work but died there on 14 May 1891 and was buried in Muscat.
French married Mary Anne Janson in 1852, and they had eight children. His daughter Ellen Penelope French later married Bishop Edmund Knox. In later years, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams called him a personal hero and highlighted his willingness to be where Jesus was, even when progress was limited and he did not focus on making converts.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:24 (CET).