Papers of St Colm`s College, 1839-2010, including minutes, journals, newsletters, visitors` books, correspondence, photographs and printed books.

The history of the college is complex, and it has undergone a number of name changes. The Women`s Missionary Institute of the Free Church of Scotland began in Edinburgh in 1894. Increasing expansion of student numbers saw a larger purpose-built institution commissioned at 23 Inverleith Terrace, Edinburgh. Although supported by what was by then the United Free Church of Scotland (UFC), the building was funded by private subscription, and opened in 1909.

In the meantime, since 1887 the Church of Scotland had been training women missionaries at its Deaconess House and Missionary Training Institute. Following the union with the UFC in 1929, a similar rapprochement took place between their respective Edinburgh women`s missionary training establishments. An overall body was established, known as the Church of Scotland`s Women`s Missionary College, and the two constituent establishments were renamed; the Women`s Missionary College becoming known as St Colm`s, and the Deaconess House and Missionary Training Institute as St Ninians. In 1960, the College officially changed its name to St Colm`s, finally becoming St Colm`s International House in 1998. In 2010, the Church of Scotland decided to sell the property at 23 Inverleith Terrace, and the college closed its doors for the final time.

The archive incorporates records from the institutions of the Free Church, United Free Church and the Church of Scotland, but the bulk relate to what eventually became St Colm`s at 23 Inverleith Terrace. Also included in the archive are the papers of Effie Gray, student, teacher and lifelong supporter of the college.