St. John’s College, a Christian Educational Institution, established in 1878, has completed one hundred and thirty one years of fruitful service in the cause of higher education. The College is one of the first four oldest Colleges in the then undivided Madras State. A small and unpretentious Anglo-vernacular School established by the Church Missionary Society in 1844 in a hired house in Palayamkottai was the tiny seed from which grew the magnificent St. John’s College. This School was shifted to Vannarpettai, a suburb 3 kms from here and it became a College in 1878.