Henri Depelchin

Henri Joseph Depelchin, SJ (also Henry Depelchin) (24 January 1822, , East Flanders, Netherlands – 26 May 1900, Calcutta, District of West Bengal, British India), was a Belgian Jesuit priest and missionary in India and Africa. As a missionary, he was the first superior of the failed Zambesi Mission in Africa and the founder and first superior of the West Bengal Mission in India. As an educator, he was the founder and first director of three major colleges in India.

Depelchin's biographies show 24 January 1822 as the date of his birth but the civil registers of Russignies show that Henri Joseph Depelchin was actually born on 28 January 1822. He was the son of Almable François Joseph Depelchin, the innkeeper, and his wife, Marie Anne Matroye. At that time, his birthplace, Russignies, a farming village near Renaix, was a part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the province of East Flanders but today it is a part of the city of Mont-de-l'Enclus in the province of Hainaut in the Kingdom of Belgium.

On 25 September 1842, he was admitted to the Society of Jesus at the former Norbertine (now Drongen) for the novitiate. After taking his first vows in 1844, he spent the next five years in his Juniorate teaching in Jesuit schools in Tournai and Aalst. Then he studied philosophy at the University of Namur (1849–1851) and theology at the Catholic University of Louvain (1851–1854). On 14 September 1854, in Liege, he was ordained as a priest.

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