HCS's early provenance is sketchily documented in Karu??s?gar Vidy?s?gar, quoting from 'Education Committee' reports, periodicals and other print media of that period.

The name of the school changed once or twice, till it came to be known as 'Hooghly College' and thence 'Hooghly Collegiate School' when the college wing was created. The location underwent changes, too.[citation needed] The so-called 'new building' (to the '????e?var Tal?' end of the prayer ground, to house the laboratories and the classes IX to XI of the new Higher Secondary scheme) and the box-like, stand-alone crafts-cum-smithy building were completed in 1956-57. The oldest building of the school and part of the adjoining Mohsin College were Hazi Mohammad Mohsin's personal property.

It was rumoured to have a subterranean passage, purpose unknown, from below the main staircase of the old building to a ghat on river Bh?g?rath? on the lower terrace of the prayer ground (which had two walled terraces); part of the tunnel had collapsed and the school authority saw it fit to seal off the school-side entrance in the mid-1950s.