India initially envisaged the creation of Administrative Staff College at Britain, during 1945-48. This process received a new impetus with the creative and perceptive article written by Sir Hector Hetherington, one of the original Governors of Henley, for ‘The Times’ in 1945. Shri S. M. Gupta, the Deputy Educational Adviser to the Government of India, in 1947, wrote to Mr. Noel Hall, the then Principal of Henley referring to the Government of India’s interest and intent to commence its first session at Henley in March 1948.
In 1953, a committee of the All India Council for Technical Education recommended that an Administrative Staff College be established in India. This committee represented by both Government and Industry had its two joint secretaries visit Henley during the summer of 1953, one secretary for a month and the other for the whole of the Session 20. In 1954, on his way back from a visit to Australia and New Zealand, Mr. Hall paid a brief visit to Delhi, as a guest of the Government of India, and attended meetings of the Planning Committee, and subsequently of the Full Committee at which the decision to go ahead was taken. He also had a private conference with the Minister of Commerce, Shri. T. T. Krishnamachari, and with the representatives in Delhi of the Tata and other industrial groups.