Samaldas Arts College is one of the oldest colleges in the western region of India. Established in 1885 by Late Maharaja Sir Takhtasinhji of Bhavnagar who had provided land and required deposit-money to have an institution of higher education and willingly named it "Samaldas College" in remembrance of his Diwan Samaldas Mehta. Bombay University had given the affiliation to the institution and thereafter the college has never seen back in her long career.

During these 1885 years of prestigious-encouraging history where Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, has studied, the institution shifted its buildings as the time passed. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, laid the foundation stone of the present building.

Right from Prof. R. H. Ganian, there is a galaxy of principals who have taken pleasure and pain along with their teaching community to develop the college. Prof. T. K. Shahani (1923-1948), Prof. J. B. Sendil (1952-62), Prof. B. C. Desai (1962-66), Prof. S. M. Shah (1967-70), Prof. A. S. Prabhudesai (1975-77) and Dr A. A. Shaikh (From 1994) are few of them.