Madras miscellany

The Connecticut connection

I MENTIONED in this column a couple of weeks ago that there's something new about Madras that I learn every day. And no sooner said than done, a book by Susan S. Bean, of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachussetts, landed on my desk and provided a couple of new insights. The book, Yankee India, is the result of mining one of the finest collections in the world of Indian art, textiles, furniture, decorative artefacts, photographs and manuscripts. The nucleus of this collection was the cornerstone of the museum set up in 1799 (in what is still known as East India Square) by owners of Yankee Clippers trading with India. Today, the Museum is spending $100 million to expand and permanently exhibit its Indian treasure hoard, much of which is in storage and which, till now, has been exhibited only periodically.

The first Yankee Clipper to sail for India was the United States, leaving Philadelphia in March, 1784, and arriving in Pondicherry on Sunday, December 26, after a nine-month, one-day voyage. "The first ship that ever hoisted the American colours on the coast of Coromandel", it caused considerable excitement and "speculation" about its nationality in the crowd that had gathered to watch its passage and saw it sail under the guns of the fort "with the 13 stripes flying".

The 200-tonne clipper, commanded by Thomas Bell and with a crew of 39, was owned by a Thomas Willing of Philadelphia. Governor Lord Macartney in Madras learnt with concern that when Bell later visited Madras, he called on the Nawab of the Carnatic and conveyed to him a letter from the American Congress as well as one from his employer. And the something new about Madras I learnt was that Willing wanted to form an American East India Company and sought from the Nawab Porto Novo for its first Indian factory! The Nawab, it is recorded, "gave Captain Bell reason to hope for a settlement on the coast", but as nothing came of it, obviously Macartney was successful in twisting Nawab Mohammed Ali's arm rather hard.

The second thing I learnt from Susan Bean's research was that Elihu Yale's five years as Governor of Madras (1687-92) were not the only years a Connecticut-born man was in charge of Madras. His successor, Nathaniel Higginson (1692-98) was also Connecticut-born, giving, as an American friend laughed, Madras 11 years of Connecticut rule! If Willing had had his way, it might have even been longer!

Higginson, a quiet, hardworking and pedestrian governor, nevertheless has his place in Madras history secure. He had been installed as the first Mayor of Madras when the Corporation of Madras was inaugurated on September 29, 1688, the oldest municipality outside Europe. Yale, a true authoritarian 'nabob', had never been happy with London's order to establish the Corporation, fearing a threat to his power. Later, when Yale had to call it a day in Madras, it was Higginson who not only succeeded him but who also had a part in the proceedings against Yale, the fortune-maker.

Two other significant contributions Higginson made were acquiring Egmore, Purasawalkam and Tondiarpet for the East India Company and building the new Fort House for Governor and Council in the Fort. It was Yale who had applied for the grant of the three villages from the Mughal Emperor, but it was Higginson who negotiated and received the grant from the Nawab of Arcot, the Great Moghul's representative. The Fort House Higginson built is the core of the Secretariat building today and is the second oldest surviving construction of the modern era in Madras. The first Fort House had been built on what is now the Parade Ground in the Fort and was pulled down to make way for the square after Higginson had built his new home and office. Apart from encouraging the Corporation to widen its scope of activities, as befitting his lineage as first Mayor, Higginson also took the management of Hindu temples out of the hands of the Chief Merchants and, pioneeringly, constituted a board for their management. Of him, it was said, "He was the first Governor to retire from office without a stain upon his name."

The Museum story needs telling

HOW DR. R. Kannan, Director of the Madras Museum, must envy that $100 million the Peabody has been able to raise and similar fund- raising efforts that keep American museums models of excellence drawing hordes of visitors the year round! No wonder he's hoping that the Friends of the Museum he's proposing to gather as a support group will help even a little way towards this end.

Meanwhile, the Museum is getting ready to celebrate its 150th year with a series of events. It was about a year ago, when it was proposed to release a stamp for this celebration, that I (Miscellany, July 3, 2000) wrote of the beginnings of the Museum in Madras, Surgeon Edward Balfour starting it off with 1,100 geological specimens. The story continues with a variety of additions by different officers-in-charge: Capt. Jesse Mitchell, Commandant of the Madras Mounted Police, adding 70,000 mainly zoological specimens (1859-72), Surgeon George Bidie (1872-85) enriching it with a botanical collection, and Surgeon Edgar Thurston (1885-1908) adding anthropological, enthnographical and pre-historic wealth. Mitchell also started the library that grew into the Connemara Public Library, Bidie grew exotic trees and medicinal plants in the Museum garden - today a pale shadow of what it was, but which Dr. Kannan tries hard to keep clean only to be frustrated by a callous public and uncaring stall-holders - and Thurston will always be remembered for his monumental seven- volume Castes and Tribes of Southern India.

All this information and more I owe to an unpublished monograph by N. Harinarayana, a former Director of the Museum, who has dug deep to tell the story of the first fifty years of the institution. With a bit of fleshing out and updating and with the addition of several pictures, it can, if well printed, be a perennial seller at not only a Museum Shop, when that is established, but also in the city's bookshops. With Dr. Kannan breathing new life into the Museum's publishing programme, this is a publication he should commit himself to - and maybe get the Friends of the Museum to make it their first project, not to say contribution.

Fireworks at 'Cottingley'

'COTTINGELY', THE Nungambakkam home of the British Deputy High Commissioner and his offices, is the only freehold property of Her Majesty's Government in India. Located in an area that was once Dr. Anderson's botanical gardens, it became residential property after the 18th Century gardens were plotted out for East India Company merchants and officials. Later, as Government property, it was home to a succession of Puisne Judges and senior civilians before it was acquired by HMG when India became independent and made the home of its seniormost diplomatic representative in South India. But in all those years of occupancy by members of the judiciary, the bureaucracy and the diplomatic corps, it's unlikely to have seen a party quite like the one held a few weeks ago when Deputy High Commissioner Michael Herridge and British Airways teamed together to reveal the new face of British diplomacy, in which trade and commerce are major features.

A beautifully kept home and immaculately manicured lawns, that had hosted royalty on more than one occasion, on that evening played host to a verandah-long exhibition (tracing the airline's growth from small beginnings to what it now promises passengers from Madras) and an overly long film hardselling the airline and its array of services that include planes with four classes. The hosts then lit up the skies not with something out of anything so southern as Sivakasi but with an explosion of sophisticated pyrotechnics from Mumbai (I was told) that showered the jampacked lawns with drops of blazing colour. Judges, civilians and diplomats and other ghosts of 'Cottingley' would never have seen in these premises quite such an evening centred on commercialisation as this. But then times change. Or, at least, things come around over and over again in time... like British 'merchantmen' returning to shores they've long ignored.

Be that as it may, a good time was had by all. And the lottery made it an even happier occasion for some. First prize-winner with two first class tickets to London was business consultant Dr. Easo John, who made it two in a row - having won the lottery on the occasion of BA's inaugural flight from Madras to Kuala Lumpur a few years ago. And the two other tickets to London offered as a second prize went to Prakash of the Taj Group. For the rest there was a splendid spread - and what I liked best, a make-it-yourself fruit salad with an array of diced fruit and toppings just waiting to be mixed.

S. MUTHIAH

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