INDIA - BURMA
Benares * Calcutta * Rangoon
THE WORLD TOUR OF GEORGE BULLOUGH 1892-1895
Researched, written and illustrated with accompanying explanatory notes by
George W. Randall, co-founder in July 1996 and former
Vice Chairman Kinloch Castle Friends' Association.
Time of visit: January/February 1893
Article 12 of 28 as published in the Accrington Gazette in July 1896
GENERAL VIEW OF BENARES (today Varanasi)
Album V * Image 26 * Edited from full size: 11½ x 7 inches
Original photograph by Bourne 1165 * George W. Randall Archive
Album V * Image 26 * Edited from full size: 11½ x 7 inches
Original photograph by Bourne 1165 * George W. Randall Archive
American writer and humorist Mark Twain said of the great Hindu city of Benares:
“Older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.”
INTRODUCTION:
PLEASE READ NOTES AT END OF THIS POST - THANK YOU!
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George Bullough (right) was twenty-two years old when he embarked on a three year world tour with his travelling companion,
Robert Mitchell, in September 1892.
In this, the twelfth of twenty-eight
articles published in the
Accrington Division Gazette
in July 1896, Robert Mitchell recounts
their last weeks in India visiting Benares and Calcutta before departing for Rangoon, Burma.
The original article I have transcribed unaltered followed by Explanatory Notes relating to the text. I also include a selection of photographs from George Bullough's albums with their title,
album and page number, size of image and original photographer details where given.
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| BURNING GHATS BENARES Album V * Image 27 * Full size: 11½ x 8½ inches * Original by Bourne 1169 George W. Randall Archive Although not specifically identified this could be Harishchandra Ghat, one of the two burning or cremation ghats in Benares. < * > * < * >< * > * < * > < * > * < * >< * > * < * > |
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BURNING GHAT, CALCUTTA.
Album VI * Image 8 * Edited from full
size: 11½ x 9 inches * Original
photograph 2723 George W. Randall Archive
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BENARES GYAN BAPI or WELL OF KNOWLEDGE
Album
VI * Image 1 * Edited from
full size: 12 x 9 inches
Original photograph by Bourne 1173 * George W. Randall Archive |
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VIEW FROM HIGH
COURT CALCUTTA
Album VI * Image 2 * Size: 12 x 9 inches * Photograph Bourne and Shepherd 2599
George W.
Randall Archive
The Supreme
Court of Judicature in which justice was dispensed according to the
Laws of England by a Chief Justice and three Puisne Judges – i.e. Judges of
the High Court but inferior of the Chief Justice.
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The
High Court at Calcutta was the first of three created by Letters Patent 14th May 1862 issued under the High Court Act 1861,
the others being at Madras and Bombay. Designed in neo-Gothic
by Government Architect Walter Granville and based on the
Stadt-Haus at Ypres, Belgium, the building was completed in 1872.
The
Lord Chief Justice at the time of Bullough and Mitchell’s visit
was forty-eight
year old Sir William Comer Petheram, Q.C.
The
bronze statue of Lord William Cavendish Bentinck,
Governor-General
of India 1828-1835 is by Richard Westmacott, R.A.
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VIEW FROM HIGH COURT CALCUTTA
Album
VI *
Image 2 * Edited from full size: 12 x 9 inches Original photograph Bourne and Shepherd 2599
The
view is of Esplanade Row looking east across the city,
with
Government House Gardens in the middle and the Maidan (upper right)
with the
165 foot tall Ochterlony Monument, commemorating the victory
of Major-General Sir David Ochterlony in the Nepal War 1814-1816. |
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| GENERAL VIEW FROM MUSEUM CALCUTTA Chowringhee Road. (Today re-named Jawaharlal Nehru Road.) Album VI * Image 3 * Size: 11 x 7 inches * Photograph Bourne and Shepherd 2.4.81 George W. Randall Archive
The Maidan,
literally “field” was created in 1758 when Governor Robert Clive cleared large areas of forest to give the guns of the new octagon shaped Fort William (completed in 1771) a clear line of fire following the successful attack on old Fort William in 1756 by twenty-year old Suraj ud Dowlah, Moslem leader of
Bengal, Orissa and Bihar.
The small
building, extreme bottom right, bears the sign: Christian Book Society.   |
GENERAL VIEW FROM THE MUSEUM CALCUTTA
Album VI * Image 3 * Edited from full size: 11 x 7 inches
Album VI * Image 3 * Edited from full size: 11 x 7 inches
Photograph Bourne and Shepherd 2.4.81
George W. Randall Archive
The High Court of Calcutta. Government House.
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GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CALCUTTA
Album VI
* Image 4 * Edited from full size: 11 x
8½ inches * Photograph 2724 A
George W.
Randall Archive
Situated
overlooking the Maidan and Eden Gardens, Government House was the
residence
of the British Viceroy of India. Modelled on Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire,
England,
it
was built under the administration of Lord Richard Colley Wellesley between
1798-1803.
Lord
Richard, elder brother of the Duke of Wellington, was subsequently recalled
in
1805 in part due “to such extravagant outlay”, the 84,000 square foot building
costing
£63,291 at the time, equivalent to well over £6 million today.
From
the necessity to maximise a free circulation of air in a climate of extreme
heat,
the approach was
by a double flight each of sixteen steps set within great projecting porticos.
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HOOGHLY BRIDGE, CALCUTTA
Album VI
* Image 5 * Edited from full size: 11 x 8½ inches
* Photograph 2581A
George
W. Randall Archive
Designed
by Sir Bradford Leslie the immense 1,528 foot long floating bridge
was opened
on the 17th of October 1874 to link Calcutta with the two main railway lines across the Hooghly River at Howrah. Sixty-two feet wide, each side incorporated a seven foot wide pavement for pedestrians and a removable section to allow safe passage of steamers.
A
new bridge was opened on the 3rd of February 1943 after six years of
construction.
Described as an “all steel, suspension type, balanced cantilever
and truss arch” bridge,
it has an overall length of 2,313 feet; the longest
span being 1,500 feet, a width of 71 feet,
with pedestrian pavements 15 feet
wide on either side.
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| THE BLACK HOLE - CALCUTTA Album VI * Image 7 * Size: 11 x 9½ inches (Original Photograph B & S - Bourne and Shepherd) George W. Randall Research Archive
The tablet over
the gateway reads:
THE STONE PAVEMENT CLOSE TO THIS
MARKS THE
POSITION AND SIZE OF THE
PRISON CELL IN
OLD FORT WILLIAM KNOWN IN
HISTORY AS THE “BLACK HOLE” OF CALCUTTA 
Murshidabad History
The prison cell known as the Black Hole measured 18 x 14 feet* (floor area 252 square feet)
with a sleeping shelf along the east wall. It was meant as an overnight lock-up for no more than a handful of miscreants, usually drunks. * Historical sources refer to various sizes: 22 x 14 and 24 x 18 being often quoted. John Holwell, the most senior person imprisoned wrote a book about the incident and gives 18 x 14 feet as the floor area. < * > * < * >< * > * < * >< * > * < * >< * > * < * >
EVENTS LEADING TO “THE BLACK HOLE.”
On the 10th of April 1756
the eighty-two year old Moslem Nawab of Bengal, Bihar
and Orissa,
Aliverdi Khan, died of dropsy after a long illness, he left no sons.
Prince Mirza Muhammad Suraj ud
Dowlah, which means Lord of the Lamp,
his twenty-one year old grandson on his younger daughter’s side, became ruler from his magnificent palace at Murshidabad, 160 miles north of Calcutta.
In 1717 Aliverdi
Khan had extended commercial privileges to the East India Company
in the form of
a Firman.* This most valuable Royal Edict included Dastaks,**
certificates
exempting levies on all goods passing from district to district.
As Nawab Khan
lay dying the British at Fort William siezed this opportunity to
busily extend their customs free rights to traders and wealthy Hindu merchants, who thereby also evaded paying dues which should have gone to the Nawab, and, after his passing, Prince Suraj.
Prince
Suraj was highly suspicious of the majority native Hindu population,
all foreigners and especially the British in the form of the Honourable East India Company
which had been
granted trading rights “east of the Cape of Good Hope”
by Queen
Elizabeth I on the 31st of December 1600.
* Firman - a permit, authorisation.
** Dastaks - An 18th
century trade permit in Bengal exempting European businesses, in particular the British East India Company, from paying customs or transit duty. From the Persian word “pass.” |
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British Library
Coloured
engraving by Jan Van Ryne (1712-1760) titled “Fort William in the Kingdom of
Bengal, belonging to the East India Company of England, published
According to Act of Parliament 1754.” (The River Hooghly is running left to
right.
The Fort was
built 1696 - 1706 and named after King William III in 1700.
The fine, tall
buildings of the wealthy European sector, White Town, stretched around the Fort
and for one mile along the Hooghly River. The homes and businesses of the
120,000
native population, Black Town, stretched outward for a further two miles.
In
1756 as the Nawab's forces drew nearer, many fled into the countryside while
some
two
thousand sought shelter inside Fort William.
Born in the
Netherlands, Van Ryne spent most of his working life in London, England, where he
specialised in scenes of the British and Dutch colonies.
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The young Nawab’s suspicions,
which he saw as a threat to his position and his country, were not without
justification. He particularly mistrusted the Company’s thirty-four year
old President and Governor of Bengal at Fort William, William Drake, described
by those who worked alongside him as “pompous and vain, a man incapable of
taking any advice.”
Drake had been
declared Acting President and Governor in 1752 “simply because he happened to
be the senior Company official in Calcutta at the time.”*
The Company in
London finally confirmed his appointment in February 1756, the actual letter
arriving at Fort William some months later. The long delay placed Drake “in an
invidious position making him appear cheap among the natives.”
The only rival
to Prince Suraj ud Dowlah assuming power was his cousin, Kissendass, son
of Raj Bullabh, the Diwan of Dhaka, who, with the dying Nawab’s eldest
daughter, Mehar-un-Nisa Begum, had not only been plotting against the pending succession
but also lining his own pocket by “cooking the books.”
In March 1756
Prince Suraj detained Kissendass, but he escaped. Fearful of his ruthless
scheming uncle, he sought the protection of Governor Drake at Fort William along with his
heavily pregnant wife and “a large appropriated fortune in treasure.”
To give asylum no matter what the circumstances to
any contender for power
was incredibly foolish, under these circumstances it
was courting disaster,
disaster that was about to change the course of history.
Within a few
weeks of his accession, furious at the turn of events, the new Nawab of
Bengal moved to attack and destroy the British settlement at Calcutta.
Over the fat years of profit, complacency and idleness had become deeply rooted. The resulting decay and neglect hastened by the hot sultry climate meant Fort William was crumbling. The surrounding ditch had been used as a dumping ground, and indeed was not even completed on the upstream side. Gun carriages were so rotten they could no longer carry their cannon. Three years previously fifty new eighteen and twenty-pound cannon had been unloaded onto the wharf, they were still there, their cannon balls stacked nearby, rusted beyond use. Few shells appeared to fit the guns, no fuses had been prepared, and a large part of the more than ample supply of gunpowder was found to be damp.
A roll call of
the garrison’s strength revealed one hundred and eighty available men, of which
forty-five were Europeans. Unknown to senior officers twenty-five men had been
sent to small stations up-country, while seventy-five European soldiers were
hospitalised.
On Friday the 11th
of June 1756 the Nawab’s army was rerported fast approaching Fort William.
At 1am the
following Wednesday morning, by the light of fire torches to the beat of kettle
drums, 4,000 of the Nawab’s elite troops moved into position around Perring's Redoubt while trumpeting elephants crashed through the jungle hauling
heavy cannon. Meanwhile history records some tens of thousands of Suraj’s troops
were encamped on the far side of the unfinished ditch surrounding the fort.
* Drake was succeeded as Governor of the Bengal Presidency at Fort William by Major-General Robert Clive in 1857. |
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↑ Perring's (sometimes Perrin's Redoubt) wikiwand
AND POSITION OF SURAJ UD DOWLAH'S FORCES.
Perring’s
Redoubt, (a small fortified outpost upstream of the Fort), located at Perring’s Point about one mile from the Fort was where on the 16th of June 1756 the Nawab's forces opened the
attack against Fort William.
Here,
Company Ensign Francis Pickard with twenty-five men, mostly Portuguese
and Dutch, supported on the adjacent River Hooghley by the Company ship Prince George of 499 tons burthen, mounted with twenty-six 39-lb. carriage guns, commanded by Captain Thomas Hague, held off the attackers. < * > * < * >< * > * < * >< * > * < * >< * > * < * >
Company ships
anchored in the river busily took on board European evacuees from the Fort. One
cruel and highly regrettable incident occurred when sixteen year old Mary
Carey, half-caste wife of English seaman Peter Carey, was turned back from the
Company ship Dodaldy by the Fort’s Export Warehouse Manager,
Charles Manningham, “because she was not white”, whilst Manningham along with
all other managers, including governor Drake, deserted their posts to the
ships, leaving Dublin born, forty-five year old John Zephaniah Holwell,
F.R.S.,* as the most senior person in the Fort.
In conditions of
extreme heat and humidity tens of thousands of the Nawab's forces
surrounded Fort William. It was only a matter of time before matters came
to a head.
Finally, after
four days “of astonishing ferocity”, shortly after 4pm on Sunday the 20th of
June 1756, Suraj ud Dowlah “made his entry into Fort William by the small north
river gate opposite the flagstaff, (his) grand entrance marked with colourful
ceremony, (by) hundreds of his personal bodyguard, recognisable by their
indigo dhotis and turbans, (who) had preceded him and now
lined his route.”
Despite their
differences, according to protocol and because of his royal blood, Suraj
received his relative, Kissendass, and “presented him with a ceremonial
dress, a sign that all was forgiven”, leading some historians to suggest
that Kissendass's flight for sanctuary was a a carefully orchestrated ruse by
his uncle in order to provide him with a plausible excuse to attack
Calcutta.
There was no
such forgiveness about the Nawab's dislike of Governor Drake. In his absence
orders were given to burn down the Governor's House; before long it seemed the
whole of Fort William was ablaze.
With the capture
of the Fort Suraj ud Dowlah retired leaving his 146 prisoners under guard. It
is suggested that he believed with “the destruction of the garrison he had
rendered his government secure” even to the point he might be
persuaded “to an immediate resumption of trade and commerce.”
Such high hopes
were quickly shattered by a drunken Dutchman when “a fight started, a
musket-shot cracked into the night and one of the Nawab's soldiers slumped to
the ground.”
On hearing of
the death and being advised by his troop Commander, Roy Doolub, "it was
dangerous to leave a large body of English prisoners in comparative freedom
during the night" Suraj sanctioned "they all be confined."
Events had moved
very fast. At 8pm, only four hours after the Fort had fallen, "146
prisoners were forced into the Black Hole by the Nawab's soldiers with clubs
and drawn scymitars." Ten hours later as the inward opening door was
forced open only twenty-three were still alive.**
Historians,
as is their way, continue to debate numbers. However many went in to the
Black Hole the names of the "twenty-two men and one woman who staggered
out into the fresh air of the parade ground" is a matter of record. They
included Holwell and sixteen year old Mary Carey.
Suraj ud Dowlah
and the Mohammedans retained possession of Calcutta for almost seven
months, changing its name to Allinagar. The city was
recaptured in January 1757 by a naval and ground force sent from Madras and led
by Vice-Admiral Charles Watson and Colonel Clive.
On the 9th of February
1757 Robert Clive of the East India Company and the Nawab of Bengal, Mirza
Muhammad Suraj ud Dowlah signed the Treaty of Alinagar by
which the Nawab would recognise all provisions of the 1717 Firmann, all British
goods passing through Bengal would be exempt from paying duty and the British
would not be prevented from fortifying Calcutta.
But lingering mistrust,
particularly by the British, resulted in a final confrontation on the 23rd of
June in the orchestrated Battle of Plassey, on the banks of the
Bhagirathi River, ninety-three miles north of Calcutta, when eight hundred
Europeans and two thousand two hundred Indian troops under Robert Clive routed
the Nawab’s unwieldy force of fifty thousand.
The rebuilding
of Calcutta began immediately and commerce quickly revived. Fire damaged Fort
William was abandoned to be re-built slightly further down-stream.
It was the
beginning of British supremacy in India.
* In 1732, after studying medicine at Guy’s
Hospital, London, Holwell was employed as a
surgeon by the East India Company becoming a member of the Fort William Council and Chief Magistrate of Calcutta.
** In
his book, “The British Empire” Stephen Sears writes: “Holwell seems to have
overestimated
the number. A careful check of the Europeans surviving the siege, and who could have been imprisoned in the Black Hole on the terrible night of June 20 1756, suggests a number nearer sixty-four.” |
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| A STREET IN RANGOON
Album VI * Image 10 * Edited from full size: 10½ x 8½ inches * Original photograph No. 427
George W. Randall Archive
At the time of
Bullough and Mitchell’s visit Burma (or Burmah as they spell it)
was a province
of British India acquired by the British Indian government the
result of three
wars, 1826, 1852 and 1885, the latter being when the Shan States
were declared
part of the British Empire.
The population
in 1901 was put at 10,490,624, a density of forty-four per square mile,
an interesting
comparison being that the population density
of England and
Wales was put at 530 per square mile. TODAY (2024) INDIA IS THE MOST POPULATED COUNTRY ON EARTH.
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REFERENCES:
Encyclopædia
Britannica 11th Edition 1910
A
Dictionary of Indian History by Sachchidananda Bhattacharya 1967
The
Oxford History of India by Vincent Smith 1959
The Black Hole
of Calcutta - A Reconstruction by Noel Barber 1965
A Vindication of
Mr. Holwell’s Character ... ... by His Friends 1764
A Comprehensive
History of India Civil, Military and Social … … by Henry Beveridge 1862
A Far Horizon by
Meira Chand 1988
The British
Empire by Stephen Sears 2014
Old Fort William
in Bengal by Charles R. Wilson 1906
Historical
Dictionary of European Imperialism by James S. Olson 1991
Terrorism,
Insurgency and Indian English Literature 1830-1947 by Alex Tickel 2012
The Calcutta
Review - Volume XIV - July/December 1850
A History of the
Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan by Robert Orme 1803
Siraj
ud Daullah and the East India Company, 1756-1757 by Brijen Kishore 1962
Pictorial
History of England During the Reign of George III by Craik/Mac Farlane 1842
Echoes From Old
Calcutta by Henry Elmsley Busteed 1888
AT THIS MOMENT KINLOCH CASTLE
AND ITS FURNISHINGS ARE BEING LEFT TO ROT !
George W. Randall Research Archive 9 July 2024
©
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