Wednesday, December 27, 2017

INDIA  -  BOMBAY 

GEORGE  BULLOUGH  –  WORLD  TOUR  1892-1895   *   Article  8  of   28 

Written from first-hand research and illustrated by George W. Randall, Co-founder and former Vice Chairman Kinloch Castle Friends' Association. 


          Time of visit December 1892 / January 1893

Twenty-two year old George Bullough (right) and his travelling companion,
Robert Mitchell, departed Gokak on Friday 2nd December 1892 by rail for
Bombay via Poona arriving at 11am the following day at the magnificent
 Great India Peninsular Railway Victoria Terminus,
built in the Gothic style and completed 
only four years earlier at a 
cost of £300,000, over £36 million 
today according to the 
Office of National Statistics.

THE VICTORIA TERMINUS (G. I. P. R.), BOMBAY.
From Album V  *  Image 3  *  Edited from full size 9½ x 7½ inches.
 (George W. Randall Archive)

The station was named Victoria Terminus on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887,
it was re-named Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in 1996 after the seventeenth century 
Indian warrior king an early founder of the Maratha Empire.
Designed by Frederick William Stevens of the Indian Public Works Department the building incorporates many fine Indian carvings and decorative features.

The station was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2004.

 (George W. Randall Archive)

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They visit the “excellent clubs”, (George Bullough later becoming a member of the
Royal Bombay Yacht Club), the Natural History Museum, native shops and viewed 
the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence, the final resting place of those of the 
Parsee religion whose precepts are
“Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.”
On the 13th December they left Bombay by train via Ahmedabad to Viramgam,
Wadhwam and Raumpur, in the state of Gujarat
“for some of the best small game shooting in India.”
Here they spent Christmas and welcomed-in 1893 as guests of
Mr. A. Whittle of the engineering company, Messrs. Greaves, Cotton.

On Wednesday, 4th January 1893 our travellers departed on the overnight train to Jeypoor,
known as the Pink City, an ancient metropolis of high strategic and historical importance.

Twenty photograph albums in the library at Kinloch Castle, Isle of Rum, Scotland,
record these and all the places they visited one hundred and twenty-five years ago.
It was a world at the height of the Victorian Era, a world now beyond living memory, 
a very different world, yet a world the ramifications of which profoundly affect 
and influence life today in the twenty-first century.  

Albums I & II: Ceylon/India * Albums III to V: India 
Album VI: India/Burmah * Album VII: Australia 
 Album VIII: Cape Town * Album IX: South Africa
Album X: South Africa/Madeira/Hobart 
Album XI: Tasmania/New Zealand
Album XII: New Zealand * Album XIII: Natives Africa/New Zealand
Album XIV: Japan * Album XV: Numea/Batavia/Singapore
Album XVI: China * Album XVII: China/Japan
Album XVIII: New Zealand/New Caledonia  
Album XIX: Honolulu/California * Album XX: Salt Lake City.

The twenty albums each measure
14½ x 10¼ inches and contain
almost seven hundred images.
Those of Japan are hand-coloured,
the rest black and white.
Some were taken at the time, 
most were purchased. 
After three years of travelling the world they returned to Bullough’s home town,
Accrington, England in late 1895.
Described by Mr. Mitchell, their experiences were reported in the local newspaper,
The Accrington Division Gazette commencing with an
Introductory Article in May 1896, and twenty seven subsequent articles, the last,
Pretoria, Johannesburg, the Discovery of Diamond City
was published on the 12th of December 1896.

Numbered notes relating to the text, included at the end of each chapter,
are intended to give historical background and understanding to the

120 year old text and hopefully encourage further reading and research.

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VIEW OF PART OF BOMBAY FROM THE SEA
From Album V * Image 4 * Size 9½ x 7½ inches.
 (George W. Randall Archive)



Bombay originally comprised seven islands. In 1782 the Governor, William Hornby,  
proposed uniting the seven islands as part of the land mass of India by preventing the low  
lying areas being inundated at high tide. Known as the Hornby Vellard Engineering Project
the first stage, damming Worli Creek, was completed in 1784 followed by reclamation 
work to create what today is India’s commercial capital covering an area
of 233 square miles with a population of over twenty-one million, 
the fourth most populated city on earth.
Bombay was renamed Mumbai on 6 March 1996.

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THE MUNICIPAL OFFICES BOMBAY
From Album V * Image 4 * Size 
9½ x 7½ inches
 (George W. Randall Archive)


 
Construction commenced in December 1884 to a Gothic design by architectural engineer Frederick William Stevens, born in Bath, England in 1847 and was completed in 1893. Stevens was also responsible for the the nearby Great India Peninsular Victoria Terminus completed in 1888.
The building is noted for its 255 foot high tower and central dome almost 235 feet high.

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THE YACHT CLUB, BOMBAY.
From Album V * Image 1 * Edited from full size 9½ x 7½ inches.
 (George W. Randall Archive)


Founded in 1846 club was granted the title Royal Bombay Yacht Club in 1876 by Queen Victoria on the recommendation of Sir Philip Wodehouse, Governor of Bombay, 1872-1877.
The seafront clubhouse was built in 1881 and replaced in 1896. 


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KALBADEVIE ROAD BOMBAY
From Album V * Image 7 * Size 9½ x 7½ inches.
 (George W. Randall Archive)


The road is located in the Kalbadevi neighbourhood of Bombay so named after the Hindu Goddess Kalbadevi. Small businesses line the street dealing in almost anything and everything.
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CRAWFORD MARKET (BOMBAY)
From Album V * Image 10 * Edited from full size 9½ x 7½ inches.
 (George W. Randall Archive)

Completed in 1869 to a design by British architect, Sir William Emerson (1843-1924) 
and named after the first Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Arthur Crawford (1835-1911), 
the wholesale market traded in fruit, vegetables and poultry until 1996 when it was relocated. 
Built using red-stone and coarse buff Kurla stone the exterior is a blend of Norman
 and Flemish styles and covers an area of almost 60,000 square feet.

Today shoppers can buy clothes, toys, jewelry, electrical items as well as fruit and vegetables.

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MATHERAN, GHANTS MOUNTAINS
From Album II * Image 16 * Edited from full size 12 x 7½ inches.
 (George W. Randall Archive)


Matheran, in the western ghats, is 110 miles from Bombay, the name means
“jungle topped” or “wooded head”. 
In the days of the Raj (British sovereignty in India)
British troops exploring the country discovered the incidence of disease 
was much lower in the cooler hills giving rise to the building of
many Hill Stations as sanatorium and places to escape the heat of summer.
Between 1901 and 1907 a narrow-gauge rail line was constructed
   from Neral to Matheran, a distance of  thirteen miles.
 
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NEAR LOUISA POINT, MATHERAN.
From Album II * Image 18 * Size 12 x 
7½ inches. (A purchased photograph number 2198)
 (George W. Randall Archive)


Louisa Point, set in an area known as Cathedral Rocks, affords fine views and beautiful sunsets.   At the time of our traveller’s visit it was possible on a clear day to see and hear Bombay thirty miles due west on the Arabian Sea coast. 
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POSTED BY GEORGE W. RANDALL
27 DECEMBER 2017

Friday, December 22, 2017


INDIA
 GOKAK COTTON MILLS, BANGALORE, 
Seringapatam, Mysore. 

GEORGE  BULLOUGH   WORLD  TOUR  1892-1895
Written  and  illustrated  from  first-hand  research  by  
George  W.  Randall, co-founder in July 1996 and former Vice Chairman Kinloch Castle Friends' Association. 
(Article  7  of   28)

Time of visit:
November / December 1892

George Bullough (left) and Robert Mitchell, (pictured here by a giant rubber tree in Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, near Kandy, Ceylon), continue their world tour visiting the British military station of Bangalore before heading the eighty miles south-west by train  to Seringapatam, the scene of the decisive battle in 1799 between Tipu Sultan and a combined force of the East India Company. They then headed thirty miles south to Mysore situated by the  1,500 foot peak of 
Chamnudi Hill, where they admired the fine buildings including the Maharajah's palace.

Heading north-east they returned the one hundred miles to Bangalore before catching the train to Gokak-road Station, a distance of 410 miles. 
Then by bullock gharry the remaining four miles to the bungalow of their host, Mr. Joseph Kerr, manager of Gokak Mill.

Image: George W. Randall Research and Photographic Archive.

Established in 1885 Gokak Mill was managed by forty-one year old Joseph Kerr,
a Scottish born trained mechanical engineer, who had previously held important
positions in numerous Lancashire mills.

Designed and constructed by hydraulic engineer Robert Batson Joyner, 
C.I.E., M.Ins.C.E., F.R.G.S., Gokak Mill was equipped with Howard and Bullough machinery manufactured by George Bullough’s company, 
Howard and Bullough, Limited, Cotton Machinery Manufacturers,
 Globe Works, Accrington, Lancashire, England.

From: Our Company History  -  Gokak Textiles Website 2019

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ARTICLE 7 (OF TWENTY-EIGHT) RECOUNTING GEORGE BULLOUGH'S GRAND WORLD TOUR 1892-1895, 
WRITTEN BY HIS TRAVELLING COMPANION, 
ROBERT MITCHELL AND PUBLISHED IN THEIR LOCAL NEWSPAPER, 
THE ACCRINGTON GAZETTE, ON 13 JUNE 1896. 

Transcribed word for word from the published article by George W. Randall. 




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GENERAL VIEW OF GOKAK
Album II  *  Image 8  *  Reduced from full size 11 x 9 inches 

 
(George W. Randall Archive)

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GOKAK MILL OPERATIONS
Album II  *  Image 11  *  Enlarged portion from full size 11 x 9 inches
 (George W. Randall Research and Photographic Archive ©)

Gokak Mill manager, Joseph Kerr, stands beside loaded bullock cart 
of cotton bales marked with the diamond logo of the Gokak Mill Company
The aerial power cable is clearly visible.

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GOKAK MILL SHOWING STAIRWAY AND PERPENDICULAR
180 FOOT PIPE TAKING THE WATER TO THE TURBINE HOUSE. 
(GWR ARCHIVE © Much enlarged sections from Image 10 Album II)



 (George W. Randall Research and Photographic Archive © )


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BANGALORE REGION OF INDIA.

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ORIGINALLY POSTED FRIDAY 22 DECEMBER 2017   
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 14 OCTOBER 2021 BY GEORGE W. RANDALL

Copyright  ©  George  W.  Randall  Research and Photographic Archive.

All sources are gratefully acknowledged.



 (George W. Randall Archive)
Reviewed 30 July 2023
 by the author.