Buildin

V Gangadharan

g blocks of Chennai

September 29, 1688. That was the day when the Corporation of Madras was born. The man behind the making of the city’s corporation was Sir Josiah Child, a top official of the East India Company. Elihu Yale was the then governor.

In his letter dated September 28, 1687, Child made known his plan for the setting up of a Corporation that would include Englishmen and a few Indians. The local body was to have a Mayor, a recorder and a town clerk. It was to be armed with the power to decide petty cases and to levy rates upon the citizens for the building of schools, a town hall and a jail.

Child was keen that the councillors should consist of three Englishmen, three Portuguese, seven Moors and Hindus. He also suggested that the councilors and the recorder take oath to be true and faithful to the English King and the Company; and that the three Englishmen should always be servants of the company. Conservancy and Public Health were not thought of in those days.

Temples of learning for women

At a time when even the thought of educating women was at its nascent stage in the country, Chennai got the first college for women in the whole of the then Madras Presidency.

Founded by the government in 1914, the Madras College for Women began functioning out of a huge rented building, the Capper House, just opposite the sands of Marina. The college got its present name, Queen’s Mary College, in 1917. What began with a modest strength of 37 now has several thousand students on its rolls.

Ms Dorothy De La Hey, the founder principal, served the institution for more than two decades. During her tenure (1914-36), the college grew by leaps and bounds. With the support of Lord Pentland, the then British Governor, De La Hey expanded the college campus by buying adjoining houses besides building new structures.

In 1915, Pentland House was opened, followed by Stone House in 1918, and Jeypore House in 1921. Besides these, the houses of two British era judges S Subramania Iyer and Sankara Iyer were bought in the mid-1920s and the college was raised to the “first grade” in 1923.

During the 1980s, Capper House appeared to be on the verge of collapse because of no maintenance; and in 1993, a part of the building collapsed. Efforts to save the building failed and it was demolished in 2003.

The Womens’ Christian College on College Road, Nungambakkam is another old institution that played an important role in the cause of women’s education. Established in 1915 as a joint venture of 12 missionary societies from England and the USA, it acquired the stately Doveton House in 1916. The building was named after its previous owner Lt Gen John Doveton, who lived in the city in the late 18th century.

Chennai one lakh years ago

The primitive man had made Chennai his home, more than one lakh years ago. The credit for discovering it goes to the Father of Indian pre-history, Robert Bruce Foote (1834-1912). A British geologist and archaeologist, Foote in 1863 found Paleolithic or 100 thousand-year-old stone tools used by our ancestors in Pallavaram. That was the first pre-historic find in the whole of India. Soon he stumbled upon several Paleolithic tools in and around the present day Poondi reservoir near Chennai besides discovering cave shelters of the primitive man at Gudiyam in Tiruvallur district.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is holding a photo exhibition on the pre-historic facets of Chennai till August 22 in Clive House, Fort St George. Entry is free.