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Few places in India are more deserving of World Heritage Site status than Fort St. George, from where modern India developed,” said the Editor of Madras Musings, S. Muthiah, while presiding at the inauguration of Clive’s Corner in the Fort. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which tends 14 heritage buildings in the Fort’s precincts, should, together with other users of the Fort, press for this status for Fort St. George once the Legislature and Secretariat move out, he urged. It was an appeal commended by S. Ramakrishnan, the Chief Information Officer, Government of Tamil Nadu, the Chief Guest on the occasion.
Clive’s Corner in Fort St.George.
(Picture courtesy: The Hindu.)
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In the short term, Muthiah urged, similar heritage corners should be developed in the Fort for men like Stringer Lawrence, ‘Father of the Indian Army,’ Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of India, Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington and the hero of Waterloo, and Thomas Munro whom Rajaji recommended to all as the model Civil Servant.
After Muthiah had listed several major institutions in modern India that had their beginnings in Fort St. George, Ramakrishnan, a former Port Trust Chairman, spoke of the significance of Madras in the development of India’s modern maritime trade and narrated how the development of the Port had led to the city becoming the economic hub it is today.
Clive’s Corner in Fort St George, originally opened in the 1980s and then allowed to fade away, has been revived by Mrs. Sathyabhama Badrinath, Superintendenting Archaeologist, ASI Chennai Circle, and her team. This interpretation facility in a heritage building offers, in its new avatar, several insights into the life of Robert Clive, one of the builders of Britain’s Indian empire and who will ever remain associated with Madras. The information-packed corner is open to the public, but would benefit visitors more if it was open on Saturdays and Sundays. A Sunday church-goer told Madras Musings a few days after the opening, “There were so many in the congregation at St. Mary’s as well as other visitors, who were disappointed when they went to the Corner. There were also several disappointed tourists.”
Clive’s Corner is in Admiralty House in Charles Street, across the way from the steeple of St. Mary’s Church. Now the office of the ASI, Admiralty House takes it name from the fact that it housed the Courts of Admiralty from 1755. It also had served as the residence and, later, till Banqueting Hall was built, a place of entertainment for the Governors of Madras. Clive and his wife lived in the house when he was the Steward of Fort St. George, renting it from its Armenian owner at the time it was called ‘The Great House on Charles Street’. The house is one of the few buildings in the city featuring a commemorative plaque; it records Clive’s stay there.
The Interpretation Centre, as Clive’s Corner is described by the ASI, has been done up very aesthetically by the ASI team. The effort also highlights the ways and means by which a 300-year-old heritage building can be put to good use. Exhibited are excerpts from Clive’s letters, his portraits, photographs and sketches of buildings associated with him in India and England, and, of course, impressions by artists of battles that Clive was involved in. The extract of the marriage register from neighbouring St Mary’s, which records Clive’s wedding, is also on display.
On the occasion of the inauguration, a brochure titled ‘Colonial Architecture of Madras – the nascent phase’ was also released. A welcome addition to the literature on the buildings of the city, it has brief details on St Mary’s Church, the old wall of the city, and other such constructions.
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