Once Madras got a Governor, it was inevitable that it should also get a Government House. And so it has been that in the centuries since George Foxcroft, the first Governor (1668), Madras has had its fair share of Governors’ mansions.

The Banqueting Hall, Government House, built by Lord Clive as a Council Hall. Government House is to its rear. (A Willie Burke picture.) After the colonnaded terrace was built in 1895 and work began on the steps of today (below). Above and below left, courtesy: Vintage Vignettes. >

The first Governors lived in the centre of Fort St George, together with the writers, soldiers and other councillors. But a century later they felt the need for not only separate accommodation but also garden space for recreation. In 1752, John Company rented Mrs. Madeiros’ house, to the south of the Fort, for its Governors. The next year, Governor Thomas Saunders acquired it for 3,500 pagodas (about Rs. 75,000 today), though the house was “esteem’d worth more than the Sum ’tis offered at.” This is the house that was the nucleus of the main mansion in what is known as Government Estate, near Round Tana, and which was pulled down for the new Assembly complex.

Governors Thomas Rumbold (1778-80) and Edward, Lord Clive the Second (1798-1803), considerably expanded the house and a third storey was added in 1860. The Fort St George authorities wanted to create a building that could stand unashamed beside the magnificence of neighbouring Chepauk Palace. Part of this grand scheme was the building of the stately Banqueting Hall (now Rajaji Hall) with rows of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns within and without, and handsome pediments at the ends. Built in the form of a Greek temple by Company astronomer and engineer Goldingham, it was completed in 1802, and inaugurated with a ‘grand ball’. Goldingham, who had started his career in Madras in 1786, was a friend of Edward Clive and had been entrusted, in 1800, with the extensions to the main building and its remodelling. He was then given the assignment of building a Council Hall that would also be a commemoration hall worthy of British achievements at arms in India and to integrate it harmoniously with the architectural splendour he had created in Government House. Much remodelling of this Hall was done from 1875 and the terrace was enclosed by the arcaded verandah in 1895.

The Hall’s superb flights of steps, the original narrow flight being widened, and its open terraces enclosed by rows of arches linked by columns and low walls, are all part of the later expansions, but remain architectural additions to be appreciated. But Governors no longer give in it those spectacular banquets of more leisured years, nor are State functions held beneath the chandeliers of yesteryear.

The north gates of Government Estate open on to what was once a magnificent sweeping driveway leading to Banqueting Hall and past it to Government House. Flanking these stately silver-painted iron gates were the shelters for the Governor’s mounted bodyguard, the most colourful and handsomest body of troops in a forgotten era. The ‘Changing of the Guard’ during that era was every bit as impressive as what still takes place at Buckingham Palace in London. But all that has also now vanished, with the appearance of new Assembly complex.

Back to top

Edward Balfour, who came to India in the 1830s and retired in 1876 as Surgeon General, heading the Madras Medical Department, was a polyglot, fluent in Urdu and Persian. He acted for some time as the East India Company’s Agent to the Court of the Nawab of the Carnatic. This enabled him to play a significant role in the affairs of the Muslims of the city, including the Nawab.

Edward Balfour

It was during his tenure as Agent to the Court of Nawab Ghulam Ghouse Khan that two of the oldest Muslim institutions in the city, the Madras Muhammadan Library (Muhammadan Public Library) and the Madrasa-e Azam, were established. The present Muhammadan Public Library, earlier known as the Kutub Khana-e-Am Mufeed Ahl-e-Islam, came into existence at the instance of Dr. Balfour, a fact he proudly proclaimed while listing his noteworthy accomplishments in his monumental work, the Cyclopaedia of India (first published in 1857).

In 1849, Balfour gathered several prominent Muslims of Madras, including Abdul Wahab Kazi Irthiza Ali Khan, Sahabuddin Azam Ul Mulk, Khan-e-Alam Khan Farooq, Mushir Ud Dawla, the Chief of Nobles Shireen Sakun Khan Mirza, and Abdul Baghi Wafa, and impressed upon them the need for the community to have a library. This resulted in the founding of the library in 1850. Nawab Ghulam Ghouse Khan, his uncle Nawab Azeemjah, and Balfour himself made financial contributions. The library also received 240 unique Arabic and Persian books as a gift from the King of Egypt. The Governor of Madras, Sir Henry Pottinger, gifted 75 books. At the request of Balfour, the Council of Education, Calcutta, donated 106 books. The founding members too gifted 513 books. With the available funds, 164 books were purchased and a house was rented on Wallajah Road at Rs. 9 a month. Within four months of it being established, the library boasted of a collection of about 1,500 books. The Madras Muhammadan Library located at the junction of Wallaljah Road and Triplicane High Road was closed for renovation in the 1980s and was reopened to the public a couple of years ago.

In 1851, the year Balfour founded the Government Central Museum in Madras, the royal Madrasa of the Arcot Nawabs was, with prodding from Balfour, turned into a modern school, the Madrasa-e-Azam. It was thrown open to the public, but still preference was given to those coming from noble families or those attached to the court of the Nawab. Under orders from the young Nawab Ghulam Ghouse Khan, the services of the teachers serving in the old royal Madrasa were transferred to the newly established institution. Imamul Ulama Qazi Badruddowlah was appointed as the Chairman of the managing Board of Directors. Thanks to Balfour’s influence, the Madrasa curriculum was, for the first time in this part of the country, “loaded with secular sciences and vernacular languages, Tamil and Telugu,” Md. Yusuf Kokan records in his Arabic and Persian in Carnatic 1710-1960.

Qazi Badrudowlalah resisted the changes in the curriculum. At the end of the first academic year, the Qazi was asked in a note sent by Balfour (along with two other joint signatories) to give reasons for not cooperating in running the new Madrasa in the manner recommended. The Qazi wrote back to say he could not support a cause advocating education as a means of earning a livelihood rather than for supporting the religion. He tendered his resignation and a new Board of Directors was formed, with Salarul Mulk as Chairman, and Moulvi Yousuf Ali Khan, Moulvi Syed Ishaq Tirazish Khan Bahadur, Mohammad Nadeemullah Khan, Dr. Edward Balfour, Lt. Col. G. Balfour, Col. W.P. Macdonald, E. Maltby and Itimaduddowlah as members. Itimaduddowlah was elected Secretary. By the end of 1854 the Madrasa had 305 students.

With the passing away of Nawab Ghulam Ghouse Khan in 1855, bringing an end to the title ‘Nawab of the Carnatic’ and the power that went with it, Balfour pressed for far more radical changes in the school. Says Kokan, “...the Government agent was not in favour of providing instruction in religious studies.” So it was decided to dispense with the services of the old teachers of the Madrasa by granting them gratuity or pension according to the period of their services. In 1859, the Madrasa was declared a high school.

Having founded two institutions for the Muslims of the city, Balfour was determined to set up an institution of higher learning for Muslims, a Society of Arts and Sciences. Ever since 1852, Edward Balfour had convened several meetings in his house, the school and the Madras Muhammadan Library for this purpose. Finally, in 1854, under the joint signatures of Balfour and such prominent Muslims of the city as Nazim Jung, Mustaqeem Jung, Sirdar Jung, Mirza Abdul Baqi Khan, Muhibbi-e-Ali Khan, Jan-e-Jahan Khan, Mohammad Khairuddin Khan, Ahmad Ali, Qadir Hussain, Mohammad Abdul Qadir and Murtaza, an invitation in Persian was sent to 275 selected people to assemble at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, March 14, 1854 at the Madrasa-e-Azam. About 110 of the invitees and some spectators from the teachers and students (of the school) attended the meeting. There were a number of notable absentees, prominent among them being Qazi Badruddowlah. As Balfour was the convenor, Rashiduddowlah, son of Nawab Azeemuddowlah, proposed him for the chair.

Balfour made a passionate appeal in Urdu to the gathered Muslims, a remarkable speech that harked back to the glorious days of the Abbasid caliphate, scientific advancements, improvements that had taken place in Madras city in the previous few decades of British rule, and frank assessment of the current state of Muslims. Invoking Allah, Balfour urged those present to mend their old ways and get back to the world of knowledge. After his forceful speech (see box), several resolutions were moved, seconded and passed. However nothing came of the meeting and Balfour’s dream of a higher institution for learning remained unfulfilled for decades.

Ironically it was left to Balfour, the man who founded two noteworthy institutions for the benefit of the Madras Muslims, and desired to establish one more, to bring the curtains down on a major political institution that till then played a big role in the affairs of the Muslims of the city, the Nawabocracy of the Carnatic. As Government Agent to the Court of the Nawab, it was Edward Balfour who, after the death of the last Nawab of Arcot (Nawab Ghulam Ghouse Khan died without an issue), sealed all the offices of the Nawab on November, 22, 1856. A few months later, on January 18th, all the records of the Big Chamber were removed and taken away by him. From 1858 to 1861, Edward Balfour served on a commission to look into the debts of the Nawab.

Back to top

Edward Green Balfour was the second son of George Balfour of the East India Company Marine Service and Susan Hume (a sister of the radical Parliamentarian Joseph Hume). Balfour studied surgery at the University of Edinburgh and joined the Royal College of Surgeons in 1833. He was appointed an assistant surgeon in the Madras Medical Service and sailed to India in 1834.

In addition to multiple contributions to health management in Madras (e.g. on cholera), he recognised the effects of changing climate patterns, and added significantly to improving the overall natural and social environment of Madras and the Presidency. He will be remembered for his efforts in setting up the Madras Museum and the Madras Zoo, for his contributions to the Madras Literary Society (which administered the second oldest professional journal in India: the Madras Journal of Literature and Science), and for his book series the Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia (first published in 1857; subsequently in five-volumes in 1871–1883).

Balfour stopped at Mauritius on his way to Madras, where he had an occasion to read the writings on vegetation-conservation in Mauritius by the French engineer Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814) and those on the effects of forest clearance and water loss by the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Boussingault (1802–1887). The scientific thoughts of de Saint-Pierre and Boussingault on environmental management strongly influenced Balfour. He pioneered forest conservation schemes in India after 1840, which appear remarkable in the context that Balfour was only a trained medical doctor.

Indian forest conservations schemes born of Balfour’s thoughts and efforts formed the model for most forest conservation projects which followed in several other overseas British and French colonies. During Balfour’s college days in Edinburgh, Scottish medical training emphasised the role and importance of water in human health, and, in high likelihood, this element of professional training prompted him to recognise the finiteness of water and get interested in studying the role played by forests in recycling water. Balfour found it both logical and expedient to consider the ‘forest problem’ as being fundamentally a public health issue demanding the kind of interventionist solutions in the countryside that were being adapted in the urban sanitary landscape. Most significantly, Balfour’s studies were steeped in reason through statistical tests and analyses; his climate-related health studies on army personnel were presented at the meetings of the Statistical Society of London. Balfour’s scientific acumen and temperament are positively reflected in his essay on the connections between water and forest cover (Balfour, E.G. 1849. ‘Notes on the influence exercised by trees in inducing rain and preserving moisture’: Madras Journal of Literature and Science 25: 402–448), in which he articulates the links between famine and deforestation. His reports to the Famine Commission (e.g. IV. The influence exercised by trees on the climate and productiveness of the peninsula of India) are invaluable even today.

The East India Company took note of his precautionary remarks and launched forest conservation schemes in the 1840s. The historian Thompson lauds Balfour’s contribution to reforestation and forest conservation efforts in peninsular India in these words: “It should be noted that supposed deterioration of climate caused by tree cutting was not just a European and North American concern. It had global ramifications and extended far into areas of European influence such as, for example, British India where as early as 1849 a British surgeon, Dr. Edward Balfour, published a lengthy essay (heavily derivative of Boussingault and others) entitled Notes on the Influence Exercised by Trees on Climate.

Balfour mastered several Indian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi), besides Persian. As a social reformer, he was far ahead of his peers. He helped open the Madras Medical College to women. He struggled to start medical schools teaching in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam which, sadly, failed. He strongly supported granting independence to India, and it is highly probable that his thinking was influenced by his cousin Alan Octavian Hume.

As a student of science, I am deeply impressed by Balfour’s logical and reliable methods in every research he did – whether medicine or environmental management or reforestation – employing the right numbers of samples and statistical procedures. As one story goes, he studied human behaviour by keeping live tiger and cheetah cubs in the newly started museum in Madras. The outcome of this well-designed study led to the start of the zoological garden in the People’s Park complex, near Madras Central.

As examples, I list here some of Balfour’s writings, which reflect his versatility and the spectrum of his interests:

Statistics of cholera. M.A. & P. Company, Madras. 89 pages.

Gul-dastah-i-sukhan (The bunch of roses): extracts from Persian and Hindustani poets (in Persian). Publisher unknown, Madras. 256 pages.

Balfour E.G. (1887) The agricultural pests of India, and of Eastern and Southern Asia, vegetable and animal, injurious to man and his products. Bernard Quaritch, Piccadilly, London. 127 pages.

As an outstanding Scottish resident of Madras, who performed amazingly by connecting science and human values, it is but appropriate that a road in Kilpauk continues to celebrate his life and achievements.

Back to top