American seeding of Madras cotton

The only place the Stars and Stripes flew in Olde Madras was over Ice House, is a statement I often make. But then, some years ago, I had to add, “But it almost flew more permanently in the Porto Novo area when Thomas Willing, a Philadelphia merchant, explored the possibility of an American East India Company in 1765.” His ship, the United States, was the first American ship to visit India and while anchored in Pondicherry, its commander, Thomas Bell, visited the “Nabob of Arcot” with a letter from the American Congress endorsing Willing’s idea of establishing an American trading post in the Nabob’s territory. A bit of British arm-twisting led to the Nabob, who had given “Captain Bell reason to hope for a settlement on the coast”, changing his mind. But though American interest in an Indian ‘factory’ waned thereafter, its contribution to India in the years that followed was quite significant, I found on getting interested in the subject after ‘discovering’ the good ship United States.

That interest evolved into a regular lecture on the American links with the Madras Presidency, ranging from how the Wild West was won with the bandana to the creation of the Tamil Lexicon and making Madras a metropolis. In all those lectures, one thing I would sometimes mention in passing was how much the cotton growers of ‘Tinnevelly’ prospered during the American Civil War, when the Northern States and Europe were starved of raw cotton from the Southern States. But what I failed to mention was something I learnt only the other day at a lecture by Dr. A. Raman, visiting from Australia; namely, that Tinnevelly cotton owed a lot to American ‘experts’ hired by the Government of Madras.

It was Governor Thomas Munro who saw the possibilities of growing cotton in the Madras Presidency where a George Arthur Hughes was successfully growing cotton from the early years of the 19th Century. Hughes was persuaded to open 400-acre cotton farms in Tinnevelly, Coimbatore, Masulipatam and Vizagapatam. But while the cotton grew well, there were difficulties in ridding it of seed. And that’s where the first American enters the scene. Bernard Metcalfe, a cotton seed cleaner from the American Deep South, arrived in Tinnevelly in 1813 and began giving advice on how American equipment, like the Whitney ginning machines, would help improve the quality of the cotton. But the Indian growers refused to buy the idea and Metcalfe went back.

By the 1830s there was an enormous demand in Britain for raw cotton and South India was unable to meet it. Capt. Thomas Bayles of the Madras Army was sent on a secret mission to the American South to study cultivation practices, obtain seeds, and recruit eight planters and 12 supervisors. The importance Britain paid to this project may be judged by the size of the budget Bayles was given: £100,000 in 1838! Bayles was successful in getting seven experienced planters from South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi to travel back with him, with three others to follow with seeds, gins and agricultural implements. Thomas James Finnie, given the role he was to later play in the Tinnevelly area, could well be considered the leader of the team.

Around the same time, Dr. Robert Wight (Miscellany, October 28, 2002) was experimenting with American cotton and gins in Coimbatore where he had been posted. Then, from 1845 to 1849, there began a series of impassioned scientific debates between Finnie and Wight. Finnie was convinced that American cotton and plantation practices would not thrive in South India, Wight was equally confident they would. The newly-arrived Governor, Sir Henry Pottinger, put an end to the debate by sacking both, but the East India Company, considering Wight’s contribution to the Natural Sciences, ordered him to be reinstated. It however decided to bring to a close experiments with American cotton. Cotton, though, continued to be farmed successfully in these districts using traditional varieties and methods of cultivation and deseeding. And it paid off during the American Civil War (1861-65).

By the end of the 19th Century, new hybrids had been developed and there began in the 20th Century substantial cotton cultivation in South India. Today, cotton production in South India is here to stay.

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The Singhs of Madras

A recent news item on the latest passing out parade at the Officers’ Training Academy, St. Thomas’ Mount, focused on newly commissioned Lt. Arjun Singh Chauhan who, it was stated, was the seventh generation in his family to serve in the military. It is a line that goes back to the Battle of Plassey (1757). But what intrigued me about that report was that the earliest generations of the family had served in the Madras Army. What were Singhs doing in that Army, the earliest to be raised by the East India Company?

According to the report, Commandant Kesar Singh (great great great great grandfather) was the commander of the entire Indian force Clive led to Plassey. Why wasn’t it Yusuf Khan, Stringer Lawrence and Clive’s favourite, the Subedar who had been made Commandant of the Sepoys after the French had handed back Madras to the British in 1749? Presumably because he was busy subjugating the poligars of the South and being rewarded with Madura for his pains, from which citadel he could collect the annual dues from those poligars.

Kesar Singh’s son, Subedar Shivram Singh, was with Col. William Baillie, Eyre Coote and Cornwallis, the report continues. Was he with Baillie at that disastrous battle of Polilore, when Haider Ali carried the day, with Coote in his victorious campaigns against Haider at Porto Novo and Polilore, and with Cornwallis on the march to Mysore in 1791-92?

Shivram Singh’s son Risaldar Hari Singh was with the Prince of Wales Light Cavalry, a Madras regiment, and was appointed the Indian ADC of the Governor of Madras, Lord Ampthill (1901-1906). The risaldar was awarded the Royal Victorian Order, the medal being presented by the Prince of Wales, later King George V, undoubtedly during his visit to Madras in 1905. After that, the family seems to have moved out of what is now Tamil Nadu.

Theirs is a family history that deserves retelling. And perhaps in such a retelling we’ll discover how the Singhs came South as early as the 18th Century, if not earlier. A senior journalist, a woman who used to be successful in management, and a very successful printer are three Madras Singhs whom I’ve met at some time or other. All of them Tamil-speaking, they spoke of migration from the North in the distant past. But none of them could provide any details. I wonder whether anyone else can.

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When the postman knocked…

* Explaining why the Ostend Company closed shop in India (Miscellany, March 30), Dr. Bart van Groof tells me that it was due to the British and the Dutch bringing pressure to bear on the Austrian Emperor, Charles VI, to close a company they felt was too successful for the liking of their own companies, the EIC and the VOC. The Emperor was obligated to both powers for having won the Spanish Succession War, which was concluded with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 which benefited him. He first suspended the charter he had granted the Ostend Company and then, after the second Treaty of Vienna, in 1731, had it closed down. So came to an end the links of what was to become Belgium with Covelong on the Coromandel and Cossimbazaar on the Hooghly.

* His favourite story about the recent World Cup had its beginnings at a meeting of the Triplicane Cultural Academy a week or so before the first semi-final and ended in Melbourne, a senior citizen told me. The Chairman of a five-man panel of cricketers and knowledgeable cricket fans that was tasked with discussing the semi-finals and final, apparently began the meeting mentioning that the previous evening at his club he had been handed a slip of paper with the exact score of each team in the last three matches. The numbers revealed that New Zealand would beat South Africa by some 50 runs, India would beat Australia by some 20 runs and that India would beat New Zealand by some 70 runs. India would score over 300 in each of its two matches, Kohli scoring 140-something in the final. I was so flabbergasted by the exact numbers given by my caller that I didn’t take them down. But I did wonder whether the numbers came from hope, intuition, astrology or a bookie. With only one prediction right in half a dozen, it must, however, have been an optimist recording a dream.

* My reference to Vepery (Miscellany, March 16) had Dr. M Krishnan sending me the accompanying picture, a mansion on what was Rundall’s Road and is now E.V.K. Sampath Road. Called Lanark Hall, it had been owned by a Mr. Wilson of Ooty who sold it in 1916 to my correspondent’s grandfather, Justice K.K. Pandalay. The handsome mansion was pulled down in 1969. He wonders whether anyone can tell him more about Lanark Hall.