Gillander House, Clive Street

It is fairly simple business to pigeonhole a building based on its architectural style. The Writers’ Building is Greco-Roman. The High Court is Gothic. The Esplanade Mansions are Art Nouveau. But one building in Calcutta completely defies such pigeonholing, partly because it was designed by a man who was a musician, alongside being an architect. The man in question is Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel, and the building is Gillander House.

Gillander House

Ralli Brothers, Hare Street

Mention Ralli’s to anyone in Calcutta today and they will think of the sherbet and syrup making company. But Ralli Singh Arora who started that Ralli’s in 1898 in Calcutta, has no connection whatsoever with the Ralli’s building that stands today on Hare Street. The story of the company begins in 1815, in the Aegean sea, in the port of Chios, then part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ralli Brothers, a family of Greek merchants began importing corn, timber and hemp from the Black Sea to Leghorn on the Ligurian Sea, and from there to England, under the protection of the British fleet, stationed in Naples. By 1823, they had set up shop in England, expanding to Tabriz, Iran, by 1837. But important changes had happened in another part of the world by then. The East India Company’s monopoly in the Indian trade had been abolished, and Pandias Stephen Ralli, realizing that that’s where the future lay, decided to expand to India in 1851.

Ralli Brothers, Hare Street

Finlay Muir & Co., Royal Exchange Place

Although some of the heritage buildings of Calcutta’s Dalhousie Square area are government buildings, the majority of them are, or were, offices of mercantile houses of the colonial era. The vast majority of these mercantile houses were Scottish, and among them was the headquarters of Finlay Muir & Co..

Finlay Muir building today

The company began with the Finlay family of Glasgow, who were in the cotton trade. James Finlay had, by the time of his death in 1790, established the firm in his name, as a manufacturer and merchant, trading in cotton, muslin, and other textiles. James’ second son, Kirkman Finlay, expanded the business further. He used his influence as MP for Glasgow, to break the East India Company’s monopoly in trade in Asia, and the first Finlay ship arrived in India in 1813. Demand for Finlay’s cotton fabric was so astronomically high in India that the company found this one market to be getting them more profits than all their other outlets in Europe and America. The first Finlay agency to be set up in India was in Bombay, in 1816.

Wallace House, 4 Bankshall Street

Although it is the English that most Indians think of when they think of the British Raj, there was a very large Scottish presence in Calcutta, and it was the Scots who ran the majority of businesses in Calcutta, and most of India. One such firm was Shaw Wallace, a name that most Indians are familiar with even today. Their building, called Wallace House, on 4 Bankshall Street, remains in good condition today.

The company was established in 1886 in Calcutta by Robert Gordon Shaw and Charles William Wallace. While not much information is available about Shaw, Wallace, it is known, was born in Calcutta in 1855, and was the brother of Major General Sir Alexander Wallace. Returning to India after completing his education, in 1875, he was invited by Shaw to join him as a consultant. The company at that point, managed tea estates in India and among them The Budla Beta Tea Company Limited. Under Wallace, they diversified into timber and textiles. Offices were established in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, in 1909, in the name of R. G. Shaw & Company, with Rufus Wilson in charge. On 1st January 1912, it became a branch of Shaw Wallace & Company (India). The address was No. 28, Chatham Street in the Fort. Wallace eventually became the Vice Chairman of the Anglo Persian Oil Company, which later became British Petroleum.

The Oriental Assurance Building, Clive Row

I am filled with a deep sadness every time I look up at the Oriental Assurance Building on Clive Row (now Dr. Rajendra Prasad Sarani). What a terrible fate for one of the city’s most beautiful buildings! Though the main door has “LIC City Office” painted all over it, one look through the door at elevator will confirm that the building cannot possibly be in use at the present time. Chunks of collapsing masonry have damaged cars parked in the area. Portions of the staircase have collapsed, making access to the roof a dangerous proposition. Trees have taken root all over the structure, deepening cracks in the structure and the few inhabitants that the building still has, in spite of a vacate order posted on the door, are at serious risk of being buried alive one day. The sheer architectural splendour of the building makes it all the more tragic. The Oriental Assurance Building is one of the finest buildings of the Dalhousie area, Calcutta’s (Kolkata) central business district.

When insurance companies began operating in India, their customer base was limited exclusively to Europeans. European companies and the government were concerned that there were no statistics available about native mortality, and that it was simply not possible to ascertain the value of a native life. The Oriental Government Security Life Assurance Company was in this regard, a pioneer among pioneers. Not only did it offer policies to Indians, Indians formed the majority of its directors. Oriental Life began its journey on the 5th of May, 1874, from Bombay (Mumbai). The company was started by Mr. Duncan McLauchlan Slater, Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, with Kamrudin Tyabji, Raghunath Narayan Khote, Jehangir Rustomjee Mody and 9 other wealthy Indians. By the 31st of November 1874 they had on their books 17 Policies, insuring Rs. 54,000 with an annual income of Rs. 2,812. Business was good over the next few decades and the company expanded rapidly, opening its first branch office in Madras, in 1901. The 2nd branch office was in Calcutta, built in 1914.

Royal Insurance Building, Dalhousie Square

The insurance sector in India, in the days of the British Raj was initially completely dominated by British firms. Indians infact, were prohibited from buying insurance. Among the earliest companies to offer insurance to British subjects in India were Standard Life Assurance and The Oriental Assurance Company. Closely following them, came the Royal Insurance Company, and the grand building housing their offices in Calcutta survives to this day.

The Royal Insurance Building today

Royal Insurance was founded in 1845, and their Calcutta office was built in 1905. The architects were Edward Thornton and William Banks Gwyther. Located on the Western side of Dalhousie Square, at the corner of Charnock Place (now N.S. Road) and Koilaghat Street (now BTM Sarani), opposite the GPO building, the Edwardian style building, with it’s blood and bandage look has recently been spruced up, and looks very well maintained. The building sports a dome on it’s North East corner, which, though far more modest that the gigantic dome of the GPO, is elegant all the same. Originally accommodating Sandersons &. Morgans (Solicitors), and the Manufacturers' Life Assurance Company of Canada (1887) apart from Royal Insurance, the building continues to be used as an office.

Royal Insurance Building and GPO lit up to mark the visit of King George V in 1911

William Banks Gwyther, one of the two architects, is the man behind a prodigiously large number of buildings in Calcutta. Among them is the clock tower of Calcutta Port (1899), the Military Secretariat Building on Esplanade Row East (1901) and the headquarters of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (1905). Gwyther received his technical training at the Thomason Engineering College, Rorkee, and entered the Bengal Public Works Department in 1876. He rose to be executive engineer, and was appointed Under - Secretary to the Government in 1892, reaching the rank of Superintending Engineer in 1903. His death, in Shillong, was announced in The Times of 29^th June, 1910.

The Royal Insurance Company today operates under the name RSA Insurance Group Plc., RSA being the abbreviation of Royal and Sun Alliance. RSA operates in some 31 countries today. Curiously enough, the Royal Insurance Building has a twin in Liverpool, which, however is in far worse condition. Plans are on to convert Liverpool’s Royal Insurance Building into a hotel.
 
- by Deepanjan Ghosh

W. Leslie & Co., Chowringhee

Old photograph of W. Leslie & Co.

Millions pass by the twin domed building on Dharmatalla crossing without having any idea of it’s history. Although presently almost derelict, this building still houses offices, lights can be seen in the windows, fans can be seen whirring, and people can be seen hard at work. I would have never found out what the origins of the building was if it wasn’t for Montague Massey’s excellent book “Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century”. In the pages of the book is a photograph of something that is unmistakably this very same building. Voila!

Leslie House today

What is seen in the photograph, is the office of W. Leslie & Co., “Ironmongers”, what we in Calcutta today call a “hardware business”. The business was founded in 1890 in Calcutta and Leslie House, was built in 1912. While World War I made life difficult for many, and forced many firms out of business, W. Leslie & Co. made a killing, supplying large orders of machinery and parts to various parts of India and Mesopotamia. The firm's premises were used as the headquarters for the munitions Department of the Government of India. After the founder W. Leslie passed away, his sons, Kenneth and Mark Leslie carried on the business till the early 1930’s. From private letters, we know that around 1934, the business was sold, and the brothers returned to England. Trading, in the name of the company was carried on for a while by P.B. Shah and Co..

Old photograph of Dharmatalla crossing. Leslie House's twin domes can be seen in the distance

Then, in 1939, W. Leslie & Co. was purchased by Ramji Hansraj Kamani, founder of the Kamani Group. The rest we know from a timeline on Wikipedia. Kamani shifted the company to Bombay in 1941, fearing a Japanese invasion of Eastern India. Further expansion happened, with a new factory being opened in Lahore, in 1942. Unfortunately, this was lost to Pakistan during partition. The W. Leslie & Co. name continued under the newly formed Kamani Engineering Corporation Limited, manufacturing aluminum, brass and stainless steel utensils and importing electrical and mechanical machinery and equipment and spare parts.

 

Infighting and litigation ensued on Kamani’s death in 1965, and the company accumulated heavy financial debt during the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis. The company was auctioned by the Maharashtra government in 1982 for recovery of dues and was acquired by the RPG Group. In a strange twist of fate, the building is actually just across the street from the headquarters of the RPG group’s power utility, the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation.


- by Deepanjan Ghosh

W. Leslie and Company photograph from Recollection of Calcutta courtesy Anirban Hazra

McLeod House, 3, N.S. Road

McLeod House today

Calcutta’s Dalhousie Square is one of the last surviving colonial areas of the world. Due to it’s proximity to the Hooghly river, it developed as a major centre of commerce, and is dotted with heritage buildings, all originally belonging to mercantile houses. Now, whenever Indians think of colonial rule, the vast majority think of English people. But the fact is that an extremely large number of mercantile houses in Calcutta, and indeed all over the world, were run by the Scots. In the Dalhousie Square area may be found evidence of this in the form of Balmer, Lawrie & Co, Gillanders, Arbuthnot & Co, Mackinnon, Mackenzie & Co, Shaw, Wallace & Co and many others. Calcutta’s Scottish connection is not limited to Mercantile houses either. There is a Scottish Cemetery at the crossing of Karaya Road and Acre Road which is the final resting place for more than 1600 of Scotland’s sons and daughters.

McLeod & Co. was founded in 1887 and was one of the largest merchants and agents in Calcutta at the beginning of the twentieth century with interests in tea, coal, rubber, steamer services, indigo and light railways. McLeod House may be found on the Western side of Dalhousie Square, located near the crossing of Council House Street and Hare Street, next to the much more flamboyant Royal Insurance Building. Although the building is not as extensively ornamented as some of the other buildings in the Dalhousie Square area, it is in good condition, and continues to be used as an office today. 

- by Deepanjan Ghosh

Francis, Harrison, Hathaway and Company, Govt. Place, East

In the late 19^th Century, departmental stores in Calcutta rivaled those in European cities. The modern departmental store evolved from shops that were originally known as “drapers”. “Draper” was a term for a retailer or wholesaler of cloth that was mainly for clothing, says Wikipedia. One of the earliest such shops in Calcutta was Francis, Harrison, Hathaway and Company of Government Place, East.

Francis, Harrison, Hathaway and Company in it's heydays

My investigation was sparked by a photograph of Francis, Harrison, Hathaway and Company in Montague Massey’s Recollections of Calcutta for Over Half a Century. The building, I thought, looked familiar, and upon sifting through my photographs, I realized I had photographed it on one of my earliest walks through the Dalhousie area, which is the central business district of Calcutta. Back then, when we had no name for it, we referred to it simply as the Times of India building, since the newspaper’s offices occupied part of the building. A phone call to Sashi Dhacholia, a very senior member of the Benett, Coleman & Co Ltd (TOI’s parent body) team, revealed that the newspaper had infact occupied these premises for four decades or more, on rent. The owners were the Mallicks, of Marble Palace fame.

The building today

A phone call to Hiren Mallick of the family revealed a treasure trove of information. The property had been acquired by the family in the 1850’s, and TOI had been operating from the premises since their arrival in Calcutta. The building has been home to many British firms over the years, one of them manufacturing one of the earliest “Arrowroot” biscuits in India. It is still home to the (originally German) machine tools company Francis Klein, and the Ranger’s Club, which was once The Calcutta Naval Volunteers Club. The famous Ranger’s Lottery would happen from these very premises. Tito's bar operates from one corner of the building. The property was particularly prized for it’s overlooking Government House (now Raj Bhavan) and members of the Mallick family would gather on the building’s two balconies which offered a unique view of the Viceroy’s processions from the eastern gate of Government House.

Tito's bar

Francis, Harrison, Hathaway and Company had around 11 European staff members which was considered very large for the time. By the end of the century they had around 40. Among them were several people who went on to start successful businesses of their own. In 1880, there was a certain Mr. E. Whiteaway who ten years later was the partner of Whiteaway Laidlaw, in Chowringhee. Their humongous building is now known as the Metropolitan Building and is still one of the architectural landmarks of the city. There were also P. N. Hall and William Anderson, who started Hall & Anderson’s, which, within a few years, began to give tough competition to Francis, Harrison, Hathaway and Company.

The building today clearly looks battered and bruised. I hope that the Mallick family will consider renovating it sometime soon. It would be a pity to lose yet another one of the city’s connections to it’s colonial past.

- by Deepanjan Ghosh

Peliti’s Restaurant, 11 Government Place East

An old photo of Peliti's from http://puronokolkata.com/

Chevalier Federico Peliti was born in 1844, near Turin, and came to India in 1868, as the personal caterer for Richard SouthwellBourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, when he was appointed Viceroy of India. On a visit to the convict settlement of Port Blair, in 1872, Lord Mayo was assassinated by a Pathan convict named Sher Ali Afridi, with a knife.

Upon the Viceroy’s death, Peliti left Government House, and started his own establishment. By appointment to H.R.H., The Prince of Wales, and H.R.H., The Duke of Connaught, Peliti’s was one of the better known institutions of it’s day. By the 1890’s it had become quite popular among the business community of Clive Street, and many would flock to the establishment for their traditional Friday family lunch. Pelitis’ was famous for their three course lunch which could be had very quickly, for the somewhat hefty sum of Rs 1.50. Peliti was also well known as a great confectioner, and won an award at the Calcutta International Exhibition of 1889, for his 12 foot tall Eiffel Tower, “a miniature marvel in sugar”. Peliti’s operated in Calcutta until the 1930’s.

Peliti's today

In 1919, an expatriate businessman R.J. Coombes returned to Calcutta from a business trip to the USA with authority from Rotary International to organize a club in Calcutta. 45 of his European friends expressed interest, and it was in Peliti’s, on the 26^th of September, 1919, that the first meeting of the Rotary Club of Calcutta was held, with a membership of 20. It was the first Rotary Club in India, and only the 3^rd in Asia, the Rotary Clubs of Manila and Shanghai predating it by only a few months.

The marble plaque identifying the building

The building that was once Peliti’s still stands, although it has clearly seen better days. It is easily recognizable from the long balcony on it’s first floor which has a timber superstructure. It is currently owned by the LIC, who have plans of renovating it, or so we are led to believe.

The Original marble plaque, bearing the name of the restaurant’s illustrious owner, may still be seen, on the right of the main entrance. It reads “By Special Appointment to His Excellency, The Viceroy, Federico Peliti, Importer of English, French and Italian Provisions, Fancy Presents, and Wine Merchant”.

- by Deepanjan Ghosh

The Standard Life Assurance Building

 On the corner of Dalhousie Square South and Wellesley Place (now Red Cross Place) can be found the Standard Life Assurance Building. A beautiful structure, it was designed by the same man who designed Bombay’sVictoria Terminus, Frederick William Stevens, and constructed in 1896

Founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1825, Standard Life Assurance was a pioneer in life insurance for British subjects living in India, and the other colonies. This was at a time when most insurance companies would discourage travel to the colonies thanks to the extremely high mortality rate. Standard Life Assurance, was, in it’s heyday, the best known life insurance company in the colonies.

Like many other colonial buildings, this one also looks like it has simply been plucked out of Victorian England, and placed here. The building can be identified from a distance thanks to the large domed tower on it’s North East corner.

Exquisitely detailed, the building contains some very fine stucco work above the windows. 

Like it’s cousin in Bombay, it features Standard Life's logo of the biblical Ten Virgins in statue form in the main pediment. Derived from the parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13,) this was thought to be an appropriate motif for an insurance company with the message of always being prepared for future contingencies.

Sadly, the building is now in an almost derelict state, even though it continues to be used as government youth hostel. Several trees have taken root all over the structure, and one of the upper balconies looks like it is beginning to cave in. The overall sooty and grimy appearance of the building also does not inspire confidence.

 

When we visited the building, we were happy to see scaffolding, which might mean that long overdue restoration work on the building has finally begun. There has been talk of restoring all heritage buildings in this part of town, to revive interest as a tourist attraction. Let us hope something concrete is done before it’s too late.