From India’s Digital Archives – 1

Karthik Bhatt

A college’s genesis in a last will

The Digital Library of India (DLI) project, an initiative of the Central Government, aims at digitising significant artistic, literary and scientific works and making them available over the Internet for education and research. Begun in 2000 by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and later taken over by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, it has to date scanned nearly 5.5 lakh books, predominantly in Indian languages.

The archives of the DLI contain a huge collection of books on old Madras and various institutions that were/are part of its landscape. While these include the more famous ones, such as the Madras Tercentenary Commemoration Volume, Story of Madras by Glyn Barlow, and Madras in the Olden Times by James Tallboys Wheeler, several out-of-print publications too are part of the collection. This column will profile some of these.

The Pachaiyappa’s College Centenary Souvenir

The Pachaiyappa’s College had its genesis in the Last Will and Testament of Pachaiyappa Mudaliar, a legendary merchant and philanthropist who died in 1794. A long and protracted legal battle broke out between his heirs over his estate in which he had left about a lakh of pagodas towards charitable and religious purposes. With a large part of the estate having been squandered away due to mismanagement, it was left to the Government to step in and salvage what was left. George Norton, the Advocate General of Madras, played a vital role in the recovery of funds, which amounted to around Rs. 7.25 lakh. This formed the nucleus of the Pachaiyappa’s Trust.

The commemoration volume records that a school was established in 1842 under the name of Patcheappa’s Preparatory School in the house of a Waddell in Popham’s Broadway for the education of poor students in the “elementary branches of English Literature and Science”. It moved to the Esplanade in 1850, when the historic building modelled on the Temple of Theseus, was inaugurated. Over the years, it grew to be one of the best known schools in South India and was the main feeder for those graduating from Presidency College and Madras University. It was raised to the status of a Second Grade college in 1880 and, in 1889, it became a First Grade college.

A small hostel for students was opened in 1899. Over the years, it grew in size and a site was purchased at Chetpet in 1914 to accommodate the growing numbers of hostellers. On April 1, the Governor of Madras, Lord Pentland, laid the foundation stone for the new buildings. The construction was completed in 1921. During the time of construction, the hostel was moved from George Town to Doveton House in Nungambakkam (the rentals being borne by Annie Besant and Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar) and subsequently, in 1915, to Dare’s Gardens adjoining the new hostel site.

By the 1930s, the College had outgrown its Esplanade campus. When the University Commission reduced the strength of the institution to 800 due to the space crunch, it was decided to shift the entire College to the hostel campus, an idea that had originated at the time the site was bought. In 1935, the Residential College Scheme was drawn up and an appeal made to the public and alumni of the institution for funds. A raffle conducted at the College raised a sum of Rs. 50,000 towards the Building Fund. In 1939, the Governor of Madras Lord Erskine laid the foundation stone for the College buildings, which were declared open in 1940 by his successor Sir Arthur Hope.

The section dealing with the origin and growth of the institution compiled by the renowned Sanskrit scholar, T.M.P. Mahadevan, Head of the Department of Philosophy, is a comprehensive account of its journey. The book also contains a profile of Pachaiyappa Mudaliar and an account of the legal battle following his death, written by the noted historian Rao Sahib C.S. Srinivasachari, an alumnus. The section on endowments and scholarships acknowledges the contributions made over the years by several well-known names of the times, such as Gazulu Lakshminarasu Chetti, Raja Goday Narayana Gajapati Raju, Dewan V. Ramiengar (an alumnus), T. Subbaroya Mehta and Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar.

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