The roads in
Triplicane are narrow and traffic often gets struck … Big Street at places is
in fact a small lane… the road that runs
from D1 Police Station in Wallajah road to D3 Police station in Ice House is –
Triplicane High Road …. Old timers would refer this to as ‘Tram road’ ….yes, referring to a unique form of transport that
existed more than 6 decades ago.
A tram
(tramcar) is a rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public roads. Tram transport in India was established by
the British in the 19th century ~
the first electric tram service was started in Madras in 1895 and went
out of reckoning in 1953 in Chennai – it however, still continues to run in
Kolkatta even now. The earlier trams were reportedly horse-drawn. The one that
were running in Madras (as also the ones seen in Kolkatta) run on electric and have overhead traction
lines.
The description as given
by those who occasioned to travel by tram – was that they moved very slowly –
sort of people can enter and get down whilst it was moving ….those perhaps were
days when the life itself was leisurely paced – not the ones that you see in
OMR or mad drive to Pondy in ECR – and those were the days, when you had little
traffic on roads – not much of two wheelers and auto-rickshaws … more used
public transport and most of them waited patiently – in fact thinking of people
going by Pallavan Transport – people used to wait for a single bus on that
route and would not even explore much of possibilities of going to a place with
better connectivity – Beach, HighCourt, Parrys, Sowcarpet – Central, Egmroe - Triplicane, Mylapore, T
Nagar, Guindy …. some prominent places which were well connected …..
One cannot
be faulted for not knowing – ‘Richard Plantagenet Campbell
Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville’ (1823 – 1889) and his Madras
connection ! – he was a British soldier, politician and
administrator of the 19th century. He was a close friend and subordinate of
Benjamin Disraeli and served as the Secretary of State for the Colonies from
1867 to 1868 and Governor of Madras from 1875 to 1880.
Brill is a village and
civil parish in west Buckinghamshire, England, close to the border with
Oxfordshire. Brill's name is tautological, being a combination of Brythonic and
Anglo Saxon words for 'hill' (Brythonic breg and Anglo Saxon hyll).
The world's first
passenger tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, in Wales, UK. The Mumbles
Railway Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1804, and this first
horse-drawn passenger tramway started operating in 1807. It was worked by steam
from 1877, and then, from 1929, by very large (106-seater) electric tramcars,
until closure in 1961. The Brill Tramway, also known as the Quainton Tramway, was a
six-mile (10 km) rail line in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England. It
was privately built in 1871 by the 3rd Duke of
Buckingham as a horse tram line to help transport goods between his
lands around Wotton House and the national rail network. Lobbying from the
nearby village of Brill led to its extension to Brill and conversion to
passenger use in early 1872. Two locomotives were bought but trains still
travelled at an average speed of 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h).
In 1883, the Duke of
Buckingham planned to upgrade the route to main line standards and extend the
line to Oxford, creating the shortest route between Aylesbury and Oxford.
Despite the backing of the wealthy Ferdinand de Rothschild, investors were
deterred by costly tunnelling. In 1888 a cheaper scheme was proposed in which
the line would be built to a lower standard and avoid tunnelling. In
anticipation, the line was named the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad. In 1933
the Metropolitan Railway became the Metropolitan line of London Transport. The
Brill Tramway became part of the London Underground, despite Quainton Road
being 40 miles (64 km) from London and not underground. In 1935
the Brill Tramway closed. The infrastructure was dismantled and sold.
Getting back to that man -
Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville – was the ,
3rd Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham was the only son of Richard
Temple-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, and was educated at Eton
and Christ Church, Oxford. He joined the British Army, eventually rising to
become a colonel. Buckingham entered politics, as Lord Chandos, in 1846 when he
was elected unopposed from Buckinghamshire as a candidate of the Conservative party. In March 1867, he was appointed
Secretary of State for the Colonies and served until December 1868. He served as Governor
of Madras from 1875 to 1880. As Governor, he handled the relief measures
for the victims of the Great Famine of 1876-78. He died on 26 March 1889 at the age of 65.
Buckingham’s
tenure as the Governor of Madras from
1875 to 1880 was plagued by
deteriorating socio-economic and health conditions. In 1876, the Great Famine
of 1876–78 broke out in Madras Presidency. By August 1877, the famine had
spread all over the Presidency and over 18 million people were affected. To make matters worse, the rains failed in
parts of Madras and Mysore. Large quantities of grain were shipped from Bengal
to Madras port, and through his efforts, famine relief was distributed to
839,000 people in the Madras districts, besides 160,000 in the Bombay Districts
and 151,000 in the Mysore districts.
The Governor appealed to
the principal cities of England, Scotland, Ireland and India for assistance. At
Buckingham's suggestion, the Lord Mayor of London collected relief funds. Though the famine eventually came to an end
in 1878, the issue had far-reaching effects. As a part
of the famine relief work, Buckingham had commenced the construction of a
navigation channel between Madras city and the northern part of the Madras
Presidency so that transportation of supplies to the interior in cases of
emergency would be easy. More than 715,000 people were employed as labourers in
Madras to assist with the relief work. Opened in 1878, this canal was named
after Buckingham as Buckingham Canal. Buckingham Street in Penang, Malaysia was also named after
him by the Tamil labourers who were brought there during the British colonial
period.
Displeasure of the tribes
of the northern part of the Presidency over the stringent taxation schemes of
the British government erupted in the form of a major rebellion in 1879. The
rebellion was eventually suppressed through a joint operation of the Madras
police and army and the Hyderabad army, and the captured prisoners were sent to
the Andamans. Many of the stringent taxation laws were repealed. Later William Patrick Adam was appointed Governor of
Madras and he succeeded Buckingham in December 1880.
The Buckingham
canal so built no longer remains a canal – the waterway in which once boats ran
and was a fresh water channel from Godavari basin to Marakkanam, sadly is a stinking drain at places and a stagnant
pool at places! – and here is a photo of the canal nearer Thirumylai & Triplicane MRTS station taken
a couple of years ago !!
With regards –
S. Sampathkumar
2.4.2o21
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