Bangalore Cantonment

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The Bangalore Cantonment (1806–1881) was a military

miners, mounted infantry, supply and transport corps and the Bangalore Rifle Volunteers. The Bangalore Cantonment was directly under the administration of the British Raj, while Bangalore City itself was under the jurisdiction of the Durbar of the Kingdom of Mysore
.

History and Layout

The Cantonment Side of Bangalore (p.98, 1890), London Missionary Society[1]
Lord Curzon
.

Prior to the arrival of the British, Bangalore had been the stronghold of several

Hoysala Empire and the Vijayanagara Empire. In the 18th century, the dominion of Bangalore passed on to Haider Ali. After a series of successive wars known as the Anglo-Mysore Wars with Haider Ali's son, Tipu Sultan, the British captured the city and all of the Kingdom of Mysore
in 1799.

Capture of Bangalore Fort

Bangalore was the strongest

Lord Cornwallis decided to reduce this fort before the storming of Srirangapatna.[2]

Tipu Sultan followed Cornwallis' army, placing him in the awkward position of having an undefeated enemy army at his back while besieging the strong fortification. Tipu kept away hoping to take assault when underway in flank. Over the next twelve days, two companies of the Madras Pioneers provided sappers for eight batteries, dug several parallels and a trench up to the fort ditch. Cornwallis attacked secretly on the night of 21 March 1791. The Madras Pioneers, led by Lt Colin Mackenzie, crossed the ditch with scaling ladders, mounted the breach and entered the fort, while the artillery engaged the fort with blank ammunition. With a breach made, the main stormers rushed in and the fort was captured after a hand-to hand fight in which a thousand defenders were killed. Cornwallis captured the fort and secured the force against Tipu.[2]

The Madras Pioneers, went on to make Bangalore their permanent home.

Establishment of cantonment

The British found Bangalore to be a pleasant and appropriate place to station their garrison and therefore moved their garrison to Bangalore from Srirangapatna. The origin of the word cantonment comes from the French word canton, meaning corner or district. Each cantonment was essentially a well-defined and clearly demarcated unit of territory set apart for the quartering and administering of troops.[3] The heart of the Bangalore Cantonment was the Parade Ground. The Civil and Military Station (CMS) grew around the Parade Ground.

Parade Ground

The installation of the Bangalore Cantonment attracted a large number of people from

South Arcot
districts of Tamil Nadu.

A 1924 map of the Bangalore Cantonment depicting the South Parade and the areas around it

Development

The names of many of the cantonment's streets were derived from military nomenclature such as

Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV. However, the British retained their garrison in the city until 1947. After Indian independence, Bangalore Cantonment was merged with the rest of Bangalore City under the dominion of the Mysore State
.

  • St Andrews Kirk, Bangalore around 1895 - Furneaux, JH (1895) Glimpses of India. A grand photographic history of the Land of Antiquity, the vast Empire of the East
    St Andrews Kirk, Bangalore around 1895 - Furneaux, JH (1895) Glimpses of India. A grand photographic history of the Land of Antiquity, the vast Empire of the East

See also

References

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Bangalore".
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bangalore Cantonment.
  1. ^ "The Cantonment Side of Bangalore". Chronicles of the London Missionary Society. 1890. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  2. ^ a b Sandes, Lt Col E.W.C. (1933). The Military Engineer in India, Vol I. Chatham: The Institution of Royal Engineers. pp. 163–165.
  3. ^ The Story of a City, East West Books (Madras) Pvt. Ltd., Jayapal Maya
  4. ^ Destination: Bangalore. Bangalore Information
  5. ^ St. John's Church, Bangalore, India
  6. ^ http://hdl.handle.net/10919/9941 Archived 5 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine Public space in Bangalore: Present and Future Projections

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