Cotton Bales At Bori Bunder Station, Old Print 1862

Old 1862 print showing cotton bales at Bombay Terminus. A clipping from The Illustrated London News, of August 23, 1862. The caption reads- Cotton Bales Lying At The Bombay Terminus Of The Great Indian Peninsula Railway Ready For Shipment To England. Bombay Terminus was apparently Bori Bunder Station which preceded the Victoria Station. It is from here that the first railway train ran between Bombay to Thana in 1853. In 1887, the Victoria Terminus Station (or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) replaced the Bori Bunder Station.

Read more Bori Bunder railway station.

After the American civil war broke out, the Confederate states refused to supply cotton which the mills in England depended upon. Shaken by the developments and clueless about finding alternative sources. The British then turned to the Indian farmers and promoted the cultivation of crops in the deep interiors of India.

Eventually, this led to a great boom in cotton export. The cultivated crop was directly transported to Mumbai from there shipped to England. Many merchants made their fortune in this lucrative trade. Some of them were the Jeejeebhoy’s, the Cama’s, the Sassoon’s, Kursandas Mulji, Premchand Roychand, and so on. The boom also resulted in the creation of many textile mills in the city. Click on the photo for better view.

See post Kohinoor Mills In Bombay – Old Photo 1918.,

Did you know- David Sassoon, a Persian Jew of Mumbai, and Parsi merchants also cashed in on the Sino-Indian opium boom in the 19th century creating great wealth for themselves. Opium was a legal commodity in China at the time.

From the collection- Raja Ravi Varma’s “Birth of Shakuntala” Oleograph of c1894., c1907 Taj Mahal Palace Hotel Mumbai Old Advertisement., 1800s Hand Colored Print of Jama Masjid & Outskirts Delhi.