Enlarging Bombay Port The Gateway of India, 1914 Print
A 1914 print of the enlarging of Bombay’s Port the gateway of India. This page is from the Graphic newspaper of March 21, 1914. The capital of Western India, Bombay, claimed the title of the second city in the British Empire. Overtaking Calcutta (now Kolkata), which was earlier considered the Gateway of India and the second city in the British Empire. The first city was London.
The importance of the city, both as a port and as a railway center, needs no emphasis. Considerable expansion by reclamation took place on the eastern side fringes of Bombay’s harbour area. One of them is shown on the map as a harbour foreshore between Mazgaon and Sewri.
The new Alexandra Dock was opened on March 21, 1914, and is shown on the map. It was opened by Lord Hardinge, then viceroy of India. In the Mazgaon-Sewri reclamation, around 600 acres of land were added to the port area. The area thus recovered was concentrated for the depots of the cotton and grain seeds trade. The new harbour railway will link this storage ground with the two great railways – the Great Indian Peninsula (GIPR) and the Bombay Baroda & Central India (BB & CI).
Did you know – Alexandra Dock’s foundation stone was laid by, George, Prince of Wales in 1905.
Past posts – Raja Ravi Varma’s “Birth of Shakuntala” Oleograph 1894., View of Back Bay, Queens Road And BB&CI Bombay, 1900 Photo., United Service Club Calcutta – Old Postcard 1903., Nilgiri Mountain Railway Trains Ooty Station – 3 PCs 1910.
