View of Bangalore From The Fort, 1900 Stereo Photo
An old 1900 stereo photo with a view of Bangalore from the Bangalore Fort. Next to Madras (now Chennai), the capital of the Southern Presidency, Bangalore ranked as an important city during the British era. It grew from a cluster of villages to what it is now, perhaps owing it to the British. They retained the place after the defeat of Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799.
The cool climate of the Deccan Plateau and the strategic location suited them well. A cantonment was opened in 1809 for stationing troops. A railway track was laid from Bangalore to Jolarpet in 1859. The city was then rapidly connected to Madras and other parts of India by rail. Which vastly developed its economic and infrastructural growth.
Within a period of time, Bangalore was on an almost equal footing with Madras. The city’s nucleus, in the beginning, was a few settlements around a mud fort. Built by Kempe Gowda in 1537, a chieftain under the Vijayanagara Empire. Hyder Ali taking control of the Fort in 1758 reinforced it with stonework. His son, Tipu Sultan, would later bolster it still further. Making the Fort almost impregnable.
Yet the relentless battering by the British troops breached the Fort’s walls during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Thus fell the impregnable fortress into the hands of the British. Which was one of the critical moves in the defeat of the strong Mysore Army. Two people seem to be enjoying themselves. With the view of the vast expanse of the city in the background. The very place where it actually sprouted and spread out into the city that we see today.
Did you know – from a garden city where all pensioners wanted to retire, to the busy technology city that it is today.
Past posts – Raja Ravi Varma Commemorative Stamp Folder., Casino Hotel At Cochin – Old Postcard 1968., Lord Kitchener of British Indian Army, 1909 Print., Old Book 1892 – Albuquerque. .,
