Palaces of the Raj by Mark Bence-Jones

Author:Mark Bence-Jones [Bence-Jones, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781351866934
Google: ep2fDgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-04-07T16:21:25+00:00

have been originally used as a powder-magazine by General Claude Martin. To the British at the time of the Mutiny, it was known more simply as 'Banks' Bungalow', having been occupied until the beginning of the siege by John Sherbrooke Banks, Lawrence's short-lived successor. In the fighting that followed the relief of the Residency, it was one of the chief rebel strongholds, standing as it did in a very conspicuous position. It was captured by the British in November, 1837, abandoned when Campbell withdrew his force from Lucknow later in the month, and finally recaptured on 10 March, 1858 by Sir Edward Lugard's division. On 11 March the gallant Major William Hodson of Hodson's Horse was carried into the house mortally wounded; he died in a downstairs room early next morning. The khaki-clad figure of Major Hodson was supposed in later years to visit the house and to walk through the rooms.

It is surprising that Banks' Bungalow should have survived the Mutiny more or less intact, particularly as it was roofed with thatch. It would have been on account of the thatched roofs that the house was called a bungalow, thatch being the traditional roof-covering for this type of dwelling in Upper India; for in fact it had a two-storeyed centre, rising above the outer rooms and verandahs, which were of one storey only. The effect was that of a comfortable planter's house, quite unlike the palaces and mansions of Lucknow's gaudy past, a sign of how the place was in eclipse following the Mutiny. It was a far cry from the splendid entertainments in the Residency Banquetting Hall, and a still further cry from all the lavishness of the Farhat Bakhsh and the Dilkusha, when John Strachey wrote, on becoming Chief Commissioner in 1866: 'There is no doubt that Lucknow has a large capacity for champagne and other liquors, and although I intend (DV) to be mean to the last degree, this craving of the military and other stomach will have to a certain extent to be gratified.'

During the long reign of Sir George Couper, who held the office of Chief Commissioner from 1871 to 1882, first by itself and then in conjunction with the Lieutenant-Governorship of the North-Western Provinces, with which it was amalgamated in 1876, the house and its surroundings were considerably improved. Work began on the house in 1873, and was completed within a few months. The thatched roofs were done away with, and the upper storey extended, so that the house lost its air of a planter's bungalow and became more like one of the old 'Garden Houses' of Madras or Calcutta, with upstairs verandahs of coupled columns. The ground floor verandah still projected out from the two-storeyed building behind it, and was lengthened at one corner to form the inevitable porte-cochère.

When the Prince of Wales came to Lucknow in 1876, the several Mutiny veterans in his suite - notably Dr Fayrer - were just about able to recognize Banks' Bungalow; but in the words

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