Ooty – History

Ooty – History

Udhagamandalam (sometimes Ootacamund), sometimes abbreviated Udhagai and better known as Ooty, is a town, a municipality, and the district capital of the Nilgiris district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located 80 km north of Coimbatore. It is a popular hill station located in the Nilgiri Hills. Originally occupied by the Todas, the area came under the rule of the East India Company at the end of the 18th century. Today, the town's economy is based on tourism and agriculture, along with manufacture of medicines and photographic film. The town is connected to the rest of India by road and rail, and its historic sites and natural beauty attract tourists.

Introduction

Ooty or Udhagamandalam (the Tamil version of the original name) rightly described as "Queen of Hill Stations" by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, now sprawls over an area of 36 sq km with a number of tall buildings cluttering its hill slopes. It is situated at an altitude of 2,240 meters above sea level. Ooty still woos people from all over India as well as foreign countries right through summer, and sometimes in the winter months too.

An added attraction for the tourists to Udhagamandalam is the mountain train journey on a ratchet and pinion track which commences from Kallar, near Mettupalayam and wends its way through many hair-raising curves and fearful tunnels and chugs along beside deep ravines full of verdant vegetation, gurgling streams and tea gardens. 

The scenery, as it unfolds during the trip, is breathtaking, awe-inspiring and fantastic. One can notice a marvelous change in vegetation, as one goes from Kallar to Coonoor. At Kallar it is tropical and at Burliar-the next bus-stop as one proceeds from Mettupalayam-it is sub-tropical. Near Coonoor, it is humid with pines, blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) and cypress trees. As we go from Ooty to Gudalur, the change in vegetation is striking. What a splendid interaction between climate and vegetation! It is therefore very appropriate that Mount Stuart called the whole road leading to Ooty from Mettupalayam, "One long botanical debauch." 

Etymology

The origin of the name Udhagamandalam is obscure. The first mention of the place occurs in a letter of March 1821 to the Madras Gazette from an unknown correspondent as Wotokymund. 

In early times it was called OttaikalMandu. "Mund" is the Tamil word for a Toda village, and the first part of the name is probably a corruption of the local name for the central region of the Nilgiri Plateau. 

Another likely origin of the stem of the name (Ootaca) comes from the local language in which Otha-Cal literally means Single Stone. This is perhaps a reference to a sacred stone revered by the local Toda people. The name probably changed under British rule from Udhagamandalam to Ootacamund, and later was shortened to Ooty.

History

Ooty is situated deep within the Nilgiri hills (which can be literally translated as The Blue Mountains). It is unknown whether this name arises from the blue smoky haze given off by the eucalyptus trees that cover the area or from the kurunji flower, which blooms every twelve years giving the slopes a bluish tinge. Nilgiris in general was ruled by Ganga kings and later by Hoysala kings, particularly Vishnuvardhana who captured Wynad and Nilgiri area during the 11th century. Tippu Sultan was the first to extend his border by constructing a hideout cave like structure.

It was originally a tribal land and was occupied by the Todas along with other tribes who coexisted through specialization and trade. The major tribes of Nilgiri area are Todas, Kotas, Badagas and Alu Kurumbas, who settled in and around Ooty. The first reference of Todas in Nilgiri is found in a record dated 1117 A.D. Toda people are known for raising water buffaloes and Badaga people for their farming activities. Frederick Price in his book Ootacamund, a History states that the area called 'Old Ooty' was originally occupied by the Todas. The Todas then handed over that part of the town to John Sullivan, the then Governor of Coimbatore.

Sullivan later developed the town and encouraged the establishment of tea, chinchona, and teak trees. Like many of the settlers, Sullivan was highly impressed by the way the tribes cooperated, and sought to maintain this balance. He later campaigned tirelessly to ensure land rights and cultural recognition for these tribes and was financially and socially punished for this by the British Government.

The Nilgiri territory came into possession of East India Company as part of the ceded lands, held by Tipu Sultan, by the treaty of Srirangapatnam in 1799. Rev. Jacome Forico, a priest, was the first European who visited Nilgiris in 1603 and released his notes about the place and the people of Nilgiris. In 1812 surveyor William Keys and Macmohan visited the top of the plateau. In 1818, Wish and Kindersley, Assistant and Second Assistant to Collector of Coimbatore visited this spot and submitted their experience report to the Collector of Coimbatore John Sullivan. John Sullivan with his party proceeded to Nilgiri Mountain and camped at Dimbhatti, just north of Kotagiri in January 1819 and was enthralled by the beauty of the place. He wrote to Thomas Munro - " it resembles Switzerland, more than any country of Europe, the hills beautifully wooded and fine strong spring with running water in every valley" 

Again in May 1819, Sullivan came to the Hill of Ooty and began the construction of his bungalow at Dimbhatti (near Kotagiri), the first European dwelling on the hills. John Sullivan laid the path from Sirumugai (near-Mattupalayam) to Dimbhatti in 1819 and the work was completed in May 1823. The route up to Coonoor was laid in 1830-32. 

Ooty served as the summer capital of the Madras Presidency and other small kingdoms, much visited by British during the colonial days, and as today, a popular summer and weekend resort. Soldiers were also sent here and to nearby Wellington (the home of the Madras regiment to this day) to recuperate. Its stunning beauty and splendid green deep valleys inspired the British to name it Queen of Hill Stations.

From May to October each year during the hot season, the Madras Government and its officials, the Governor, and his family, went to the Government House in the Nilgiri Hills. One governor, Sir Arthur Lawley (1906-1911), was an accomplished horseman, a quality admired by the Indian princes of the Madras Presidency. He enjoyed hunting with the Ooty hounds and was frequently joined by close friends like the Maharajah of Mysore. “Hunting, which had been the passion of his youth in England, probably appealed to him more than any other form of recreation, and he was a fine shot with a rifle and brought home many of the trophies – tiger, panther and bison – for which the Southern Indian jungles are well renowned.”  

The Governor’s Residence, Government House, was the focus of activity and there was a splendid Club House with a fine golf course, polo, swimming and tennis. Snooker is said to have originated on the billiard tables of the Ootacamund Club, invented by an army officer – Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain. There was also a cricket ground with regular matches played between teams from the Army, the Indian Civil Service and the business sector. Visiting teams would come from various parts of India as well as from the island of Ceylon.

There were riding stables and kennels at Ooty and the Ootacamund Hounds hunted across the surrounding countryside and the open grasslands of the Wenlock Downs, named after Sir Arthur Lawley’s brother Beilby Lawley, 3rd Baron Wenlock. There were Point to Point Races and Gymkhanas, and horse riding was a very popular pastime. The maharajas, the business fraternity and the senior civil servants had summer cottages at Ooty. There were churches like St Stephen’s and St Thomas’s and traditional inns. It was in many ways a re-creation of Old England. When the Governor was in residence the Union Jack flew over Government House and a six gun salute would announce his arrival and departure. The misty blue haze of the Nilgiri Hills, and the fragrant mountain rains were a welcome change from the sultry heat of Madras.

Ooty is reached via winding hill roads or a complicated rack railway system, known as the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, built in 1908 by impassioned and enterprising British citizens with venture capital from the Madras government. 

In 1882, a Swiss engineer named Arthur Riggenbach came to the Nilgiri Hills on an invitation from Government of India and he submitted detailed estimates for a line costing £132,000. A local company named “The Nilgiri Rigi Railway Co. Ltd.” was formed, and the Government offered it free land. This company insisted on a guaranteed return of 4%, which was not acceptable, and the proposed railway, once again, had to be shelved. In 1885, another Nilgiri Railway Company was formed and, in 1886, planning work commenced, using the Abt system with two adjacent toothed rails in the centre of the one metre gauge track. The work on the line commenced in August 1891 when Sir Arthur Lawley’s brother, Beilby Lawley, 3rd Baron Wenlock, the then Governor of Madras, turned the first turf to begin construction. The Mettupalayam-Coonoor section of the track was opened for traffic on 15 June 1899.

In January 1903, the Indian Government purchased the line, and took over the construction of the new extension from Coonoor to Ooty. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway was operated by the former Madras Railway Company until 31 December 1907 on the behalf of the Government. In January 1908, the railway line was handed over to South Indian Railways. Construction continued. The line from Coonoor to Fernhill was completed on 15 September 1908 and reached Ooty, one month later. On October 15, Sir Arthur Lawley, Governor of Madras, officiated at the opening ceremony of the new railway to Ootacamund.

Developmental History

This beautiful botanical paradise was first brought to the public eye by John Sullivan, Collector of Coimbatore district in 1819. But prior to this in 1812, the first Englishmen who were sent up the Nilgiris by the Collector of Coimbatore, were Mr. Keys, Assistant Revenue Surveyor, and his Assistant, McMahon. They made their way via Dananayakan Kottai to Aracad and the existing village of Denad, and penetrated as far as Kallatti, the lower level of North Ooty, but never set their eyes on the beautiful valley in which Ooty lay. After Keys' visit there was no further expedition until 1818 when J.C.Whish and N.W.Kindersly (Asst. and second Asst. to the Collector of Coimbatore respectively) went up by the Dananayakan Kottai-Denad route, crossed the plateau in a south-western direction and descended by the Sundapatti pass from Manjakombai to the Bhavani valley and then went back to Coimbatore. The purpose of their visit is not known. 

In March 1819, John Sullivan obtained Rs 1,100 (Rupees of those days not to be compared with the present-day rupee) from the Board of Revenue for laying a bridle path up the hill from Sirumugai to Kotagiri and its neighboring village, Dhimatti. The work was executed by McPherson in a period of 2 years starting 1821. This was the only route to the Nilgiris from Coimbatore until 1832, when the first Coonoor ghat road was laid, thanks to the then Governor, S.R. Lushington, who got the work executed by Lehardy and Capt. Murray. The present metalled ghat road from Kallar to Coonoor, a distance of 25 km which has 14 hair-pin bends and a gradient of one 18 ft, which facilitated carriage traffic from Madras to Ooty, was mainly constructed by Colonel G.V. Law in 1871. Wenlock Bridge on the Coonoor-Mettupalayam road named after Law continues to bear the same name. 

The Coonoor-Mettupalayam road was extended to Udhagamandalam, covering a distance of about 15 km. The Kotagiri-Mettupalayam road (about 34 km long) which was 8 ft wide to begin with, was widened to 17 ft in 1872-75 with a gradient of one in 17 by the Dist. Engineer, Major Morant R.E. and handed over to the District Board in 1881. During the period from 1819 to 1830, John Sullivan's contribution was, apart from laying the route to Ooty, that he built the first house called Stone House in this place. This formed the nucleus of Government offices. Further, at his own expense, he conducted experiments on agricultural and horticultural crops and in animal husbandry to find the most suitable crops and breeds of milch animals for future settlers.

Next to the magnificent task of laying the road to Ooty, the British took up, around 1880, the stupendous task of connecting Mettupalayam to Ooty by rail. A Swiss engineer, M. Riggenback and Major Morant of Kotagiri road fame prepared an estimate of 1,32,000 pounds (currency) for laying the rack railway and floated a company called The Rigi Railway & Co Ltd. Since capital was not forthcoming, Mr. Richard Wolley of Coonoor came forward to advance money on the condition that the contract would be entrusted to Mr. Wolley by the Government of Chennai. 

The agreement between the 2 was signed in 1886, and the company called The Nilgiri Railway & Company came into being with a capital of Rs 25 lakhs. The work on the line was started in August 1891 by Lord Wenlock, Governor or Madras, but the company was liquidated in 1894. Later, a new company was formed in 1894, and the work was completed in 1899. The line was worked by Madras Railway, to start with. Though the Nilgiris formed part of Coimbatore district, it was separated into an independent district in 1868. For a period of 13 years from 1830, it remained part of Malabar district. This was to prevent tobacco smuggling from Coimbatore. From John Sullivan's days to this date, more than 170 years have rolled by. Udhagamandalam considered a sanatorium and hill resort by the Europeans, has come to be like any other district. The devastation was so much that a ban on fresh construction was belatedly imposed by the Government. 

Gnarled, knobbed and twisted, Sullivan’s oak is an appropriate metaphor for Ootacamund. On the one hand it is apparent that the tree has been much better years; a 1905 photograph capture it standing tall, robust and bushy before what were then the Secretariat offices. On the other, it has survived the ravages of time; look closer and you will discover that its branches have a tangled beauty and that its alternate leaves glow softly in the wintry sun.

John Sullivan, the man who founded Ooty, planted this oak over 150 years ago in front of what was then his residence, Stonehouse. Over the years, Stonehouse was subsumed in flurry of construction for the office of the Secretariat. And today, these offices have become the Government Arts College – a tale of change and continuity that is very much the story of Ooty.

Identifying Stone House

If you are armed with a sketch of an original ground plan and elevation of Stonehouse, you can identify the exact portions of the old residence- the very first European house in Ootacamund – that were incorporated with the Secretariat office building. If you walk through the over ground and beautifully unkempt cemetery at St. Stephen’s, which lies on a small outcrop behind what must be one of the country’s prettiest churches, you will find the graves of Sullivan’s wife, Henrietta, and his 16-year-old daughter, Harriet. They died within 10 days of each other in 1838.

The famous Ooty Lake – that serpentine stretch of water that has deteriorated in to a sewer-was Sullivan’s creation too. He dammed a stream in order to collect water for the nearby fields, but somehow it never developed in to the headwater of an irrigation system. Half the lake was appropriate and filled in for the racecourse, but the other half still remains one of the remains one of the main tourist attractions in the hill station. But as Reverend Philip Mulley suggests, his real legacy goes well beyond a building that endures here or a crumbling grave that survives there. “His impact is evident almost everywhere,” says Mulley, who has been interesting the history and sociology of the Nilgiris.

 It was Sullivan who revolutionized agricultural practice in these mountains, there by changing the face of the local economy. He did this not merely through the introduction of tea (which was commercialized only years after his death), but by freely distributing speed for a large assortment of cereals, fruit and vegetables. He brought in European varieties of wheat and barley (which the Badagas knew as Sullivan ganji), vegetables such as cabbage, radish and turnip and fruits such as peach, apple and strawberry. It was Sullivan who persuaded the initially skeptical Directors of the East India Company to develop the Nilgiris as a sanatorium for sick British troops. And it was Sullivan again who encouraged the construction of the early ghat roads up in to the hills. As anthropologist and Nilgiris expert Paul Hockings has noted: “His impact was widespread and permanent.” 

Laying the Foundation

Sullivan didn’t ‘discover’ the Nilgiris, but he was the first to see its potential as a sanatorium and he laid the foundations that changed the social and economic face of these hills. Other European had been up before. An enigmatic Jesuit priest, father Fininicio, made the first expedition in 1603. He made the journey up from Calicut, but all that remains of his visit to Todamala is a small fragment that reveals he tried to converse with the Badagas about Christianity and that he gave “Toda women looking glasses and hanks of thread, with which they were very much pleased”. Two centuries later, after the British had annexed Mysore, There were other expeditions by men such as Buchanan, Mackenzie, keys and MacMohan, some of them reaching only the lower slopes.

It was in 1818 that two youthful Assistant collectors of Coimbatore, Whish and Kindersley, made it to the made it to the Nilgiris plateau. It is not clear what took then up. One story goes they may have been on a shooting expedition, another that they chasing tobacco smugglers. Their account of their explorations, which were of a place that was cool and teeming with the game and wildfowl, stoked the interest of the boss. Sullivan, who was then the permanent Collector of Coimbatore, made the ascent the following year.

The letter he wrote from the “Neilgherry hills” to Thomas Munro, who went on to become Governor of Madras, is ecstatic. “This is the finest country ever…. It resembles I suppose Switzerland more than any other part of Europe… the hills beautifully wooded and fine strong spring with running water in every valley.” Within a few months, Sullivan had constructed a small cottage a Dimbhatti, near Kotagiri. It had gone to ruin over the years, being used, among other things, as a cowshed; only recently was it restored by the district administration, thanks to the efforts of the environmental forum, the save Nilgiris Campaign, and the enthusiasm of an energetic Collector.

By 1822, Sullivan had started building stone house in what was then known as Wotokymund, acquiring land from the Todas at one rupee an acre. He would quickly corner huge tracts of land, many times more than the other entire European settler put together. All the while, Sullivan was peppering his superiors in Madras with letters about the unusually temperate and healthy climate in the Nilgiris and its suitability as a sanatorium. By 1828, there were some 25 European houses, not to mention churches and the houses of immigrants from the plains. This was also the year that Ooty was made a military cantonment. Sullivan’s dream of making it a sanatorium for British troops had been fulfilled, but the government’s action meant that Ooty would no longer be in his control but in that of his rival Major William Kelso. 

But Sullivan wasn’t through with Ooty. After he finished his tenure as Collector of Coimbatore, he returned in his capacity as the Senior Member of the Board of Revenue of the Madras Presidency. 

Liberal Views:

At the same time, Sullivan laid himself open to charges that he had used his position in government to acquire enormous personal wealth. He retired and left to England in 1841 and died unsung on January 16, 1855 – exactly 150 years to this day. “Most people in Ooty do not even know he existed,” says lawyer and environmental activist B.J Krishnan. “But the important thing for the future of these hills is that we retain the spirit and energy of Sullivan.” The Save Nilgiris Campaign had planned a procession of tribals and a public meeting on January 16, 2005 on the occasion of his 150th death anniversary.

Ooty Golf Course

The originator of golf at Ootacamund was Colonel Ross Thompson, R.E. who brought it in 1889, from Bangalore, when he had been transferred as Executive Engineer, Nilgiri district. He began with a few holes, partly in the ground of the A.B.C., and partly on the adjacent land belonging to the Hobart Park. These pioneer links were used principally by ladies but owing to one cause and another they did not find much favour.

In consequence of this, Colonel Ross Thompson, brigadier - general Van Straubenzee, and Colonel Straker R.A., selected, some time in February of the following years, a site near the municipal rubbish depot and the road out to the Governor's Shola, on which links consisting of eighteen holes were laid out. The starting point of the course was on the slope above the turn on the road the lake, to the west of Woodstock.

Government Gardens & Horticultural Societies

The earliest gardens of any size or importance in Ootacamund were those attached to Stonehouse and Southdown’s, both originally owned by Mr. J. Sullivan. The former of these was, for over six years, held on lease by Government, and a latter was the property of the State for ten years, dating from December 1829. The Garden was maintained by Government, who employed a comparatively larger staff for this purpose. They appear however to have been more of an ornamental than useful character, and the general public derived no benefit from them.

During the time the Ootacamund was under military controls, considerable  cultivation of vegetables for the market was carried on by so- called settlers and others, but towards the end of this epoch, which closed in 1841, there were a great falling off, due no doubt to lack of demand arising from the abandonment of the place as a military sanitarium. The present Government Gardens had their origin in one which was established in 1845, by subscription amongst the European residents, for the purpose of supplying themselves with vegetables, at a reasonable cost.

The site occupied was, so it has been ascertained, the spot immediately below the ornamental pond close to the band stand, and now forming part of the lawn, planted with exotic trees, which faces one on entering the Gardens. Captain Molyneux, of the 2nd European Regiment, managed it, the subscribers paying Rs.3 a month, and receiving their vegetables free of charge. In less than a couple of years’ times, however, this arrangement was found not to work so satisfactorily as had been expected, and, early in 1847, a fund was raised, by means of donations and subscriptions, with a view to form a Horticultural Society, and start a Public Garden.