The Shaping of Modern Calcutta: The Lottery Committee Years, 1817–1830
$54.00
Author: | Ranabir Ray Choudhury |
ISBN 13: | 9789391125301 |
Binding: | Hardbound |
Language: | English |
Year: | 2022 |
Subject: | History/Medieval Period |
About the Book
The volume focuses on the Calcutta Lottery Committee’s work from 1817 till about 1830 when, for all practical purposes, the functions of the committee relating to the improvement of the city ceased effectively. The work done by the committee was phenomenal because the projects conceived and implemented by it still cast their long shadow on life in modern Calcutta.
Thematically, the book is a sequel to A City in the Making: Aspects of Calcutta’s Early Growth, published by Niyogi Books in 2016. That work ended with the formation of the Lottery Committee in 1817: this book takes up the story from there. As with the earlier work, this book is wholly based on archival material available at the West Bengal State Archives.
Among other things, the Lottery Committee built the major arterial roads in the northern and central parts of the city, which in time determined the layout of the contiguous residential areas.
About the Author
During his quarter-century with The Statesman in Calcutta (1970-94), principally as a leader writer, Ranabir Ray Choudhury (b. 1948) became interested in the past of a great city which the East India Company had selected as the nerve-centre for its operations in the Indian subcontinent and further to the east, extending to Singapore and beyond. In time, this growing interest led to three compilations – Glimpses of Old Calcutta 1835-1850 (1978), Calcutta a Hundred Years Ago 1880-1890 (1987), and Early Calcutta Advertisements 1875-1925 (1992). He next wrote The Lord Sahib’s House, Sites of Power: Government Houses of Calcutta 1690-1911 (2010). A City in the Making, Aspects of Calcutta’s Early Growth (2016)