Many scholars and sociologists have concluded that Kerala
stands out among the other states in India and mention about the peculiar
statistics concerning women, how they are balanced or even more in number in
Kerala, how educated they are and how the gender equality situation is much better
in Kerala, thereby constituting to its uniqueness in the world. But what most
of you may not know is how that came about, especially the involvement of
certain foreign companies and individuals who set out training and employing many
hundreds of thousands of women from Kerala’s backward castes in the 19th
and 20th centuries starting after the fact that Travancore boasted
of the first girl’s school as early as 1819 (even though informal education for
upper caste women was available much before that).
The Basel Evangelical Mission, the early entrepreneurs like
the American James Darragh (read this article for details) and the partners
Peirce and Leslie were some of the early employers of large numbers of women in
their factories, and they deserve some praise for what they did. They were the
people who laid the keel for the boat of development which set sail in the
1860’s. WKM Langley in his book on the PL (short for Peirce Leslie) saga and
his times in Malabar, the veritable Garden of Eden as it was termed in those
years, records all this for posterity. He remarks, in grand poetic style this,
while writing about the cashew industry – ‘Malabar has no monopoly on this tree (cashew)
which is indigenous to Brazil and grows more extensively in east Africa, but what
Malabar does possess above all others are the nimble fingers and unrivalled
skill of its beautiful women who alone make its benefits available to the
markets of the world’. Amazing isn’t it , that it was those hard
working ladies who delivered produce to various parts of the world, well beyond
the age old but dwindling spice trade. They were the lassies working in the tea
or coffee estates, or factories producing cashews, coir and rubber and quietly
kept the Malabar, Cochin and Travancore economy going, even in those last
depressing decades of British rule.
Peirce Leslie was a company that was such an important
fixture at Calicut for a long period, located at a vantage location at the
beach, close to the AIR station there. Its story is of course intertwined with
those of the two founders of the company. Robert Hodges Peirce and Patrick
Leslie were early Englishmen who put their trust in the value of the produce of
the rain-washed Malabar, sometimes beyond the mandatory spices which as you
know were and are treasured by traders of all times. Their fortunes impacted
not only the coffers of the company but also so many people of Malabar who
worked in this early commercial establishment in the region. Unlike Cochin and
Aleppey which by then boasted of many overseas investments and factories, the
Zamorin’s Malabar had been forgotten after the Brits had got themselves firmly
entrenched in India. Thus was born the company we knew as Peirce Leslie. Until
recently they had a presence in Calicut and PL as it was more commonly known, was
not just trading Indian produce, shipping and forwarding, they even dabbled in
travel and tourism. Why and what did these founders plan, when they started? I
thought the story might be interesting for the avid Calicutphile. As you can
imagine, it goes back a long way, to the dank dark days of 1862.
Calicut as you will realize did not have a good harbor and
the closest was at Beypore or Vaypura as it was known then. The British had
very ambitious ideas about the harbor and wanted to use it not only as a link
point to send out material to Bombay or Arabian ports but also as a link point
for mail and passengers. It was to become their Southwestern terminus for sea
traffic to the Arab lands and rail traffic eastwards. The gold rush of 1850 had
shaken the trading populace, the Moplah incidents of 1855 had passed, and the
region was somewhat calm. The British now wanted to improve their businesses in
Malabar, for Cochin and Travancore were separate kingdoms and time was ripe for
Calicut to get connected to the British railway network. In March 1861, the
first locomotive chugged into the Beypore station. The Madras Railway Company
opened the Madras-Coimbatore-Beypoor (Calicut) railway line for traffic in
1862.
European businessmen started their move to Malabar in right
earnest after the 1833 charter renewal of the EIC, and the first was the Basel
Mission in 1834. Carpenters came, tile works were set up and as the EIC ended
its charter in 1858 (258 years after its commencement in 1600), Pierce Leslie, Best,
Rally, Volkart, Gordon Woodroffe, Ripley, Harrisons and Crossfield, Aspinwall and
so many others established their businesses in India, many branching to
Calicut.
Why did Peirce decide to move to Calicut? Well, it was
without a doubt connected to the business relating to the coffee produce from
the estates of Wyanad. With good foresight, RF Peirce contacted the Zamorin’s
family and leased land in Karaparamaba to be the base for their go-downs and
factories. Peirce then quickly formed an association with Parry and Co (recall
my notes on Parry?) whereby he would cure the coffee beans from Parry’s estates
at his new Karaparamba curing outfit in Calicut. Coffee curing as you may know,
covers a whole gamut of mechanical and manual wok during which raw beans
brought down from the estates are cleaned up and converted to a green form,
after removing the husk and parchment cover, for this is the produce acceptable
for sale and export. PL could do this only for the year 1864, for Parry set up
shop themselves in Calicut right where the district court is located these
days. Peirce and Carolyn in the meantime produced some 12 children, of which
three died infants and Carolyn left for England in 1871. Leslie on the other
hand got married to Jane Elizabeth in 1871. PL continued curing for the Nelliyampathy
coffee estates produce and for Stanes & Co in Coimbatore.
With the capital thus acquired from their first success,
they left the coffee curing business and moved on to export of various kinds of
produce (coir, cashews, coir products, coconut fiber, timber, ginger etc.),
ranching out to Tellicherry as well in 1870. Sometime in 1873, Leslie went to
London, after severing his ties with PL Malabar. DL Gilkison then became
Peirce’s partner, but Peirce died soon after at Calicut, in 1878, leaving the
business in Gilkison’s hands. Peirce was apparently buried in the Dutch
cemetery close to the beach which later became the Connolly Park, after which
the gravestones were moved to the St Mary’s church. Two of his sons came back
to India and one worked as a tea broker in Cochin while the other worked in
Madras, was involved with the Periyar dam construction and the fish research
factory in Feroke. Leslie had three children, of which one died young, while
the other an engineer died at Madras. Leslie though continued on as the PL
agent in London until 1883, branched off to his own company and died in 1940.
With these important actions and events which followed, the original founders
became as they say proverbially, pictures on the wall.
Gilkison who took over on the other hand had been a true
adventurer, venturing into the wars in Argentina and America before getting
into business and marrying into money. He stewarded the fortunes of PL for the
next 40 years starting from 1878. William Maylor who worked at the Beypore iron
works and who built the screw pile pier at Calicut became his partner (he later
built the Aleppey pier, fought with Gilkison over the profits of this venture
and was the builder of the coffee pulper and donor of the bell at the St
Mary’s church) until 1885. The next major partner was AW Macrae (Burnett was
another but he left after a bitter argument with Gilkison).
Those were as Langley remarks, heady days when Gilkison
would ride on his horse to Wyanad in the morning at a brisk trot uphill and
ride back the same evening. A shrewd businessman, he was known to strike hard
bargains while managing some very efficient and honest staff, but then again he
spent considerable time traveling between Calicut and London, finally settling
down in London in 1883. Soon he branched into not just exporting out of
Malabar, but also importing various goods including white cloth into Malabar,
instead of depending on Bombay agents. Their biggest import go-down was located
at Palghat. Can you imagine that PL supplied used (imported) newspapers to
local shops for packing, and can you believe that Kasavu gold thread was
imported to Malabar, through PL, during those times?
In 1890, the Calicut post office relocated and that building
became the new PL office. Pl which was previously HQ’d in the silk street moved
to the beach. In 1901 it became a private limited company. Soon they moved to
the more spacious Zilla buildings, leased in 1905. That was indeed a curious
story dating back to Tipu Sultan, for the Zilla was hallowed property, which
brought much misfortunes to the previous occupants. This was where Tipu killed
a number of Brahmins after which the locale was considered cursed. The company
Schlunk and Schonert occupied the area next and built offices and a bungalow
(next door was Volkart brothers), but collapsed speculating in ginger. Meanwhile,
Gilkison died in 1917 leaving Macrae in charge. WW1 ended, the German property which
had been taken over by the British as enemy property was sold to PL in 1919. PL
it appears, did not suffer from the Brahmin curse and went on to do very well.
Soon their baling and printing factories were moved to this Zilla Location,
from Karaparamaba. The Macrae’s were responsible for hosting many social events
in Calicut, such as Christmas, the Saturday parade and sports day but also left
back for London in 1911.
You know, they had interesting practices in those days, for
example, Macrae filled one of his table drawers with letters stating that it
was his principle that most letters if left long enough, answered themselves
(but it is believed that he just parceled unimportant letters into that
drawer). By 1916. Macrae was also gone, from a heart attack. John Christie took
over, was a prominent Calicut Cole-hole lodge member and known to be very
charitable, especially to the Anglo Indian crowd of Calicut and a sociable
chap, famous for his breakfasts on Christmas and Good Fridays at the Malabar
Club. And it is in Langley’s accounts where I found another nugget, that there
was a golf course West hill, and a Golf club in Calicut of which Christie was a
member. Langely who came in later, for example formed the Kerala cricket club
in Calicut (remember my article on the Canterbury week and the cricket tournament
at Calicut?).
Going back to the PL activities, coffee was of course prime
in the beginning and as we saw, even Stanes & Co sent coffee from
Mettupalayam via Coimbatore to PL in Calicut for curing, till Stanes set up his
factory in Coimbatore with advice from Peirce, who surprisingly did it fully
conscious that he would lose his business. The coffee business was affected by
various disease and later the gold rush (see article linked), finally
succumbing to cinchona cultivation. By WW2, there was little Wyanad coffee. As
an offshoot, manure mixing and distribution became a profitable business for
PL, located at West hill. Of course all the produce sourcing and export was
another business, and soon coconut oil became a mainstay, used for the
manufacture of glycerin, an important product for the war effort. Cashew
kernels and cashew shell liquid (used for phenol production) became profitable
and the Karaparamba cashew factory was not enough, requiring new PL cashew
factories in other locations like Quilon. This cashew business was actually a
windfall and mushroomed during and after the WW2. Rubber export too formed a
leg in its operations. In general one can conclude that there was little PL did
not dabble in, be it paints (Shalimar paints dealers) or tiles.
Post Second World War, the scene changed with Cochin
becoming a year round port. As all other ports were closed during the war,
Cochin rose to importance and PL did well with the shipping business. After
India became independent, the import business collapsed, most of the British
management comprising 123 or so Europeans left, and some years later, the
company passed into Indian hands, in 1968. In 1969, the private limited company
became a deemed public limited company and in 1995, a new subsidiary Company
Peirce Leslie Cashews and Coffee Limited was formed to handle cashew and coffee
business. PL Worldways Limited and PL International Limited became subsidiaries
of the Company.
But we cannot leave the account without a quick mention of a
prominent British PL manager, fondly known to people of Calicut as Bolland
Sayip. His story has to be recounted in more detail separately, which I will do
later, but here is a quick synopsis. Bolland came to India in 1946 to work for
the British owned Peirce Leslie, worked in Kundara from 1947 to 1949 and in
Kozhikode from 1950 to 1967. In 1968, Mr. Bolland relocated to Kochi and played
a major role in turning the British company into an Indian one, Peirce Leslie
India Ltd. He became its first managing director. His contribution to the arts
of Kerala is priceless, and his efforts at archiving and recording various art
forms unmatched. Bolland lived in Kerala for 25 years and documented the
performances of some of the early masters of Kathakali, authoring a book, ‘A
Guide to Kathakali’.He went back to retire in England and live in his
aptly-named home Malabar in Somerset, England, passing away recently.
References
Century in Malabar – The history of Peirce Leslie and Co
1862-1962, Ed WKM Langley
Calicut city centenary celebration Souvenir
Pictures courtesy – WKM Langley book, CCC Souvenir
10 comments:
What a detailed story of one of the leading companies of Calicut! You have collected so much information and put them together so skilfully that the story reads like script for a movie.
As you mention, it was Pierce who bought the land in Karapparamba from the Zamorin and started the coffee curing (and later on cashew processing) factory there. What an irony, then, that the present owners have named the place after the other partner - it is now called Leslie Villa and Leslie Hyper market!
I understand that the subsidiaries ( PL Travels and PL agro) are now owned by an entrepreneur from Ernakulam.
Thank you for joining the dots of this glorious story of Calicut industrial past.
Thanks CHF..
There are so many more of similar nuggets.
Some decades from now, there will always be MGS's & Seluraj's books plus a few of these articles from lesser folks like us to remind people of the times of yore, of the city they termed 'the isle of Eden'...
I have another one on the anvil about yet another Englishman who was a remarkable man, and as expected, hardly anybody know of him..
Most interesting post on Peirce Leslie. Do you have more information on the company, business and its people, even going beyond "Century in Malabar" ? Also, in later years, they were more Cochin centered rather than Calicut. Did you write the piece on Mr. A.D. Bolland ?
thanks MS
I have not attempted to collect further company information, it was only the history of the company that interested me so far...Yet to write the article on Bolland, will do so soon..
rgds
Thanks my father was a P L employee , your article took me back to Calicut,tellicheri .where my most memorable moments of child hood were spent .had even seen Bolland Esq
Thanks! My father was a PL employee and worked under Mr.Bolland both in Calicut and Cochin.. Your article took me down memory lane.I still remember the birthday parties i used to go to of his daughter Diana !
Thanks,
I will write about Bolland soon..
rgds
For those who want to read more about Mr A.D.Bolland and his days with Pierce Leslie, visit this site http://www.davidbolland.co.uk/index.htm. The website goes by the title - Never a dull moment, The Life and Times of David Bolland 1919-2012. This is a website hosting his memoires and managed by his daughter. One can read a lot about that era Pre-war, World War 2, British Colonial days in India and post colonial days of rapid change.
Very interesting.
I have a slight connection with your story.
My ancestor James Tavenor Nash was born in England 1832 but went out to Ooty in 1859 to be a schoolteacher with his brother Frederic Nash who had already established a school there. After many years, Frederic returned to London and then in 1870 my ancestor closed the school and joined Peirce, Leslie and Co in Calicut curing coffee, first as an Accountant and later as a Merchant...and then sometime around 1880 (I'm not sure when) he joined Stanes and Co in Coimbatore, I assume that it was also in curing coffee. Alas, he died in 1881 in Madras but I suppose he played a small part in your story.
Thank you once again.
Regards Celeste Goulding
Thanks, Celeste,
Glad you stopped by to read this. There were surely many such interesting stories. Stanes & Co and the STanes school in Coimbatore is another project, I have not yet started on it.
rgds
Post a Comment