The Conolly’s in British India
Posted by Labels: British Calicut, Conolly, Conolly India, Conolly Malabar
And their tragic lives
Nevertheless it would be a good idea to take a look at the
men of that family who lived a good part of their lives in India in the last
half of the 18th and the first six decades of the 19th
century. It was a family which as is prophetically stated in India, one which
carried a curse resulting in the premature deaths of four distinguished Conolly
offspring, in India. This is the story of Valentine Conolly the father, and his
six sons - Captain Edward Conolly, Captain Arthur Conolly, Captain John Conolly,
James Conolly ICS and Lt Henry Valentine Conolly. One of them were killed in
action and two of them murdered. Captain Edward of the 6th Bengal
Cavalry was killed by a sniper during battle in Afghanistan, October 1841.
Captain Arthur Conolly was kept captive till his death and murder at Bokhara in
1842. Captain John Conolly was killed (or died in captivity) at Kabul in 1842,
these three brothers perishing in Afghanistan within a year of each other. Henry
Valentine was the last of the four brothers who served the British Indian
establishment. He had entered the India service in 1824 and was posted to
Calicut in 1840-41 only to meet an ill-fated death in 1855. James did well
though. Valentine had one other son and a three daughters, but I do not know
anything about them and information gathering was tough also because some of
the family members spelled their name Connolly, while others used the version
Conolly.
Perhaps the curse which the offspring carried on their head had
something to do with the way in which their father had profited, from the
miseries of his patients, or perhaps it was the Kohinoor curse. And that is a
story which needs to be retold.
Valentine Conolly
- The recorded story of the Conolly family in India starts with Dr Valentine
Conolly, son of William Conolly (Bengal Civil Service), who arrived at Madras around
1788. As records put it, Valentine Conolly was appointed Assistant Surgeon in
the Madras Medical Service on 16th June 1788 and a Surgeon on 1st
June 1796. He also took part in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and was present at
the capture of Seringapatam in 1799 and the death of Tipu Sultan, for which he
won a medal (which was only recently actioned off in the UK) in the process. As
the number of English who went nuts (dolally in British terms – one which I
will explain in a separate article for that is a tale by itself) in historic
Madras increased, he became the first to institute the premier lunatic asylum
of South India sometime in Feb 1793, when he became secretary to the medical
board. It was privately owned by him and the forerunner for the asylum in nearby
Kilpauk. While he is listed and hyped up as the founder of the first asylum,
public opinion of his involvement in this business of running a madhouse is
divided between mention of personal profit on the one hand and public
benevolence on the other. Anyway, as the story goes, Assistant Surgeon
Valentine Conolly, of Fort St. George, saw business sense in the treatment of
the mentally unsound and laid before the Madras Government in 1794 'Proposals
for Establishing at the Presidency a Hospital for Insane Patients'. The
business plan also covered the very important aspect of how ‘extremely
beneficial the adoption of it would be to the Community at large by affording Security
against the perpetration of those Acts of Violence which had been so frequently
committed by unrestrained Lunatics'. So Conolly suggested the establishment of
a home for mentally unsound Europeans and Eurasians (not natives) so that
‘those poor creatures’ could be confined to specialized houses and ensure at
the same time ‘a good deal of peace and order’ and be rid of such public
nuisances as were perpetrated by lunatics’.
He proposed something in the lines
of a similar establishment in Calcutta - I
purpose then, Sir, and hope my proposal will obtain the sanction of your
Patronage, to erect at my own expense a commodious Hospital for the reception
of Lunatics, consisting of sixteen separate and airy apartments, with warm and
cold baths, and every other necessary out-office: the whole surrounded by a
wall of a sufficient height in conformity to the plan which accompanies this
address…That Government do take a lease of the House so to be erected for a
certain time not less than ten years, at a rent proportionate to the expense
that may be incurred in building it and the probable repairs during that
period. The premises, for which the government paid a lease for Rs. 825 per
month, comprised 45 acres of land rented to Conolly at a nominal quit rent of
51 pagodas per annum, and commenced operations in 1794.
Pending approval by the Court of Directors, Sir Charles Oakeley
sanctioned the scheme on condition that the maximum monthly rates payable for
each patient should be Pagodas. 30 for an officer, Pagodas. 25 for 'a person
not in the Service but coming under the denomination of a Gentleman,' and for
non-commissioned officers and privates the amount of their pay and batta. A 45
acre area in Puruswalkam was allocated to him and the madhouse was thus built
(close to today’s Kilpauk). The villagers were to be compensated by Conolly for
the land and inconvenience. This structure stood at the junction of Pursewaukum
High Road with Brick Kiln Road. It was marked 'Lunatic Hospital' in the map of
1816, and 'Lunatic Asylum' in that of 1837. The edifice was eventually demolished
when the asylum was transferred to larger premises in Kilpauk.
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| Madras Asylum |
Only one year after the opening of the asylum the first
lunatic was reported to have been restored to sanity and Conolly's skill and
attention were positively remarked on. Conolly went on to make a good profit from
this venture, but towards the end of the century (around 1795) he felt it was
time to retire and move back to England, as a wealthy ‘nabob’. The lease was in
the meantime, extended due to its good performance and it passed hands at a price
(Rs 26,000) three times the building value to either one J Goldie and perhaps later
to Surgeon Maurice Fitzgerald who held charge till 1803 (or the other way
around). Dr. Dalton, a later owner rebuilt it and from then on it was called
‘Dalton's Mad Hospital’. When he retired, 54 inmates were being cared for in
its premises. As is recorded, all of these gentlemen profited handsomely from
the treatment of the insane, and this continued to be so till it was finally
decided by the EIC that a private asylum was not quite appropriate (it was due
to public opinion and pressure from Britain). Did Conolly carry back a curse
from his patients and peers? Perhaps!
The wealthy Valentine Conolly (after having been made a
mason at the lodge in the meanwhile) married Matilda, the daughter of Sir
William Dunkin (Judge, Bengal) and settled down in London at the turn of the 19th
century after a final burst of excitement with his participation in the siege
of Seringapatanam of 1799 and collecting a medal for it. His wealth was
instrumental in comfortably seeing his five sons through education in
prestigious British schools colleges and thus preparing them for promising
careers - as military officers and members of the civil service in India. Valentine
Conolly passed away in 1819, a few days after his wife expired.
Now it is time to get to know his illustrious sons.
I believe the eldest was Mr. William James Conolly, who arrived as a writer in 1822 and
served for the revenue offices at Patna, Gorakhpur, Allahabad, and was
appointed as the magistrate, opium agent and collector of Bareilly 1832-36 and
later at Sehrunpore. He was later promoted as the commissioner of revenue and then
to the Rohilkhand division, Bareilly and finally as an agent to the lieutenant
governor in 1842. It appears he retired to the Cape of Good Hope, in 1845. All
in all, he appears to have been a very efficient and scrupulous ICS man, but
not involved with anything remarkable or dangerous, in his life.
Without doubt, the most famous of his sons (he was the 3rd
son) was the devout Arthur Conolly
(1807-1842), British Captain of the Indian Army, explorer of Central Asia, and
one who penetrated Afghanistan, Khiva and Bokhara several times from 1829 to
1842. He is the man behind the popular usage ‘the great game’ and a pioneer in
the intrigues and British attempts to secure control over the khanates of Afghanistan
and build a buffer between India and Russia. This once shy youngster who hated
his school days at Rugby, and who had failed in love, then sought excitement in
the mountains and the arid terrain of the Afghans. He attempted to create a
confederation of states in order to resist Russian expansion after the British
had been evicted unceremoniously from Kabul. He tried hard to reconcile the
three quarreling khanates of Khiva, Bokhara and Khokand but was fated for the
worst death ever.
Often travelling in disguise, he used the name "Khan
Ali" in a word-play (Con Olly) on his true name. By late 1829, he left
Moscow for the Caucasus and Central Asia, arriving in Herat in September 1830
and in India in January 1831. In 1834 he published an account of his trip,
which established his reputation as a traveler and writer. In November 1841 he
was captured while on a rescue mission to free fellow British officer,
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Stoddart, held in Bukhara. The two were executed by
the Emir of Bukhara, Nasrullah Khan, on 24 June 1842 or 1843 on charges of
spying for the British Empire. They were both beheaded in the square in front
of the Ark Fortress in Bukhara. I will retell this macabre story in greater
detail, some other day. He wrote a lot - The white-haired Angora goat, Journey
to the North of India through Russia, Persia and Afghanistan (2 Vols.) were
some of his works. The connection with the Kohinoor merits another article,
Captain Edward Barry
Conolly (1808–1840), of the 6th Bengal Cavalry was killed by a sniper
during battle in Afghanistan, October 1840. He was killed by a shot from the
fort of Tootumdurrah, in the Kohat, north of Kabul, when acting as a volunteer
with Sir Robert Sale, in an attack on that place on 29 Sept. 1840. William Kaye
records - On the 29th of September, Sale
invested the enemy's position. The resistance was very slight. The fire of our
guns and the advance of the infantry column soon compelled its evacuation, and
the place was speedily in possession of the British troops. The success was
complete, and would have been cheaply purchased; but one fell there, who,
mourned in anguish of spirit by the Envoy, was lamented by the whole force.
Edward Conolly, a lieutenant of cavalry, one of three accomplished and
enterprising brothers who had followed the fortunes of their distinguished
relative, Sir William Macnaghten, and obtained employment under the British
Mission, had on that very morning joined Sale's force as a volunteer. He was
acting as aide-de-camp to the General; when, as the column advanced, he was
struck down by a shot from the enemy's position. The bullet entered his heart.
"My mind was in too disturbed a state all day yesterday," wrote the
Envoy on the 1st of October, "to admit of my writing to you. Poor Edward
Conolly (Arthur's next brother) has been killed by a dubious hand at a petty
fortress in Kohistan. Never did a nobler or a kinder spirit inhabit a human
frame. Poor fellow! he was shot through the heart, and I believe he was the
only individual on our side killed during the operations of the 29th, when
three forts belonging to the chief rebel in the country were taken.
The following papers from his pen and recording his
exploring jaunts appeared in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal;'
'Observations on the Past and Present Condition of Orijein or Uijayana,' vol.
vi.; 'Discoveries of Gems from Candahar,' 'Sketch of Physical Geography of
Seistan,' 'Notes on the Eusofzye Tribes of Afghanistan,' vol. ix.; 'Journal
kept while Travelling in Seistan,' vol. x.; 'On Gems and Coins,' vol. xi.
John Balfour Conolly
(d. 1842), lieutenant 20th Bengal native infantry, a cadet of 1833, was
afterwards attached to the Kabul embassy. He was involved together with Macnaghten
on at three least assassinations, of which two were Meer Musjedee and Abdullah.
He died of a fever while a hostage in the Bala Hissar, Cabul, on 7 Aug. 1842. It
was his final will and testament that led me to his eldest brother whom nobody
had so far mentioned as a family member. I.e. William James Conolly, of
Bareilly, in the Presidency of Agra, a member of the Civil Service of the
East-India Company, was stated to be the eldest brother of deceased.
The Conolly’s had at least three sisters, Ellen Conolly,
being one of them, was married to Francis, the brother of Sir William Hay
Macnaghten, the British envoy with Shah Soojah in Afghanistan. Matilda Frances
was another. I could not get details of the remaining sister and a less
illustrious son, the last also said to have been serving in India. Note here that
John Conolly the psychiatric doctor of Madras is not a direct relation to this
family.
Now let us spend a bit more of our time on Malabar’s
collector Henry Valentine Conolly.
Henry Conolly was born on 5 December 1806 to Valentine and Matilda Conolly at
37 Portland Place, London. He was, like his elder brother Arthur Conolly,
educated at Rugby School, Warwickshire before moving to Madras, India and become
a writer in the Madras Civil Service from 19th May 1824. He then
started his next phase of education at the College of Ft St George Madras where
he excelled in Indian studies. The June 1826 college reports states – Several weeks previous to the examination,
Mr Conolly met with a serious accident, which materially interrupted his
studies, and was the occasion of his being examined under great disadvantage;
the result has nevertheless been highly satisfactory. In Mahratta, Mr. Conolly
has attained a very high degree of proficiency, but his pronunciation of Hindustanee
is defective, and he still wants practice in the colloquial use of that tongue.
So in 1826, Mr. Conolly and Mr. Gardner were permitted to enter on the
duties of the public service and he moved to Bellary for his posting. Varied
postings followed, and one was as a cashier in the government bank!
He was the only one to stray south after his father, and was
first married in 1831 to Jane, the eldest daughter of W Mooreson, June 24 th.
Unfortunately she passed away in 1835. In
1840 he arrived in Malabar as acting collector officiating in the place of
Collector Clementson who went on leave. In 1841 he became the collector and
married in 1841 Anne Birch the daughter of Chris Birch. Two sons and a daughter
were born to them in Calicut during the period 1842-45. After his murder in
1855, Connolly was survived by wife Anne who returned to England. Some Rs
31,000 collected by way of fines from the Moplah locales was paid to the widow
as compensation (she also received a pension). The family in total had four
children of which two were sons, one of whom I read was named Edward and who
became a lawyer. More details of the family are not available. Anne Elizabeth
Conolly (not entirely sure if it is the same as HV’s wife) married a young man
named Charles Valentine Smith who it seems was soon arrested and sentenced to
prison for bigamy since his first wife was still living.
While we mentioned HVC’s connections to the Moplah
insurgency of that period and his involvement in setting up the teak forests of
Nilambur as well as the establishment of the Conolly Canal, we did not dwell
much on some his other activities. He worked hard to improve the lot of the
un-seeable un-touchable Nayadis of Malabar. A Basel mission article mentions
this - A humane gentleman, of the name of
Conolly, deeply sympathised with the miserable condition of the Nayadis, in the
forests beyond Ponani. Mr. Conolly applied to the Basel Mission for assistance,
and Missionary Fritz was sent to the chief town of Malabar, and a native
catechist stationed among the Nayadis. These poor people rank in the community
even below purchased slaves. They live only in the jungle like wild animals, they
sleep in the branches of trees, and at the most only build the poorest hut for
themsleves. They are looked upon by other branches of the community with the
greatest contempt. If a Brahmin comes in their way, they must move off at least
sixteen paces; and they must never dare to touch any one of a superior caste.
Mr. Conolly formed a plan for drawing some of this degraded class within the
bounds of civilisation. He built them houses, set apart some ground for them,
and gave them fields to cultivate. The Government after a time relinquished
this effort, and the Basel missionaries took it up.
Samuel Heibich the missionary records - Mr. H. V. Conolly was at that time Collector of Malabar; he proved a
warm friend of the undertaking, which he supported with all his great
influence. He had already been in correspondence with the mission, in the
interests of a race called Naiadis—a small tribe, scarcely above the brutes in
the scale of civilization. Mr. Conolly felt that the British government was
bound to attempt the redemption of these poor savages from their degradation;
as, however, he failed in getting the duty recognized and acted upon, he made
it his own care, but did not live to see the result of his endeavors.
But he also shook up the British government when he
suggested that they employ the lower castes for labor, at a time when they were
frowning upon slavery in Malabar and were facing a restless issue of the
Shannars in Travancore. A mention in the book Social Legislation of the East
India Company: By Nancy Gardner Cassels, goes thus - In response to government requests for suggestions for improving the
situation of the slave caste of chermars in Malabar, Conolly observed that
inasmuch as Act of 1843 was to all intents and purposes a law for the abolition
of slavery in its territory, the government might consider the the employment
of emancipated cheramars on public works at the same rate as free laborers and
with schools for their children and administered by a native Christian or
Moplah (i.e. a person free from caste prejudice).
He was also very much involved in the improvement of the lot
at the Laccadive Islands, pushing for a legal system there, helping out with
natural disasters and sorting out certain issues involving the Bebee of
Arakkal. The referred source as well as P Anima’s article will provide a lot of
details to those interested.
HVC tried hard to get a collegiate school sanctioned to
Calicut – P Anima writing in Hindu explains - When it came to starting the
collegiate high school in the Malabar, there were a few contenders. While
Kozhikode was earlier on mentioned as the definite option, two other names
surface in later letters — Tellicherry and Cannanore. In a letter written in
1842 written by Conolly and his colleague Strange, they advocate Kozhikode.
They write, “Calicut appears more suited for the purpose than either of the
stations just named with reference to geographical position, population and
importance, the latter of which will be much increased within the next five to
six months, by its becoming the headquarters of all the civil establishments.”
After his passing away, two scholarships were instituted for
the scholars of Calicut, one of which, designated the Junior Conolly
Scholarship, was tenable in the Provincial School, and the other, designated
the Senior Conolly Scholarship, was tenable in the Presidency College, and was
to be conferred once in three years on the student who may pass first on the
list of Malabar students at the university entrance examination. The first
examination for the Junior Conolly Scholarship was held in July 1857, when it
was awarded to Ramen Nair, a pupil in the Provincial School.
It should have been easy but tracing HV Conolly’s line down
any further proved to be too difficult for it is mentioned that he had four
children. I did get connected to his great great great granddaughter who lives
in England and understood that her sister is the well-known actor and animal
welfare/Greenpeace activist Amala Akkineni. Their mother June Conolly is the
daughter of Samuel Conolly who served in the 2nd world war at
Alexandria. I also got in touch with Vanya Orr of Nilgiris who provided me with
copies of correspondence her great grandfather had with Henry Valentine Conolly,
on estate matters.
But I cannot leave this without a tail piece. Many famous
people were Conolly scholarship beneficiaries, but I have to name one person
who was educated at Calicut and benefited from a Conolly scholarship. He was
none other than Dewan Seshadri Iyer, the founder of Modern Bangalore. Iyer, a
native of Palghat, was a recipient of the scholarship while (1863) at the
Provincial school in Calicut. He went on to become the Dewan of Mysore and is
credited with the establishment of the Victoria hospital, the glass house in Lalbaugh,
the waterworks, the Shivasamudra hydel power unit, the Indian institute of
science, the extensions at Basavangudi & Malleswaram to name a few. Shesadripuram
is named after him.
So the next time you visit ‘namma ooru’ Bengaluru, spend a
moment thinking about Iyer and Conolly….
References
Madras Lunatic Asylum: A Remarkable History in British India
– Saumitra Basu (Indian Journal of History of Science, 51.3 (2016) 478-493)
The Madras Lunatic asylum in the early 19th
century – W Ernst (BulI.lnd.lnst. Hist. Med. Vol. XXVIII~19.98 pp13 to 30)
The rise of the European lunatic asylum in colonial India
(1750-1858) - Waltraud Ernst (Bull. Ind. Inst. Hist. Med. Vol. XVII. pp. 94-107)
The Anatomy of Madness: Essays in the History of Psychiatry,
Volume 3 - Ed William F. Bynum, Roy Porter, Michael Shepherd
Life of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan of Kabul: By Mohana Lāla
(Munshi)
Report on the Laccadive Islands - By W. Robinson, esq.
Activists: Lessons from my Grandparents - Lisa Croft
When the Malabar Collector pitched in strongly for theCanolly Canal
9 comments:
The article mentions about a Provisional School started by HV Conolly at Calicut. Which school is this?
Thanks Devasahayam,
I think it was started in 1854. The provincial school was the name
Maddy, you have packed so much information into this one post that one has had to read it several times to marvel at your skill in condensing facts without losing the storyline. Conolly was a social reformer first and an administrator next. The story of his seeking to improve the lot of Nayadis can be fully appreciated only by those who have seen their plight even as late as the 1950s. One has seen them begging for food from houses, by making strange noises. They would be served food ( mostly leftover) on big colocasia leaves, if not on plantain leaves. They were supposed to dig a pit in the ground one top of which the leaves with the food will be placed. Even this was served far away from the main house, preferably outside the compound! Conolly perhaps realised that the Hindu community would never agree to the rehabilitation of Nayadis ( their sin, being eating the carcass of dead cattle, which is ironically a prized item on some Malayali menus now!), and therefore handed over the task to Muslim/ Christian brethren. What a visionary!
Thanks CHF
Some day I will write about the Nayadis. Most people would not know that they were not just untouchable, but unseeable. I recall from my younger days, at Palghat, we would hear a howled out plea for food from an itinerant Nayadi and they always plead in the name of the head of the Tharavad for food. All children were shooed away indoors by the elders, and a bowl of food was placed by the servant which was picked up by the Nayadi who had to hide from sight until then...what a sorry plight they had! Conolly was tehf irst to try and alleviate their plight.
Enjoyed the article - very informative . Valentine Conolly was a witness at the wedding of Leonard McNally to Frances I'anson 16 January 1787 in London . Leonard was an Irishman , solicitor , playwright and a spy for the British government ! The song The Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill ' was written by McNally for his wife Frances.
Very fascinating article, I am not exactly sure how I am related but my great great grandfather was Colonel Benjamin Bloomfield Connolly. His sister Jane wrote a very strange book ‘Old days and ways’ about the family but it was rather muddled. These brothers in the article were mentioned briefly.
I was shocked then when I saw in the bibliography you have read my book about my grandparents.
Thanks for the great detail that I now can piece together.
Lisa Croft
Thank you Lisa.
Yeah, there is so much more to write about them and I will post them when I get to it. Fascinating people, who were so involved in the history of our lands!
This is a fantastic article on the Conolly’s Maddy - it has been a very useful source on Valentine (senior) who I’m trying to research as he was a friend of one of my ancestors who he met in Madras and stayed close friends with when they both lived in London. I am beginning to get confused as to who Valentine’s father was… In your blog you mention him being William Conolly (Bengal Civil Service), but I cannot find any mention of him and some sources are pointing him to being the illegitimate son of Thomas Conolly (1738-1803), the Irish politician. Would you happen to know if this was the case from your discussions with his descendants?
Thanks, Quicksilvers
I wrote this so long ago and will try and check if I have the source detail for Valentine Sr's father in my files. The descendants did not have much of an idea even then. But I will try & find out and add a comment here
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