British Residency, Hyderabad

The Residency was the house and office of the British Resident at the court of the Asaf Jahi Nizams. It stands on the left bank of the Musi, across the river from the north-eastern corner of the old city of Hyderabad.¹

K. Krishnaswamy Mudiraj (1929) says the people of the city called the Resident the “Burre Sa’ab” (the big gentleman).² They called the Residency “Burre Sa’ab’s Koti”, or simply “Koti”, the palace.²

Building

The sources differ on its dates and designer. The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 says it “was commenced in 1800, under the supervision of Mr. Russell of the Madras Engineers, and was completed about 1807”.¹

Campbell’s Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898) gives a different account.³ Earlier Residents, he says, were received in a villa on the site that belonged to a favourite of Nizam Ali Khan.³ The present building was begun in 1803, shortly before the Nizam’s death, while Colonel Kirkpatrick was Resident.³ It was completed about 1808 to the design of “Mr. P. Russell of the Royal Engineers, who also superintended its erection, all of which was carried out by Indian workmen”.³

Mudiraj tells a story of how the Resident Captain Achilles Kirkpatrick won the Nizam’s leave to build it.²⁴ The Nizam took offence at the size of the site plan.²⁴ On Mir Alam’s advice a plan “of the size of a postage stamp or visiting card” was shown instead, and the Nizam approved it.²⁴

The building in 1898

Campbell describes the building as it was in 1898.³⁵ A flight of twenty-two granite steps, with sphinxes on either side, led up to a portico sixty feet long.³⁵ The portico had six Corinthian columns fifty feet high and the Company’s arms in the pediment.³⁵

A gallery on thirty-two columns ran round the durbar hall inside.³⁵ Its mahogany furniture, Campbell says, had belonged to the Prince Regent, later George IV, who sold it to the East India Company.³⁵ The hall held a portrait of the minister Chandu Lal.³⁵ The Imperial Gazetteer gives the durbar hall as 60 by 33 feet and 50 feet high.¹

Campbell adds that the grounds once held a house called the Rang Mahal.⁵ Colonel Kirkpatrick had built it for the Muslim lady he married, and it had since been demolished.⁵

The Resident and the Residency bazaars

Campbell lists the Residents from the first envoy, Mr Holland, who reached Hyderabad on 16 April 1779.⁶ The treaty collection of 1909 dates the first posting of a Resident to 1788.⁷

The Imperial Gazetteer says the Residency “is surrounded on all sides by populous bazars, over which the Resident exercises civil and criminal jurisdiction”.⁸ The bazaars had 16,904 inhabitants in 1901.⁸ They were “a great centre of trade”, with branches of all the wealthy bankers of India.⁸ Mudiraj contrasts this “Angrezi Ilakha”, the English territory, with the city proper.⁹

Mudiraj says the early Residents used the building chiefly as a resting place on their way from Bolarum to the Nizam’s palace.⁴ At the palace they removed their shoes and sat on the floor with the nobles.⁴ This went on until European forms of reception were adopted after 1857.⁴

The attack of 1857

On the evening of 17 July 1857 the Residency was attacked, and the attack was driven back.¹⁰ According to Campbell, about 500 Afghans led by Allauddin and Turrebaz Khan were joined by a crowd of several thousands.¹¹ They occupied two terraced houses opposite the western wall and fired into the Residency.¹¹ They were shelled through the night.¹¹ In the morning they left behind thirty-two killed or wounded.¹¹

The Resident’s report to the Nizam was printed by the Hyderabad State committee in The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad (1956), and is summarised here.¹² It tells how the attackers broke down the gates and took refuge in the two houses.¹² By morning they slipped back into the city.¹²

Mudiraj says the grounds had no defences before 1857.⁴ Afterwards walls and gates with martello towers (round defence towers) protected them.⁴ Campbell dates the completion of the high enclosing wall, with bastions at the gates, to 1892.³

Footnotes

1. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 117 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. K. Krishnaswamy Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad, Vol. I (1929), p. 115 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 187 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

4. Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad (1929), p. 116 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

5. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 188 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

6. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 126 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

7. C. U. Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads, Vol. IX (1909), p. 3 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. Imperial Gazetteer: Hyderabad (1909), p. 118 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad (1929), p. 117 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

10. Aitchison, Treaties, Vol. IX (1909), p. 9 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

11. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), pp. 38–39 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

12. The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. II (1956), pp. 63–64 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³