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The advent of the East India Company and uts military and political domination over India has been the subject of a recent book by William Dreflect detail the inteigues, violence and pillage that accompanied the rise of the Empire, there is another story waiting to be told. The story of men, mostly from Scotland who entered the Company service and spent a good part of their lives in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, historical research and Antiquaran pursuits. The name of Col Colin MacKenzie comes immediately to mind when we reflect on the formative decades of Company rule in India. For very Robert Clive there was a Mark Wilks, a William Roxburgh a Colin MacKenzie and therefore the historical context of early Company ule must also encompass the work of these men who were in many ways the products of the Scottish Enlightenment.
John Goldingham a Fellow of the Royal Society came to India in the early years of the nineteenth century when the great geodesic project like the measurement of the Meridian Arc, the Trignomentrical Survey and terrestrial mapping of India was underway. A practical problem all these projects faced was the determination of the Longitude which could be used to caliberate all their maps and calculations. Navigation on the high seas also depended on the determination of the Longitude as that wouldenable safe sailing. The loss of 4 battle ships near the Isle of Scicylly near the coast of Cornwall and the loss of 2000 sean men made the English Government intervene and John Harrison in1748 succedded in making the Chronemeter that enabled ships to carry the local time with them while sailing.The Longitude is the angular distance between the Equator (latidute) and the Prime Medidian which was the Observatory at Greenwich. Until Harrison invented his very sophisticated Chronometer sailors were at the mercy of the sky, the stars and extremely poor astronomical instruments like the sexton and the qyadrant.Harrison's instument was a robust chronemeter that allowed the Longitude to be determined by the difference between local time(on the sailing ship) and the time in a fixed meridian. Thyco Brahe (1546-1601) and Johhanes Kepler (1571-1630) kept detailed observations os the stellar objcets and these tables were used as aids in navigation. However, navigation by the help of the stars was both risky and with the southern hemisphere becoming the new frontier of exploration with the several voyages of James Cook a reliable method was needed. In India, this meant determination of a meridian that could be used as a base for accurate reliable mapping.
John Goldingham succeeded Michaek Topping as the Astronomer of the East India Company and he undertook extensive work at Topping's Observatory at Nugambakkam on the banks of the Cooum. Being a trined Astronomer, John Goldingham decided to use the Ecpises of Jupiter in order to determnie the Longitude of Madras. He had at his disposal the excellent series of astronomical data collected over several decades by William Petrie between 1787 to 1782. He also had the data of Michael Topping and his own. He presented his method in a lenghty paper in which he discussed the eclipses of Jupiter as a possible determinat of the Longitude on Earth.His findings were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society vol 112 (1822). He cross checked his finding by comparing the result with Lunar Eclipses in which the use of Kepler's table becomes the base for calculation. Goldingham was able to estblish the Medidian for Madras' His Indian assistants perhaps depicted in the illustration above were Srinivasachary and Tiruvenkatachary.
John Goldingham was an Astronomer and he was the first Principal of the Madras School of Survey that grew into the famous Guindy Engineering College' Edward Clive as Love points out in Vlume III of his Vestiges of Old Madras was keen on establishing a distinct Depatment of Civil Engineering separate from the Military and John Goldingham was appointed the Architect to design the Garden House of the Madras Governor and a Public Hall which stands today as the Banquetting Hall after a series of "rennovations" which have altered the character and concept of the architect. Goldingham's drwaing have been presevered in Netehlands and thes structures were meant to proclaim the invincibility of the Company after its victories over the usurper ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan.Lord Clive who was the Governor from 1798 to1803 sanctioned 58,000 pagodas and the Architect was paid a 15% commission giving him a permenant stake in cost escalation. Finally Goldingham was dismissed and the project completed.
After this work Goldhimham returned to England where he died in 1849. Havell suggests that Goldingham was the first architect to use Indian elements in his building a trnd tken forwatd by the likes of Chilsom.
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| Goldingham with his two Assistants |
John Goldingham a Fellow of the Royal Society came to India in the early years of the nineteenth century when the great geodesic project like the measurement of the Meridian Arc, the Trignomentrical Survey and terrestrial mapping of India was underway. A practical problem all these projects faced was the determination of the Longitude which could be used to caliberate all their maps and calculations. Navigation on the high seas also depended on the determination of the Longitude as that wouldenable safe sailing. The loss of 4 battle ships near the Isle of Scicylly near the coast of Cornwall and the loss of 2000 sean men made the English Government intervene and John Harrison in1748 succedded in making the Chronemeter that enabled ships to carry the local time with them while sailing.The Longitude is the angular distance between the Equator (latidute) and the Prime Medidian which was the Observatory at Greenwich. Until Harrison invented his very sophisticated Chronometer sailors were at the mercy of the sky, the stars and extremely poor astronomical instruments like the sexton and the qyadrant.Harrison's instument was a robust chronemeter that allowed the Longitude to be determined by the difference between local time(on the sailing ship) and the time in a fixed meridian. Thyco Brahe (1546-1601) and Johhanes Kepler (1571-1630) kept detailed observations os the stellar objcets and these tables were used as aids in navigation. However, navigation by the help of the stars was both risky and with the southern hemisphere becoming the new frontier of exploration with the several voyages of James Cook a reliable method was needed. In India, this meant determination of a meridian that could be used as a base for accurate reliable mapping.
John Goldingham succeeded Michaek Topping as the Astronomer of the East India Company and he undertook extensive work at Topping's Observatory at Nugambakkam on the banks of the Cooum. Being a trined Astronomer, John Goldingham decided to use the Ecpises of Jupiter in order to determnie the Longitude of Madras. He had at his disposal the excellent series of astronomical data collected over several decades by William Petrie between 1787 to 1782. He also had the data of Michael Topping and his own. He presented his method in a lenghty paper in which he discussed the eclipses of Jupiter as a possible determinat of the Longitude on Earth.His findings were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society vol 112 (1822). He cross checked his finding by comparing the result with Lunar Eclipses in which the use of Kepler's table becomes the base for calculation. Goldingham was able to estblish the Medidian for Madras' His Indian assistants perhaps depicted in the illustration above were Srinivasachary and Tiruvenkatachary.
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| Banquetting Hall designed by Goldhinham before it became ugly |
John Goldingham was an Astronomer and he was the first Principal of the Madras School of Survey that grew into the famous Guindy Engineering College' Edward Clive as Love points out in Vlume III of his Vestiges of Old Madras was keen on establishing a distinct Depatment of Civil Engineering separate from the Military and John Goldingham was appointed the Architect to design the Garden House of the Madras Governor and a Public Hall which stands today as the Banquetting Hall after a series of "rennovations" which have altered the character and concept of the architect. Goldingham's drwaing have been presevered in Netehlands and thes structures were meant to proclaim the invincibility of the Company after its victories over the usurper ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan.Lord Clive who was the Governor from 1798 to1803 sanctioned 58,000 pagodas and the Architect was paid a 15% commission giving him a permenant stake in cost escalation. Finally Goldingham was dismissed and the project completed.
After this work Goldhimham returned to England where he died in 1849. Havell suggests that Goldingham was the first architect to use Indian elements in his building a trnd tken forwatd by the likes of Chilsom.
