Fatehgarh Cantt and Fatehgarh Fort

Fatehgarh Cantt

The Camp

In 1777 Fatehgarh Camp came into existence on the arrival of the temporary brigade, mobilized by the East India Company, for the defence of the Oudh. It was camp in the sense that living arrangements were temporary, officers and men living with their families in huts instead of tents. The huts gradually changed into houses of wretched description, and despite the arrival of planters and traders the name camp rightly described the station and it was not until 1790 that it became permanent. Camp however it continued to be called up to the Mutiny. In 1781 houses in Fatehgarh camp were being erected. The station, by then had begun to assume its present shape. Bungalows were strung in a line along the bank of the Ganges, and infantry lines formed along the edge of the parade ground.

The artillery was on the Fort road. The city was connected by the roads from Ghatia Ghat. There were few trees, and the country between the city and the camp was an arid plain, over which scoured bands of mounted robbers called Mewatties. In those early days there were few ladies, and the officers were content to live in the worst kind of huts. A tourist in 1783 named Hodges gives the plan of these residences as a large room in the center for eating and sitting and rooms at each corner for sleeping, the space between bedrooms being used as verandahs. Only mud was used for the walls.

Road Communication

The general appearance of Fatehgarh was that of any large present day village. Before 1836 there were no metalled roads. The station was traversed by lanes, just wide enough to allow two wheeled carriages to pass. The pre-mutiny boundaries of the cantonment did not include the park, where now the Officers Mess of The Rajput Regimental Centre is located. The Quarter Guard, War Memorial and half of Colonelganj were just inside the cantonment.

The Estate of Maharaja Dhuleep Singh

The estate of Maharaja Dhuleep Singh occupied an extent of 150 acres from Hospital Ghat (Rani Ghat) up to and including Bungalow No 4 and 5. The present Officers Mess of the Rajput Regimental Centre is shown as Bungalow No 5 in the Sketch. This whole area was full of houses up to 1850. The northern end of this area, overlooking Rani Ghat, was the enclosure of the Station Hospital. The foundations of the buildings can be made out. Rani Ghat or Hospital Ghat is approached by a track (GULLY) which was converted into a private road for Maharaja Duleep Singh's sister –in-low. It is said by tradition to have been a covered way, so that she could go to bathe in the Ganges without being seen.

Fatehgarh Park

The estate of Maharaja Dhuleep Singh was named as Fatehgarh Park. Dr Login, a britisher, bought all the bungalows within this area, and breaking down the compound walls removed the out houses, and converted all these small properties into one. In one of these houses Maharaja Dhuleep Singh lived himself. Ranee Duknu, the Maharaja's sister-in-law with her family resided in the present Rajput House, residence of The Commandant, Rajput Regimental Centre. Maharaja Duleep Singh remained here for four years until his departure to England in February 1854. On 25 December 1857, Lord Dalhousie the Governor General inspected the grounds and arrangements in the Cantonment.

Baptism of Maharaja Duleep Singh

The Maharaja had already expressed his intentions of becoming a Christian in early 1850's. On 08March 1853 he was baptized by the Chaplain in his residence in the Estate.

Bungalow No 5

As mentioned above the Officers mess of the Rajput Regimental Centre was on the site of No 5 bungalow and after the Mutiny of 1857, the Officer Commanding lived it it. Its compound was amalgamated and brought together by Duleep Singh in 1850. A road divided No 5 from No 4 bungalows, and started exactly where the officers mess gates now stand. This road ran across a bridge, the ruins of which can still be seen. Dr Login, the britisher is also recorded to have resided in the present Officer mess of the Rajput Regimental Centre.

The Old Church and Theatre

A picturesque landmark is the spine of the old church, which overlooks the parade ground. The church is presently called the 'All Souls Church'. This end of the station was outside cantonments, and the business center of Fatehgarh. The church was at length built in 1819 - 20 at a cost of Rs. 20, 700/- which was raised partly by Government grant and partly by private subscriptions. At the site of the church is an old defunct and filled up well were several british men, women and children who were murdered were dumped in the deadly mutiny of 1857. The long list of names in the epitaph built over the church bears testimony to the bloody event. In 1863, what was left of the Church was turned into a School. The present St Anthony's School is a successor of this school and is situated in the church compound. In 1870, the new civil Hospital was established in the compound by the efforts of Dr Reid the civil surgeon. Within a stone's throw of the old Church was the Theatre where stood the old Quarter Guard of the Rajput Regimental Centre. Amateur theatricals were one of the most popular amusements of old military stations. The Marquis Of Hastings makes several mentions of the theatre in his diary. His camp was pitched close to it.

The Nawab's Residence

The present Military Hospital, Fatehgarh was the palace of Nawab Hakim Mehdi Ali Khan. He was several times Vazir (Prime Minister) of Oudh. He raised himself from the condition of a soldier of fortune to the high post, and made himself a millionaire. The center room with its mass columns was used by Nawab Hakim Mehdi Ali Khan as his 'Tazia Khana' where he kept the tazias or models of the tomb of king Husain, for displaying at religious festivals. The Palace was self sufficient with all requirements for a Nawab including a bathing pool. The palace was converted to a military hospital on reoccupation of Fatehgarh by the British. The present MES godown was built by him in 1824 which also includes the suspension bridge at Khudaganj.

The Sarai

The square enclosure of the Military Works Engineer, of the british days, with angle turrets and a small mosque inside was a 'Sarai' (Transit Camp) constructed in 1824 for travellers by Nawab Hakim Mehdi Ali Khan. When Fatehgarh was retaken by the British, under Sir Colin Campbell, the Sarai was occupied as an Officer's Mess; and on 26 April 1858 Sir William Russell notes in his diary that he had breakfast just by the mosque in the centre. The Bhatiyaras or innkeepers were ejected after wards, and Government made the building into a storehouse. The Sarai is presently the location of the Garrison Engineer, Military Engineer Services, Fatehgarh. The watch towers and old mosque are largely well preserved even now.

Fatehgarh Fort

Origin

Nawab Mohammad Khan, the founder of Farrukhabad City, had built the Fatehgarh Fort in 1720 to cover the crossing of the Ganges. The Fort was built of mud with 12 bastions and a moat.

East India Company set up a temporary brigade in 1777 in the Cantonment at the expense of the Nawab Vazir of Oudh. The Resident, who accompanied it as political officer, also took up his quarters in the Fort. In 1751 Nawab Ahmad, when threatened by the combined forces of Oudh, Marathas and Jats, threw up an entrenched camp around the Fort. He repulsed all assaults for a month. He named the Fort as 'FATEHGARH' or the 'FORT of VICTORY'. No village of that name existed then. However, he was soon defeated and was forced to flee across the Ganges.

There are no records to show the state of the Fort at the end of the 18th century. It had not yet become an arsenal. It was not armed for defence. There were barracks for troops within the walls, which became the shelter of the inhabitants of the station. The Fort then was always called the Magazine, and at sunrise and sunset the signal gun was fired. By August, 1803 the Fort and the cantonment became absolutely defenceless, as all the troops had left for the Delhi campaign, under Major General Charles tojoin Lord Lake's army. The cavalry cantonments at Rakha which were occupied some time in 1804 were also empty. In the month of November of that year when Holkar arrived and camped at Dhilawal village, near Farrukhabad railway station. Rakha cantonment was burnt, and all residents around the Fatehgarh Fort took refuge in the Fort.

The Rajput Regimental Centre was raised in Fatehgarh in 1921 and since then it occupies the Fatehgarh Fort. All offices and the administrative battalion of the Rajput Regimental Centre are inside this historical fort.

General Condition

The Fort was an arsenal displaying great activity. From 1810 onwards the magazine in the Fort was important, and war munitions were stored in it. The present magazine of the Rajput Regimental Centre is in the same building. The Commander-in-Chief as well as Governor General, the Marquees of Hastings, visited the Fort in 1815 and made a thorough inspection. Repairs were going on not only of the walls but of the river bank, which the Ganges had cut away. During his inspection he found the Fort to be a country mud fort of much extent, and that it's only utility was to receive the civilian residents, public treasure and baggage of the corps in the field. At the outbreak of the Mutiny of 1857 the Fort was in a ruinous state. The moat was dry, the bastions out of repair and armament scanty. Most of the guns in the Fort were models, for there was one of each bore. Entering the gateway on the right, occupying the whole of the S.E area to the river front was the house of the Gun carriage agent. A circular drive up to the porch, enclosing a small garden existed. Opposite in the S W. area were two barracks, a guardhouse, and another bungalow also with pigeon house and other accessories. Over looking the main crossings on the Ganges are deployed two cannons, which can still be seen in the same location.

The Cemetery

The cemetery occupied an important place in the Fort. It was then more wooded and indeed trees were well scattered all over the interior. The land at the north east. Corner, on the river side was under cultivation. The north face looked on to a grove of Shisham trees, which surrounded the magazine and a small pond. A communicating gate existed in the same part. The pond is now no more. The whole of western side of the Fort was always an open ground and the attack in 1857 was therefore not made from this direction but from the south where good cover was found. Many eminent persons of the times were buried in the fort cemetery. Among the beautiful tombs is one of Lt Col Gregory Hicks who died in 1828. The oldest tombs date back to late 1700.

Maude Lines

The space now covered by the Maude Lines, where later companies from a British regiment at Agra were quartered, was in the eighteenth century the location of the artillery corps and their lines covered the site of the present barracks. The artillery parade ground was to the North front of the church and the War Memorial. South of the quarter guard of the Rajput Regiment on both sides of the circular road was the infantry rifle range. The Maude Lines are still called the same. Presently the living accommodation of the recruits and the Junior Commissioned Officer's mess of the Rajput Regimental Centre are located in the Maude Lines.

Sudder Lines

The present CSD Canteen of the Rajput Regimental Centre was the bungalow of the Sudder Line Sahib, whose exact functions are a mystery. One duty was to superintendent the bazaars in the Military zone. In the eighteenth century he was called Commissary of Bazaar and later a warrant officer on the Town Majors List was entrusted with the same work, perhaps a kin to that of provost marshal.

The earliest known Commandant, of Fatehgarh Fort, was Lt Col Gervase Pennington. He was at Fatehgarh from 1784 to 1786. Another Commander, of whom a tale is told, was Lt Col James Gordon. It had been foretold by a fortune teller that he would die in his first action, and it so happened that for a long period of his service he was employed in arsenals in lower Bengal. In 1802 he was commanding the artillery at Fatehgarh and in the winter of that year Lord Lake decided to reduce several strongholds near this district. Lt Col Gordon was detailed with the Fatehgarh artillery to bombard these mud forts and after having survived at the action of BIJIGARH he was accidentally killed by explosion in the magazine, while inspecting stores of captured ammunition.

On the other side of the road to the area of the Maude lines, there was a bungalow next to that of the Sudder Line Sahib inhabited by Mrs S Clark, the wife of a deputy collector. In 1824 adjoining her house she built a mosque, which stood up till the Mutiny, but disappeared in wholesale demolitions afterwards.

Kasim Bagh

Half a mile south west of the Fort is Kasim Bagh and its old cemetery, now hidden behind the Rajput Regimental Centre lines. The debris of the mined tomb of Kasim Banga still remains, and it is from this tomb that the name of the area is derived. Kasim was the father-in-law of Nawab Mohammad the founder of the city. Kasim was killed on this spot by Hindu robbers of the Bamtela tribe, and it was his murder which served as a pretext for Nawab Mohammad to seize the Bamtela lands and build the city upon that land. Kasim Bagh is the area to the west of the cemetery, at present containing a small dilapidated bungalow, which forty years ago served as an Indian Infantry Hospital. Prior to the Mutiny, Kasim Bagh was outside the cantonment and consisted of a grove surrounded by a wall, and a compound with a house, were houses and other appurtenances.