38 Facts About Madras Presidency

Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St George, known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India.

The city of Madras was the winter capital of the Presidency and Ootacamund or Ooty, the summer capital.

Madras Presidency was neighboured by the Kingdom of Mysore on the northwest, Kingdom of Cochin on the southwest, and the Kingdom of Hyderabad on the north.

In 1785, under the provisions of Pitt's India Act, Madras Presidency became one of three provinces established by the East India Company.

Madras Presidency was later admitted as Madras Presidency State, a state of the Indian Union at the inauguration of the Republic of India on 26 January 1950.

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From 1801 until 1858, Madras Presidency was a part of British India and was ruled by the British East India Company.

The rebellion of Velu Thambi and Paliath Achan and the Poligar Wars were other notable insurrections against the British rule, but the Madras Presidency remained relatively undisturbed by the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.

Madras Presidency annexed the kingdom of Mysore in 1831 on allegations of maladministration and restored it to Chamaraja Wodeyar, the grandson and heir of the deposed Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar in 1881.

Madras Presidency acted as the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court for a few months in 1893, thereby becoming the first Indian to hold the post.

The third session of the Indian National Congress was held in Madras Presidency in December 1887 and was a huge success attended by 362 delegates from the province.

Madras Presidency participated in the Vaikom Satyagraha, which campaigned for the right of untouchables in Travancore to enter temples.

Madras Presidency successfully enacted the Temple Entry Authorization and Indemnity Act and introduced both prohibition and sales taxes in the Madras Presidency.

Madras Presidency's rule is largely remembered for the use of Hindi being made compulsory in educational institutions, a measure which made him highly unpopular as a politician and sparked widespread Anti-Hindi agitations, which led to violence in some places.

Madras Presidency was succeeded by O P Ramaswamy Reddiyar, who became the first Chief Minister of Madras state when India gained independence on 15 August 1947.

In 1921 the Raja of Panagal's government passed the Hindu Religious Endowments Bill that established government-controlled trusts in the Madras Presidency to manage Hindu temples and prevent potential misuse of their funds.

Origins of Madras Presidency lay in the village of Madraspatnam which was obtained in 1640.

Madras Presidency's premiership lasted till 6 April 1949, when he resigned citing growing internal squabbled within the then Congress leaders.

The act known as Madras Presidency Devadasis Act which gave Devadasi's the legal right to Marry and making it illegal to dedicate girls to Hindu temples was passed on 9 October 1947 within 2 month of Independence.

Between 1748 and 1895, as with the Bengal and Bombay armies, the Madras Presidency Army had its own Commander-in-Chief who was subordinate to the president, and later to the Governor of Madras Presidency.

In 1895, the presidency armies were finally merged and the Madras regiments came under the direct control of the Commander-in-chief of British India.

Crops cultivated in the Madras Presidency included cereals such as rice, corn, kambhu and ragi as well as vegetables including brinjal, sweet potato, ladies' fingers, beans, onions, garlic and spices such as chilli, pepper and ginger along with vegetable oils made from castor beans and peanuts.

Trade of the Madras Presidency comprised that of both the Presidency with other Provinces and its overseas trade.

Until the discovery of artificial aniline and alizarine dyes, Madras Presidency possessed a thriving vegetable dye manufacturing industry.

The Bank of Madras had branches in all the presidency's major cities and princely states including Coimbatore, Mangalore, Calicut, Alleppy, Cocanada, Guntur, Masulipatnam, Ootacamund, Negapataam, Tuticorin, Bangalore, Cochin and Colombo in Ceylon.

In 1921, the Bank of Madras Presidency merged with the Bank of Bombay and the Bank of Bengal to form the Imperial Bank of India.

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The first organised bus system in Madras Presidency city was operated by Madras Presidency Tramways Corporation between 1925 and 1928.

The principal highways of the Presidency were the Madras-Calcutta road, the Madras-Travancore road and the Madras-Calicut road.

Madras Presidency operated a suburban electric train service for Madras city from May 1931 onwards.

Madras Presidency was well-connected with other Indian cities like Bombay and Calcutta and with Ceylon.

Ships of the British India Steam Navigation Company frequently docked at Madras Presidency and provided frequent services to Bombay, Calcutta, Colombo and Rangoon.

Madras Presidency was linked to the rest of the world through telegraphs in 1853 and a civilian telegraph service was introduced on 1 February 1855.

On 5 September 1857, the University of Madras Presidency was established as an examining body using the University of London as a model with the first examinations held in February 1858.

Madras Presidency had the highest literacy rate of all the provinces in British India.

In 1950, when the Madras Presidency became Madras State, the literacy rate was slightly higher than the national average of 18 percent.

Madras Presidency was the first province in British India where caste-based communal reservations were introduced.

Under the bill's provisions, the governing body of Madras Presidency University was completely reorganised on democratic lines.

An annual cricket tournament, known as the Madras Presidency Matches, was held between Indians and Europeans during Pongal.

Lakshminarasu Chetty is credited with the foundation of the Madras Presidency Association which was a forerunner of the Indian National Congress.