WD4468

View from the south of Fort Square, Fort St. George, 1785-90. The Clock-tower gateway is in the centre, the west front of Government House within Fort Square on the right, and the Parade stretching in front towards Portuguese Square and the Courthouse beyond.

Inscribed on an old label in ink: ‘Fort Square from Col. Eidingtoun’s House in the Fort’.

Water-colour; 360 by 515 mm.

Purchased 2000

Note: The view corresponds to Francis Swaine Ward’s view of the Fort Square (Blagdon, ‘A Brief History of Ancient and Modern India’, London 1805, pl. 5), but with Government House on the right instead of the King’s Barracks on the left. Government House in Madras was remodelled by Philip Stowey 1782-3 (Love, ‘Vestiges of Old Madras’, III, 284-6) with its western façade incorporating a curved double-storeyed verandah.

Col. Eidingtoun is recorded in Dodwell and Miles as James Eidington, no service record surviving until Capt. 1770. Major 1784, Lieut. Col. 1786, out of the service 1789. In fact, his rank as Lt. Col. was the King’s brevet rank conferred by Cornwallis in 1786, since according to Love Eidingtoun (or Edington) was already Lieutenant Colonel and Adjutant General on Aug. 27th 1776 when he was sent by the Council to arrest the Governor Lord Pigot. He was suspended but returned to duty 1780. He married Ann Weller in 1771. Civil and military officers were accommodated in the houses around the Parade and Portuguese Square.