The opening of the Mumbai to Kolkata railway

The opening of the Mumbai to Kolkata railway

My great great uncle, Robert Maitland Brereton, was the resident engineer responsible for completing the last section of the 1968-km railway connection across India. He worked for the Great India Peninsular Railway Company and in March 1870 he completed the link from Mumbai to Jabalpur, where it met the East India Railway line from Kolkata, which had already opened in June 1867.

Brereton was born in 1834 at Little Massingham in Norfolk, England, where his father was Rector. The 10th of 11 children, he was schooled at home with his sisters. He also studied for a year at Kings College in London, and was then placed in the London office of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the builder of the Great Western Railway line that goes west from its London terminus at Paddington. During his training he worked on several of Brunel’s great projects in the period and received a very favourable report from the Resident Engineer, Paddington Station, on his skills, “I have much pleasure in certifying that Mr Robert M Brereton, having been placed by Mr Brunel on the engineering staff here, during the execution of very extensive works connected with the new station arrangements of the London terminus, has had considerable experience in building, both in bridges and in warehouses, workshops, etc, and in iron girder-work, timber framing, road making and rail laying, as well as in hydraulic and other machinery.”

With this experience, he obtained a junior position in the GIPR as a second class assistant and arrived in Mumbai in January 1857. At that time the railway had only been opened for a few miles out of Mumbai. Brereton’s role as an assistant engineer was initially to monitor the construction teams and ensure that the work of contractors met the standards required by the GIPR. He refused to accept defective work and tells of one incident when, busy marking defective work on one of the bridges, the contractor’s agent came up from behind and gave him “a lick on the head from a heavy stick”. He did not condescend, in the presence of the native workmen, to return the assault, but quietly wrote out an order to stop all masonry work pending the chief engineer’s decision in the matter. The chief engineer appointed a committee of two brother officers from other districts to examine the condemned work, and they fully endorsed Brereton’s actions.

On another occasion, Brereton annoyed the consulting engineer by rejecting a lot of wooden sleepers that had been sent to India. These were not up to the dimensions of the specification; the wood was of inferior quality and the creosoting was insufficiently done.

In January 1858, a group of about 500 rebel Bheels attacked where the road to Nandgaum crosses the Sakee river. Brereton had two miraculous escapes from death. The rebels plundered and smashed his possessions, including his precious theodolite. The police with 450 troops fought a battle, losing four out of seven officers and over 60 men, before the Bheels, who had the best of it, melted away. He claimed Rs 1,553 compensation from the GIPR for his losses.

Between 1865 and 1867, Brereton was resident engineer of No. 18 contract, between Goolburgah and the Krishna river, within the Nizam’s Dominion. Returning from Hyderabad (where he had been on business matters to see Sir George Yule, the Resident, and Salar Jung) in November 1866, his horse fell on its side and Brereton’s left leg was badly broken between the knee and ankle. This occurred when about 60 miles from Hyderabad; the only surgical aid then available was at Secunderabad, so he had himself carried on a charpoy conveyed on the heads of men and women, from village to village, to the house of his friend, Major James Stubbs, where he was attended by the residency surgeon. It took over 40 hours to reach Secunderabad; during which he suffered discomfort from the jolting method of conveyance.

In 1864, Brereton had produced a scheme to supply water to the city on Nagpore. Salar Jung, the Nizam’s first minister, was impressed by Brereton’s engineering skills and offered him the job of chief engineer overseeing irrigation schemes and roads and other public works. Rs 4 lakh was available for the projects and a salary of 2,000 Halee rupees per month with 10 rupees a day traveling allowance was offered. But Brereton stayed loyal to the GIPR, and was eventually appointed the company’s chief engineer for the North-eastern division of the GIPR.

The GPIR’s No. 12 contract on another part of their system had suffered the failure of some viaducts and bridges. This resulted in the company abandoning their contract system, and in July 1868 Brereton was given responsibility for completing the connection between Bhorsall and Jabalpur. He was considered rash by many when, in the spring of 1869, he reported to the board that it would be successfully completed by May 1870. The board had expected it to take three years. How was it done in that short period?

First, he acknowledged his splendid staff of every grade, whose hearts were in their work; who possessed a thoroughly practical knowledge of construction in every branch and skill and perseverance in overcoming every kind of obstacle and difficulty; who believed in him and trusted him to the core.

Second, he adopted the American system in railway construction; temporary rail tracks were constructed across the rivers so that the bridgework and permanent way materials could be hauled ahead during the dry season of the year. During the rainy season, the roads through the black soil of the Nerbudda valley were impassable for about four months. All this heavy material from England had to come from Bombay. Brereton hustled his storekeeper in Bombay to keep supplies flowing.

A violent outbreak of cholera swept through the Nerbudda valley, followed by a terrible famine. Thousands of native workmen fled the works. Hundreds died from cholera and famine in the surrounding districts. In his words, “Cholera gave me a taste of its grip, but my soul fought for its body and won. My staff was greatly discouraged by this condition of affairs. Fate seemed determined to baulk our best efforts, but nil desperandum (never despair) was the voice we listened to, and Opitulante Deo (God helping), my old family motto, was my trust."

Third, he always got on well with all classes of the natives. Although he was a poor Hindustani and Mahratta linguist, he knew just enough of the language to make himself understood and to guess what they were talking about. He had a small knowledge of simple medicinal and surgical appliances, which also helped. All seemed to like and respect him during his time amongst them in Admednagar, Khandeish, Berar, Nagpore, Asseergur, Nerbudda valley and Deccan districts.

At last, in March, 1870, two months sooner than he had promised the company in the spring of 1869, the through line between Mumbai and Kolkata was ready for the Viceroy and the Duke of Edinburgh to open to the public. On 8 March, two trains from Mumbai carrying the Viceroy and the Governor of Bombay, Sir Fitzgerald Seymour, and their staff, and another special containing Sir Salar Jung and other guests, arrived in Jabalpur at 7:30 pm.

The Duke of Edinburgh, who came from Kolkata by the East Indian line, had arrived at 4 pm. Then and there the Viceroy, Lord Mayo, with the silver-plated hammer provided for the occasion, struck the silver key that connected the GIP rail with the EI rail. The Duke of Edinburgh gave it an extra royal tap. In his speech the Viceroy declared, “In a generation we have placed in India as great results of British enterprise as exist in any other part of the world, and those gigantic monuments of early rule will, for ages, remain as lasting memorials of the good we have done and of the benefits we have conferred on the people of this country. But last they will, and it may happen that a thousand years hence, Mr Brereton’s ghost may still hover with anxious solicitude over the unbroken piers of the Towa Viaduct.”

One hundred and forty-six years later it may be fashionable for some politicians to call for Britain to make reparations for the goods exported from India to feed the Industrial Revolution. But as you pass over the Alfred Viaduct at the Tawa river today, you can also say a thank you to Brereton’s ghost for his lasting achievements.

Source: The Statesman.com