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Article from News Today

India's first hunting society in Madras
V SUNDARAM

No one can dispute that the British Rule in India was marked by much more than mere acquisition of territory or the plunder of an ancient country with a glorious civilisation dating back to the dawn of history.

The Englishmen came to India armed with modern scientific knowledge. In every sphere of life theirs was a conquest of organised knowledge backed up by a streamlined organisation behind it.

What is amazing is that successive generations of British civil servants and officers have left behind valuable writings and documents relating to their work and life in India. The many Britons who have spoken of their past days in India have also remembered the details relating to their diversions from what they saw as everyday lives of hard work and often difficult conditions.
Indeed these diversions - especially the abundance of field sports ? were seen as among the joys of life in India. No wonder hunting was a popular sport in Madras city. In 1776, the year of American Independence, 'Madras Hunting Society' was established.

The Madras Hunt has the distinction of being the first hunt established in India. The hounds were taken out on two days in a week and the jackal was the main animal which was hunted. Jackals were plentiful. Hunting jackals was a popular sport amongst British civil servants and British traders.

Madras Hunt Club meet, 1865
The main areas which they chose for hunting were to the south of Madras at Chengelpet and to the west of Madras at Thiruvallur. Unlike today, those areas were covered by tropical forests with a rich flora and fauna. When Lord McCaulay came to India as a Law Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, he visited Madras in 1835. He went on horseback via Poonamallee and Thiruvallur on his way to Ooty to meet Lord Bentinck, the Viceroy. Lord McCaulay has written about the thick forest vegetation of areas near Poonamallee and Thiruvallur.

The British hunters had to leave their homes at 4 am and be on hunting grounds before 5 am.

The hounds were deployed for hunting and the hunting operations used to go on till 9 am. after which all the hunters went to their offices for work.

Somerset Playne who came to Madras in 1911 and met some of the English hunters describes the country hunted in the following words:
Assembly rooms of the madras
Hunt Club, 1812 'The country hunted is not an ideal one, as it lies to the south and west of the city of Madras, and is very soft and often very false at the commencement of the season when the north-east monsoon is prevalent. The paddy fields, which are flooded with water, are deep in mire, and treacherous ground causes a lot of unseating of hunters on horseback. The ground gradually dries up, until about the end of the season, February or March, it is nearly as hard as the high road and dust is flying. It, however, usually caries a good scent, but its greatest drawback is the prickly pear, which is found nearly everywhere, and is very sore on hounds and horses'.
The hunting hounds were all trained at a kennel at Adyar. As it was impossible to keep these hounds during the unbearably hot summer season, they were generally disposed of before the onset of summer.

In view of this difficulty, the English hunters in Madras used to import about 50 couples of new hounds every year by ship in the month of August to be effectively used for hunting purposes till the end of March next year.

The Englishmen fully enjoyed themselves in these recreational activities like hunting in India because many of them found it within their reach unlike in England where such facilities were prohibitively expensive.

The plenitude of wild game in India provided ample opportunities to the British upper classes who could enjoy the wild game without the need for owning private estates.

Civil servants like Tottenham, W E Horne, Conron Smith, Todhunter, Maloney and Burns have left behind interesting accounts about their hunting experiences in and around Madras city from 1890 to 1920. They are valuable documents of social history.

There are some excellent old pictures there - please check them out before the newspaper pulls this page from it's website.

Good hunting!

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Mehul Kamdar