Lieutenant-General
Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...
Sir Mark Cubbon
KCB (23 August 1775 – 23 April 1861) was a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
army officer with the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
who was the
Chief Commissioner of Mysore 1834 to 1861. During his tenure, he established a
law and order
In modern politics, law and order is the approach focusing on harsher enforcement and penalties as ways to reduce crime. Penalties for perpetrators of disorder may include longer terms of imprisonment, mandatory sentencing, three-strikes laws a ...
system, introduced judicial and economic reforms and through action in all spheres of governance helped develop the economy of Mysore. He resigned from his office in 1860 due to ill-health and left for England for the first time since his arrival in India as a cadet in 1800. The administration of the Kingdom of Mysore under his leadership ensured that the
1857 rebellion had almost no impact in the region. He died in 1861 on board ship at
Suez
Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boun ...
. Cubbon Road and
Cubbon Park
Cubbon Park, officially known as ''Sri Chamarajendra Park'', is a landmark 'lung' area of Bengaluru city, located () within the heart of the city in the Central Administrative Area. Originally created in 1870 under Major General Richard Sank ...
in
Bangalore
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
are named after him.
Early life
Cubbon was born at the vicarage of
Maughold
Maughold (also known as Macaille, Maccaldus, Machalus, Machaoi, Machella, Maghor, Mawgan, Maccul, Macc Cuill; died c. 488 AD) is venerated as the patron saint of the Isle of Man. Tradition states that he was an Irish prince and captain of a ban ...
,
Isle of Man
)
, anthem = "O Land of Our Birth"
, image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg
, image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg
, mapsize =
, map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe
, map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green)
in Europe ...
on 23 August 1775. His father was Vicar Thomas Cubbon and his mother Margaret Wilks was the sister of Colonel
Mark Wilks
Colonel Mark Wilks (1759 – 19 September 1831) was a Manx soldier, historian and East India Company administrator who worked in southern India principally in the princely state of Mysore. He was the acting Resident at the Wodeyar Court.
Life
...
. The seventh of ten children, he grew up enjoying scrambling up the local hills and studied at the local Parish school before studying under the tutorship of Maddrell of Ramsey. His uncle Mark Wilks arranged for Cubbon to enroll as a cadet in India in the spring of 1802.
Early career in India
![Public Offices (with an equestrian statue of Sir Mark Cubbon), Bangalore (1890)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Public_Offices_%28with_an_equestrian_statue_of_Sir_Mark_Cubbon%29%2C_Bangalore_%281890%29._Curzon_Collection%27s_%27Souvenir_of_Mysore_Album%27.jpg)
Cubbon arrived in India earlier than required in the summer of 1801 at Calcutta. He gained an appointment to the 2nd Madras Battalion in 1802, and moved to the 2nd Battalion 5th Native Infantry in July 1804, serving in Travancore under Col. John Chalmers. Cubbon had great admiration for the
Sepoy
''Sepoy'' () was the Persian-derived designation originally given to a professional Indian infantryman, traditionally armed with a musket, in the armies of the Mughal Empire.
In the 18th century, the French East India Company and its oth ...
s and respected their religious views. In 1809 he received a civil appointment but the new governor of Madras,
George Barlow, had passed a pledge that was unpopular among the Europeans in the Madras Army. Cubbon refused to sign the declaration and he lost his appointment during this so-called white mutiny in Madras. He was reappointed in 1810 in the Commissariat Department initially under Col. Close in central India during the
Pindari War
The Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1819) was the final and decisive conflict between the English East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India. The war left the Company in control of most of India. It began with an invasion of Maratha ter ...
and then under Colonel
Philip Meadows Taylor
Colonel Philip Meadows Taylor, (25 September 1808 – 13 May 1876), an administrator in British India and a novelist, made notable contributions to public knowledge of South India. Though largely self-taught, he was a polymath, working alternat ...
in Kurnool. A year later, he was then made an Assistant Commissary-General, a position well above the ranks within the army. He became a Major on 23 November 1823 and was a Lieutenant-Colonel on 22 April 1826.
In 1827 he moved south to serve under the Travancore Resident as Commissary-General, succeeding William Morrison.
Mysore
After the death of
Tipu Sultan
Tipu Sultan (born Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu, 1 December 1751 – 4 May 1799), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore based in South India. He was a pioneer of rocket artillery.Dalrymple, p. 243 He int ...
in 1799, the British had restored the former Hindu royal family of Mysore under a child prince with
Purnaiah
Purnaiah (Purniya) (1746 – 27 March 1812), aka Krishnacharya Purniya or Mir Miran Purniya was an Indian Administrator and statesman and the 1st Diwan of Mysore. He has the rare distinction of governing under a sultan and a maharaja, Tip ...
, the minister during Tipu's rule, to effectively administer until the prince grew up. The revenue collection under this system was however considered unfair and corruption was widespread. This led to an uprising, the
Nagar revolt
The Nagar Revolt, also known as the ''Nagara peasant rebellion'', was an uprising in the Nagar region (present day Shimoga district) of the Mysore kingdom, which began in August and September 1830. Primarily comprising farmers and minor officials ...
in 1831, and the Rajah was unable to control it.
This uprising was suppressed with the aid of the British and a commission was instituted to examine the causes. The commission which included Major-General Hawker, W. Morison, John Macleod, and Cubbon made a report which showed extreme misgovernance. A decision was taken by the
Governor-General of India
The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 1 ...
,
William Bentinck for direct administration of the Kingdom with two Commissioners. The two however quarreled and this led to the appointment of a sole Commissioner, William Morrison, in May 1834 but on his transfer Cubbon was then made Commissioner in June 1834.
Administration and reforms
![Mark Cubbon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Mark_Cubbon.jpg)
At the close of the 1831 uprising in Mysore, and the British takeover on 19 October 1831, the first priority for Cubbon was law and order. Prior to his actions, murders to settle disputes were extremely common in the towns and villages and Cubbon was disturbed by its apparent acceptance in society. Cubbon improved the system of Silladars or native horsemen who would provide services to the government for a fixed monthly charge. He raised their pay to ensure that they could not be corrupted and created a force of about 4000 horses with seven regiments, with a detachment for every taluk. There was no police force until July 1834, when a code or police hukumnama was formulated. This separated the local police from the military force. There was an armed and unarmed section with the armed part having the duty of dealing with prisoners, any field service needing them, killing tigers (with a reward of Rs 10 for adults and Rs 5 for cubs) and to accompany state guests or travellers. They would also prevent thefts, watch key positions and towns and prevent sandal trees from being cut. The unarmed peons or ''khalihaths'' (literally "empty hands") were to help in the repair of roads, irrigation tanks and follow other orders. He set up a reporting structure which was almost entirely made up of Indians.
There was no code of law in 1834 and Cubbon drew upon and expanded a system described by his uncle Wilks in 1804. Cubbon created a judicial system that became quite popular but it was causing considerable demands on the system and in 1841 they made vexatious suitors liable to fines. Cubbon made himself the superior authority for handling serious crimes. In some cases he intervened and there were some cases where he conflicted with the decisions taken by the courts. The use of a uniform code of law across all classes was novel in the Kingdom of Mysore. Cubbon also reduced the powers of the poligars or local chieftains. They were paid a pension that was calculated on the basis of what it would take to maintain them in prison. There was considerable friction between communities belonging to different religions and castes. Cubbon resorted to the use of a majority vote to resolve several disputes relating to religious gurus.
Cubbon also made administration very strict and based on codes. Revenue officers taking bribes and a court officer holding extreme Wahabi tenets were dismissed. He set up nine departments or kacheris:
* revenue (dewan)
* posts (anche)
* police (kandachar)
* public works (maramat)
* military (sowar and barr)
* medical
* public cattle (
Amrit Mahal
The Amrit Mahal (Kannada:ಅಮೃತ ಮಹಲ್) is a breed of cattle that originated from the erstwhile state of Mysore in Karnataka, India. They originated from the Hallikar and closely related breeds, ''Hagalavadi'' and ''Chithradurg''. ...
)
* judiciary
* public instruction
Prior to Cubbon, government documents were written in Urdu, Hindi, Persian, Kannada or Marathi and this led to difficulties and corruption. Cubbon restricted the languages to be used to Kannada and Marathi.
As part of financial reforms record keeping of all revenues collected was made stringent and all spending was controlled. Cubbon maintained public accounts using the Kantarayi pagoda (=Kantirava Fanam) as the currency. This system was followed until 1854 and replaced by the East India Company currency in 1855.
Cubbon supported educational institutions run mainly by missionaries and also worked on healthcare, establishing hospitals and homes for lepers. He also issued rules against various forms of slavery that were traditionally followed in parts of Mysore. All forms of punishment, forced labour and torture in civil life were made illegal. The prison system was improved and convict labour was utilized in public works.
During the 1857 rebellion, Mysore was relatively peaceful owing to governance of Cubbon. A small band of Mohammedans in Srirangapatna were however planning rebellion and Cubbon had the uprising quashed secretly with the help of a small band of Coorg warriors. In reward for their actions, an exception in the Disarmament Act was made for Coorg.
Agriculture had been particularly hit by anarchy, with money lenders and revenue officials causing great trouble to farmers. Cubbon worked on the improvement of irrigation. These included the
Marikanive project in
Hiriyur
Hiriyuru is a town and taluk headquarters located near Chitradurga in the Indian state of Karnataka.
Hiriyur is renowned for having the oldest dam in Karnataka, built on the Vedavati river, and named Mari Kanive. Hiriyur is situated along Nat ...
, work on the Nugu, Shimsha (Maddur), Hemavathi (near Sakleshpur), Tunga & Bhadra (near Shimoga) and Kaveri river project near Siddapur. He founded the agri-horticultural society in 1839 and had the Lalbagh gardens transferred to it. In 1836 he wrote that "great public benefit may be expected to arise from this institution, not only in regard to objects merely horticultural and the extension of botanical knowledge, but in the promotion of the agricultural interest of the country, by introductions suited to the climate, amongst which may be enumerated varieties of sugar-cane, cotton, and tobacco far superior to any produced in Mysore, and by affording the people the means of obtaining gratuitous instruction in improved modes of cultivation." Cubbon introduced new crops, varieties of crops, new breeds of livestock (apart from maintaining traditional breeds like the
Amrit Mahal
The Amrit Mahal (Kannada:ಅಮೃತ ಮಹಲ್) is a breed of cattle that originated from the erstwhile state of Mysore in Karnataka, India. They originated from the Hallikar and closely related breeds, ''Hagalavadi'' and ''Chithradurg''. ...
that had helped Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan win battles) and also took an interest in forestry. In 1846 sisoo plantations were tried and in 1855-56 teak was planted in Lakwalli on the banks of the Tunga and Bhadra. He issued an order to ensure that valuable woods could not be cut without government permission. He also issued orders against kumri or slash-and-burn agriculture.
He also worked towards improving the road system with four classes of roads and oversaw the building of bridges at key points such as at Fraserpert, Maddur, Hoskote, Shimoga and Hiriyur. The road system also required key passes through the
Western Ghats and for this he opened up passes at Agumbe, Boond, Sampaje and Periambadi.
Cubbon maintained traditional religious institutions and granted concessions to
maths
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, temples, old age homes and other institutions that were supported by the maharaja.
Cubbon made full use of natives in administration and reduced the need for European appointments. From 1834 there was a single commissioner for Mysore ; in 1836 he was given charge of Coorg and from 1843 was also to act as Resident for Mysore without any increase in his own salary. Cubbon's administration is estimated to have costed only about £13000 a year and required only four Europeans.
Edward Washburn Hopkins
Edward Washburn Hopkins, Ph.D., LL.D. (September 8, 1857 July 16, 1932), an American Sanskrit scholar, was born in Northampton, Massachusetts.
He graduated at Columbia College in 1878, studied at Leipzig, where he received the degree of Ph.D. i ...
wrote in 1901 that one of the solutions to India's famines was to ''cubbonize'' its administration (i.e. to use native government).
He was knighted
K.C.B.
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as o ...
in 1856.
In 1859, when orders were issued to transfer the superintendence of Mysore affairs from the Governor-General to the government of Madras, Cubbon submitted his resignation, as he held it to be impolitic and contrary to the declaration made by the Honourable Court of Directors in 1838. The order was withdrawn by the Viceroy,
Lord Canning. At the beginning of the next year, however, Cubbon felt compelled to resign owing to ill-health.
Contribution to Kannada
Mark Cubbon took special interest and financially supported the publication of the first
Canarese (Kannada) translation of the
Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (c ...
, ''The Bhagavat-Geeta, Or, Dialogues of Krishna and Arjun in Eighteen Lectures'', with Sanskrit, Canarese and English in parallel columns, edited by Rev.
John Garrett, published by the Weleyan Mission Press, Bangalore in 1849.
Mark Cubbon also financially supported the printing and publication of the first
Canarese
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
- English dictionary, which was compiled by
William Reeve, edited by
Daniel Sanderson and published in 1858, by the Wesleyan Mission Press.
Personality
Cubbon grew up in India with a deep understanding for native sentiment and empathy for the people and their traditions. He was considered very fair and was tactful, making use of a native style of argumentation when required. In his dealings with the Mysore king, he outright avoided the use of espionage to obtain information, a method used by many others in the past. He was required in his work to host public dinners but did not relish parties and especially disliked dance balls. Fond of horses, he maintained as many as sixty in his stables. He did not visit church and made jokes on the inconsistencies of religious professors but he enforced the closure of all offices on Sundays.
Cubbon was unmarried.
Cubbon built a summer home on the summit of
Nandidroog in 1834. Lady Canning left a memoir of a visit:
Death and legacy
![Cubbon Park, Bangalore (1890)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Cubbon_Park%2C_Bangalore_%281890%29._Curzon_Collection%27s_%27Souvenir_of_Mysore_Album%27.jpg)
Cubbon died at
Suez
Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boun ...
on 23 April 1861 while returning to England in the company of his physician, Dr. Campbell. He died of liver ailment or possibly an abscess in the lungs, his last words being recorded as "And through no merit of my own." From Southampton, Campbell was joined by Haines and Colonel Macqueen who took the body to Liverpool and then to Douglas. All flags were flown at half mast and on 17 May his body was interred in the Maughold Churchyard amid a large gathering. The Archdeacon announced, "In that vault lies the greatest man this island has produced for centuries back."
[ When news of his death reached Mysore, all public offices were closed for three days.]
An equestrian statue by Baron Marochetti was unveiled on 16 March 1866 in a large gathering and addressed by Lewin Bentham Bowring
Lewin Bentham Bowring (1824–1910) was a British Indian civil servant in British India who served as the Chief Commissioner of Mysore between 1862 and 1870. He was also an author and man of letters.
Family
He was the second son of Sir John Bowr ...
, Cubbon's successor as Commissioner of Mysore. The statue was initially placed in the parade ground at Bangalore but moved later in front of the main government buildings (the Attara Kacheri now housing the Karnataka High Court). When the statue was unveiled the forehead was marked with the three lines of ash, symbols of Brahminism, a prank by some young soldiers that was referred to in "The Painting of the Statue" in the "Lays of Ind" by W.S. Yeldham writing under the pen name of "Aliph Cheem".
Cubbon Road, Cubbonpet and Cubbon Park
Cubbon Park, officially known as ''Sri Chamarajendra Park'', is a landmark 'lung' area of Bengaluru city, located () within the heart of the city in the Central Administrative Area. Originally created in 1870 under Major General Richard Sank ...
in Bangalore are named after him. A medallion portrait of Cubbon is found on the ceiling at the west end of the Central Hall in the Karnataka High Court building.
Largely ignored since Indian Independence in 1947, the statue of Mark Cubbon was garlanded for the first time at a celebration of Cubbon's 238th birth anniversary on 23 August 2013. The function required special permission from the Karnataka High Court
Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...
, and police protection was provided. This celebration was however opposed by Vatal Nagaraj who considered it a shame that British statues were still standing in public spaces suggesting that they be moved into museums. On 28 June 2020, the statue was moved from the High Court premises to Cubbon Park
Cubbon Park, officially known as ''Sri Chamarajendra Park'', is a landmark 'lung' area of Bengaluru city, located () within the heart of the city in the Central Administrative Area. Originally created in 1870 under Major General Richard Sank ...
.
See also
* Administration of the Kingdom of Mysore
The Kingdom of Mysore ( kn, ಮೈಸೂರು ಸಂಸ್ಥಾನ; 1399 – 1947 CE) was a kingdom in southern India traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 in the region of the city of Mysore in Karnataka. For the most part, ...
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cubbon, Mark
1775 births
1861 deaths
Manx people
British East India Company Army officers
People of the Kingdom of Mysore
History of Karnataka
Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath