Tamil Nadu - Udhagamandalam   

Sullivan’s final resting place located

Photo:M.Sathyamoorthy

Finding: The Director, NDC, Dharmalingam Venugopal, displaying pictures of John Sullivan and his grave. —

Udhagamandalam: Success achieved recently by the Nilgiri Documentation Centre (NDC) in locating the final resting place of John Sullivan, founder of Ooty, is expected to shed more light on his life and times.

Pointing out that a relentless search by the NDC for the grave of Sullivan over the past about ten years had led to the cemetery attached to the Saint Laurence Church, near the Heathrow airport, D. Venugopal, Director, NDC, said that though efforts were being made through genealogical groups in the United Kigdom to find the grave digitalisation and amalgamation of most of the information on British India had facilitated the location.

Stating that he would be paying his respects in person at the grave on July 14 when he visits the United Kingdom as part of a British Council sponsored programme, he said that though a great deal was known about the adventurous, enterprising and progressive Englishman who had left an indelible mark on the Blue Mountains, there was a gap vis a vis his last days.

If the Nilgiris is today one of the most advanced hill districts in India, the credit must go first and in full measure to Sullivan.

Hence, it is only natural that people here and elsewhere should know more about the man who as Collector of Coimbatore came up to the Nilgiris and treated it more than his home town.

He hailed from a well to do and well connected family.

Born in London on June 15 1788, he was educated privately. Grandson of Laurence Sullivan, a director in the East India Company and son of Stephen John Sullivan a translator in the Court of Tanjore, John Sullivan joined the East India Company in 1804 as a Writer. He was Collector of Chinglepet for a year before becoming the Collector of Coimbatore in 1815.

Sullivan, at 32 married 17-year-old Henrietta in 1820, a year after he landed in the Nilgiris. She died here at the age of 35 after giving birth to nine children. One of his children Henry Edward Sullivan became the Collector of Coimbatore in 1869. John Sullivan died in England on January 16, 1855.

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