It was recently reported that a documentary filmmaker from Theni planned to make a film on John Pennycuick, the builder of that then ‘engineering marvel’, the Mullaperiyar Dam, that benefits Theni and much of what is now southern Tamil Nadu. Hooray for him, but I hope he’ll have time in it for another face of Pennycuick that Madras should better remember him by. And that is Pennycuick the Cricketer.
It would be a thoughtful gesture if the Madras Cricket Club (MCC) remembered the beginnings of Madras cricket and its contribution to the same with a Pennycuick Museum. The Club may have been founded by Alexander Arbuthnot, but it was Pennycuick who not only played a signal role in its development but also contributed to Indian cricket in Madras.
It was as the MCC’s Hony. Secretary that Lt Pennycuick wrote to Government in April 1865 requesting it to grant the Club its Chepauk site. It was Pennycuick who supervised the laying of the first Chepauk pitch and tended it in its early years. Twenty-five years later, it was Col Pennycuick, who, as Secretary to the PWD, informed the Club that Government was pleased to permit it to not only build a new pavilion (which survived till 1981) but had also granted ₹2,000 towards the ₹18,500 estimated for it by the architect, Henry Irwin.
In between, Pennycuick, shuttling between Madras and Bangalore, represented both in cricket. The series between the two clubs began in 1862, but the oldest scorecard available dates to 1875 when Capt Pennycuick opened the Bangalore innings, scoring 19 and 18, and ensured home victory by taking nine Madras wickets in the match. When the MCC later first played Ceylon, in 1886, it was Pennycuick again who opened the Club’s batting. Of this period, the Committee reported, “The brunt of the serious bowling work has fallen on Messrs King, Symonds and Pennycuick.” This at a time he was Chief Engineer, PWD (1886-87).
The Madras-Bangalore matches at the time saw cricket (two days), tennis and racquets (first day) contested during an annual exchange of three-day visits, with many of the players competing in more than one sport. Pennycuick’s second game was racquets and, in 1884, Lt Col Pennycuick, representing Madras, was unbeatable.
A more significant Pennycuick contribution than Chepauk is, in my view, his to Indian cricket in Madras. When he retired in 1896, he presented a trophy for inter-collegiate competition in the city, to encourage young Indian cricketers. Sadly, The Pennycuick Trophy is no longer played for. For its part, the MCC said farewell to him in these words: “For over 30 years, this gentleman has... encouraged cricket in the Madras Presidency, while his service to the Club, both as an official and in the field (he was a fine underarm bowler) will long be remembered.” I hope the documentary will do a bit of that remembering too.
When the postman knocked...
It’s sad that Presidency College has not reacted to my Arni Medal story (Miscellany, November 6), but a few readers have, informing me they’d won the medal. Most illuminating was Dr Mythili Subramaniam’s mail, for with it was today’s pictures of the Medal awarded to her in 1981. This award was instituted in 1877 to commemorate a royal visit. On its obverse side is the Prince’s emblem, the royal plumes, and on the reverse the words: “Presented in Loyal Commemoration of the visit of H.R.H the Prince of Wales to Madras 1875 by the Jagirdar of Arni”. Dr Mythili, a former student of Meenakshi College for Women and now a Professor at Humber College, Toronto, had earlier worked at places ranging from BARC to the US Naval Research Lab. She won the Arni Medal for Physics but was first in all her other subjects: Chemistry, Maths, English and French.
Christ Church (Miscellany, November 6) has brought its share of responses from old students, but what most attracted notice was one not from an old student, TS Sridharan, a lawyer. Apparently, the School when set up was to be run by a board of six Europeans. At some time, three Anglo-Indians took the place of three Europeans. When the remaining three Europeans left c.1970, it was sought to have six Anglo-Indians on the Board. A by then largely non-Anglo-Indian congregation objected and a new scheme was evolved before Court in 1978, with provision for three Anglo-Indians and three non-Anglo-Indian Indians on the Board. Does that composition still exist, Sridharan wonders.
One of Christ Church’s Old Students adds a rather unusual postscript on what he has been doing. Somnath Sapru has a book ready on how the British changed Indian names. In Bengal, for instance, they made Mukhopadhya, Mukherjee and Chattopadhya, Chatterjee. Sapru adds, “Only in the South when updating and revising land revenue records, did they come across a problem of surnames. The natives resolved it by taking caste or sub-caste names as surnames and prefixing them with initials.” I don’t know whether that is entirely correct; I’ve seen too many variations. What can be considered closest to Southern practice, readers?
The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places and events from the years gone by, and sometimes, from today.
