Fort Museum

Fort Museum

During our visit to India we went to Chennai. In Chennai we went on Chennai city tour in which we went to Fort museum. India was colonized by England. This museum is an archeological survey of India of portraits, prints, metals, uniforms. This was fascinating because this building was trading activities for few decades took place for all merchants, ships captains, the government entertainments, for public lottery, and dealers. This helped boost their economy according to the museum brochure, and this events all happening here showed the important of this building. The brochure also talked about this building later becoming the British Army officers mess. I found coins there and I compare them to the money I was currently using in India in rupees, I found lots of the coins still being used today, even though this building was completed in 1795. This building was important to both the Indians business of trade and to the British army. I also found things traded from Salem in the United States, which showed the successes and the international trades they did with many parts of the world.

With this building trading internationally it was not a museum before. The idea of the museum came about by Raj and Col. D.M. Reid of the Old Madras in 1946. The museum came about two years later in 1948 according to the brochure. As I entered the main lobby there was a white marble statue of Lord Cornwallis. My first thought was the reason his statue was at the main lobby entrance. As I took tours of the museum I found arms collections. This was important because these cannons and the mortars were the used in the victory of the English against the native powers. The arms showed what was used then to fight for power. Along with the arms were the uniforms worn by the British in the Indian Army. The army was also giving copper and silver medals and medallions by the British to the soldiers who fought alongside them whether they were native or British. This showed the Indian and native relationship with the native in time of war and fights for power.

With the native and the British fighting alongside each other was not the only importance of this museum. There were collections of Porcelain of tableware with the east India company logo on them, which was used by the government. I was surprise to see each of the tableware had the company logo on them even to the spoons and forks.  According to the brochure the porcelains were Persians inscriptions which had the dates of their patron on them. On the other hand, the silverwares were from the Churches of southern India. For example, there was dish donated by Elihu Yale to St. Mary’s Fort St. George. In addition, the museum had important portraits. Some of the portraits were of Queen Victoria, Nawab Wallajah with Lawrence and robbers Cliver. The museum also had prints. In addition, the museum had prints to provide the 18 century view of many Indian monumental heritages, the museum original book, book of bible, and the first two registers of Baptism. This museum was interesting for showing many things.