Tellicherry Town
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Tellicherry Town
Talacheri
Head-quarters of the Kottayam taluk of Malabar District, Madras, situated in 11° 45' N. and 75° 29' E., on the coast, 42 miles north of Calicut, and 457 miles by rail from Madras city. Besides the divisional and taluk offices, the town contains the District Court of North Malabar, a church, a second- grade college founded by Mr. Brennen in 1862, a branch of the Bank of Madras, Roman Catholic and German Protestant mission establishments, and the old fort of the East India Company, now used for public offices.
Tellicherry does not appear to have been of any importance before the end of the seventeenth century, when the East India Company established a factory here with the object of commanding the pepper trade of North Malabar. The site, which had previously been occupied by a French mud fort, was granted by the Kolattiri Raja in 1683 or 1684. In 1708 the Raja was induced to build the Tellicherry fort, which he handed over to the Company for the pro- tection of their factory ; and during the first half of the eighteenth century the factors obtained from various Rajas many small grants of land with administrative privileges within them. They also secured the monopoly of the trade in pepper and cardamoms in Kolattanad, Kadattanad, and Kottayam. The factory thus became the prin- cipal British trading station on the West Coast. The growth of its im- portance is illustrated by a treaty dated 1737, by which the Kolattiri Raja agreed to be guided by the ' Sahib English Company ' in all his transactions with European nations, and by an agreement dated 1741, in which the Randattara district was mortgaged to the Company, who thereby became directly concerned in its administration. In the struggle with France, Tellicherry was the centre of the successful opposition offered to La Bourdonnais on the West Coast ; but during the early Mysore wars the Company's operations were narrowed, and in 1766 the factory was reduced to a residency. In 1780 the town was besieged by Haidar's general Sardar Khan, but after a two years' struggle the siege was eventually raised in 1782 by the arrival of relief from Bombay under Major Abington. Tellicherry then became the base for the operations above the Ghats, until it was superseded as a military post by Cannanore.
At present Tellicherry ranks as the third port of Malabar. The value of the imports in 1903-4 was 40 lakhs, and of the exports 103 lakhs. It is the chief outlet for the pepper and coffee grown on the Ghats ; but the traffic in both has declined during the decade, the value of the coffee exports having fallen from 66 lakhs in 1890-1 to 33 lakhs in 1900-1, and of the pepper from 29 lakhs to 25 lakhs. The trade in sandal-wood and coco-nut products has, how- ever, increased. The imports consist chiefly of rice from Bengal and Burma, and coffee and pepper from neighbouring ports. The popula- tion of the town in 1901 was 27,883 (15,252 Hindus, 10,958 Muham- madans, and 1,671 Christians). The municipality was created in 1869. The income during the decade ending 1900 averaged Rs. 44,000, and the expenditure nearly Rs. 45,000, of which 39 per cent, was laid out on education. In 1903-4 the income and expenditure were Rs. 50,900 and Rs. 51,000 respectively, the chief receipts being from the taxes on houses and lands and from school fees.
