Jubbulpore Under British Ruleअंग्रेज़ी राज में 'जबलपुर' कैसे बना 'Jubbulpore'?

Overview

For about 130 years Jabalpur was “Jubbulpore”, a British administrative and military town on the Narmada. It came under the East India Company at the end of the wars with the Marathas, became the seat of a new frontier territory, hosted the department that hunted the thugs, and grew into a railway and garrison centre [1][2]. Much of today’s city layout - the cantonment, the civil lines, the railway colony - took shape in this period.

Timeline / Key moments

• 1818 - The Narmada valley lands, held by the Bhonsle rulers of Nagpur, pass to the Company at the end of the Third Anglo-Maratha War [2]. Some popular accounts say 1817; the war began that year, but the sources consulted date the takeover to 1818.
• 1820 - The Agency of the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories is set up, a 12-district unit with Jubbulpore as its capital and military headquarters [2].
• 1835 - The territories are attached to the North-Western Provinces (and again in 1853, after a short separation) [2]. The same year the Thuggee Department is organised with Jubbulpore as its base [3].
• 1861 - The territories are merged with Nagpur Province to create the Central Provinces [2].
• 1871 - According to FIBIS, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) from Bombay meets the East Indian Railway (EIR) from Allahabad at Jubbulpore, completing the first through route between Bombay and Calcutta [4]. The story continues in Railways and industry.
• 1879 - The Thuggee and Dacoity Department moves its headquarters to Shimla [3].
• 1904 - The Gun Carriage Factory begins work [4].

People and events

William Henry Sleeman is the name most tied to British Jubbulpore. In 1830, while serving as Assistant to the Agent at Jubbulpore, he wrote an anonymous letter to a Calcutta paper describing thuggee as an organised network of highway stranglers. From 1835 to 1855 he was General Superintendent of the operation against it, and the department’s office stayed at Jubbulpore until 1879 [3]. Historians today debate how far colonial writing exaggerated thuggee as a single “cult”; this article only records the institutional facts.

Sleeman has a second, quieter place in Jabalpur’s story: the first dinosaur fossil from the Lameta Bed near the city was collected by him in 1828 [6].

The 1857 uprising also touched Jubbulpore directly, through the arrest and execution of the Gond ruler Raja Shankar Shah and his son Raghunath Shah in the cantonment - see The revolt of 1857 in Jabalpur.

Why it matters

The British period explains why Jabalpur looks and works the way it does. Being the capital of a frontier territory brought courts, offices and a large army presence; the cantonment remains one of the largest in India, and the city still hosts the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the West Central Railway headquarters and defence factories [1]. The railway junction tied the town to both Bombay and Calcutta, and its workshops created a large railway colony [4]. The anglicised spelling Jubbulpore survives in old maps, regimental records and graves.

What survives today

• The cantonment, with barracks and a British-era cemetery (FIBIS links records of the Jubbulpore Cantonment Cemetery) [4].
• Railway buildings and the junction itself, now West Central Railway headquarters [1].
• The Gun Carriage Factory, still in operation [4].
• Place names and institutions created in the period.

Visiting

The cantonment is an active military area; some roads are open to the public but photography rules and access may change, so follow local signage. The railway station is the easiest British-era landmark to see.

Myths and documented history

• “Annexed in 1817.” Disputed - the sources consulted say 1818 [2].
• “Snooker was invented here.” A 1939 magazine claimed Jubbulpore in 1875; snooker historians quoted by FIBIS favour Ootacamund [4]. Treat as unproven.
• Thuggee as an ancient cult. This was Sleeman’s framing; modern historians question it. The Department’s existence and base at Jubbulpore are documented [3].

Further reading

• Imperial Gazetteer of India, vols. 10 and 17 (1908–09), entries on Saugor and Nerbudda Territories and Jubbulpore District [5].
• Jubbulpore District Gazetteer (Central Provinces District Gazetteers, 1909), available on archive.org.
• FIBIS Wiki page on Jabalpur, with links to cemetery and railway records [4].