The elegant Victorian architecture with a semi-circular frontage and a gabled roof of the Vivekanada House on the Marina would attract the attention of any passer-by. A few may recall this building as the Ice House.
A Boston daily (Massachusetts, USA) announced in 1806: “Not a joke, a vessel has cleared at the Custom House with a cargo of ice.” Although this vessel was going to Martinique in the Caribbean, this news item heralded the ice trade that was to flourish in the next few decades through the world. Frederick Tudor [1783–1864], founder of American ice trade, admitted that sending ice to foreign countries was initially disappointing, although over time, it became popular and prospered. None can establish when ice harvesting from the Wenham Lake in Boston region (New England) became a commercial enterprise. William Fletcher’s grave (c. 1770) indicates that he was the first to trade ice in Boston. However, Tudor was the first to usher ice for an export market. Being of a hot and humid landscape, Madras necessitated the British to have ice — one of the many crystalline phases of water, which helps as a coolant and is enjoyed in many forms by us today, including the popular ice creams.
Tudor sent ice on Arabella (696 t), which made several trips from Boston to Bombay-Calcutta in 1853–1854, and each voyage lasted c. 150 days. Young Mechanic (1375 t) carried ice to Madras in 1865, hired by Tudor, which on re-chartering in 1866 was lost to fire. The ships brought ice to Madras and carried back saltpetre, animal hides, gunny bags, jute, cloth, shellac, indigo, and linseed.
Large-scale trade of saltpetre (naturally occurring potassium nitrate; a critical oxidizing component of gun powder, also used as fertilizer and small-rocket propellant) existed in Madras from the 1690s. Indian agents operating at Madurai, with subordinates collecting saltpetre from around, sent supplies to Pulicat, San Thôme, and Madras, to the Danish outpost Tarangampãdi, and to many Dutch and Portuguese factories in Tanjãvur and Ramanãtapuram. Small-scale trade occurred, from the 1630s, in Tutukudi and Kãyalpatinam.
Back to ice and Madras: ice was one of the duty-free items in Madras. Tudor had a 20-year lease of the Madras Ice House from 1845, which remained open Monday to Saturday (daylight hours) and on Sundays (few hours). The land for ice house was provided on the Marina close to the high-water mark. The Anglo-Indian community of Madras raised money for the construction of the ice house, which was leased to Tudor at low rent. Tudor must have used this opportunity favourably to avoid investment in a new building. Madras has preserved the ice house’s façade, whereas the Calcutta Ice House was demolished in 1882.
Tudor’s Madras Ice Company stored the ice, brought from the lakes of New England, at the Madras Ice House. In 1880, the building came to Biligiri Iyengar, who used it as his residence. Swami Vivekananda on his return after his historic Chicago address in 1897 stayed in this building for a few days.
Nathaniel Wyeth made the ‘ice plough’ (a metal blade pulled by horses) in 1825, which enabled ice cutting efficient and easy. Tudor packed huge ice blocks with generous insulations of wood shaving, sawdust, and rice chaff. Ice blocks were stacked tightly, thanks to ice plough; approximately out of 180 t of ice shipped, 100 t arrived intact after travelling 25,000 km.
South-Indian Royal (SIR) Ice Factory on Whannels Road (Egmore), then run by Ramsay Unger, the ice-making plant at the Hotel d’Angeli (Mount Road—Blacker’s Road junction) and the ice-making machine in the Madras Gymkhana Club are subsequent landmarks in the history of ice in Madras. The only existing monument for American ice trade throughout the world is the Madras Ice House.
(The author is a senior lecturer in Ecological Agriculture at Charles Sturt University, Orange, New South Wales, Australia)