KOCHI: The commissioning of the International container transshipment Terminal (ICTT) recently was possible due to the great work of Sir Robert Bristow, said International Forum for Cultural Heritage and Tradition (IFCHAT) president Austin Paul.
He was pained that the memory of legendary harbour engineer Sir Robert Bristow was fast fading from the psyche of Kochi. IFCHAT has urged the Centre to give him his due honour and declare the Bristow House a historical structure.
IFCHAT has also sought for the erection of a statue of Bristow on the Cochin Port premises, Austin Paul said.
IFCHAT has sent a letter in this regard to the Archaeological Survey of India. The founder of the Cochin Port, Sir Robert Bristow, used to stay in Bristow House in Fort Kochi during his stay in Kochi.
It was here that he had planned to convert the small piece of land into a world class natural port which was named Wellingdon Island in 1936, said Austin Paul who had served as the deputy chairman of the port.
Not many Kochiites would know about Sir Robert Bristow today or about how he created Willingdon Island.
And how would one know about the great person who led a mission to fight an adamant rocky formation on the sea mouth beneath the ocean to create a shipping channel. This enabled ships to enter the backwater making Kochi a natural hub of global trading activity.
There is a version that the British Government was not keen on considering the project as the country was on the threshold of attaining independence. They did not want to waste money, manpower or time on the project. This drove Sir Robert Bristow to desperation and he was full of hope when the project got clearance mostly due to his wife’s acquaintance with that the spouse of the then Governor of Madras Presidency, according to Austin Paul.
Credit goes to his grit and confidence as the project was taken up at a time when marine engineering had not developed much. He used crude methods and the dredger Lord Wellington to execute the work, he said. Austin recalls the words of his boat driver, the late Elias, who had said that the British used dry coconuts to gauge the flow of water.
The silt taken out by the dredger was used to develop a tiny land into the present Wellingdon Island which houses major offices such as Indian Navy’s southern Command office.
The house of Sir Bristow is now under the possession of the Kochi Bishop.
The office used by the British engineer is under the control of the Navy which has displayed a vessel used by the engineer at its museum in Fort Kochi.
