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Girded by 27 ft high and 25 ft broad walls on the landward side and two platforms 20 ft high and 42 ft broad on the eastern harbor side lay the Fort, in the extreme south-east corner of the roughly H-shaped Island of Bombay — one of the seven islands that coalesced to form the metropolis of Bombay of today.

Construction began around 1715 and was completed in 1745; the Fort was eventually torn down, stone by stone, in 1862, leaving no trace of its three gates: Church Gate (site of Flora Fountain today), Apollo Gate (site of Hornbill House) and Bazaar Gate (in the vicinity of Bhatia Baug, opposite VT Station), enclosing a town two miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide.

For the British, the Fort was their political, administrative and military headquarters. But the raison d’être of building the Fort was to safeguard British trade. The protection of the Fort was extended not merely to Europeans but even to native sethias, enabling them to engage in maritime trade. Within the Fort Town, they were ensured safety of life, limb and property.

These fortifications, however, were no shield against the fury of nature. Storms, cyclones and hurricanes occurred not too infrequently, bringing the Fort to its knees. One of the worst calamities to befall the Fort Town was the Great Fire of 1803.

Originating in the northern, native part of the town, the fire started in the morning and raged for several hours, a strong wind fanning the flames.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture the panic of the Fort’s dwellers as drummers scaled its ramparts to announce the catastrophe. In those days even the hint of a fire sent shivers down people’s spines because it spelt total destruction.

This was impressed upon the young mind of Sir Dinshaw Wachha. He writes in his very readable My Recollections of Bombay that a burglary was preferable to fire, as the thief could get away with gems and riches leaving the "timbering and roofery” untouched whereas fire spared "neither rafters nor roof.”

What was the fire-fighting equipment like in those days? The entire city of Bombay boasted but one fire station (not too far from today’s Afternoon House). The ceiling of the fire station was festooned with a variety of iron buckets and leather hoses. Scarcity of water compounded the situation. Even drinking water was hard to come by.

The inferno resulted in the near complete devastation of the northern part of the town. The official chronicler of Old Bombay and other sources provided an itemized list of the fire’s ravages. Over a thousand houses, three quarters of the bazaar known as Mohemed’s Market, churches, temples, five barracks and an agiary — the Hirji Vatcha Ram Modi’s Agiary built in 1672 at Modi Khana — were completely gutted. Jehangir R. P. Mody, gazetteer of Bombay city and island notes in his book on Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy that the sethia lost half his newly-acquired wealth in the fire.

As Jonathan Duncan, the then Governor of Bombay, helplessly watched the Fort Town being reduced to cinders, succor came for the scores of victims from Parsi sethias. Navroji Sorabji Sett gave his bungalow to house homeless government officials. Pestonji Bomanjee Wadia provided shelter and food to homeless Parsis in his palace at Parel.

Steps were taken by the authorities to improve the Town’s infrastructure, water supply and sanitation. A more orderly development of the Town was envisaged. Fort-dwellers who had no contribution to make towards furthering trade and commerce — the "drones” — were edged out of the crowded location.

Did a Phoenix rise out of the ashes? How safe and orderly was the redevelopment of the northern part of the Fort?

If the present spaces and cheek-by-jowl structures abutting Bora Bazar Street, Perin Nariman Street, Mody Street and  the  narrow by-lanes crisscrossing these three arteries are anything to go by, this part of the erstwhile Fort is a veritable tinder-box, ready to burst into flames at any moment.