Arthur Crawford
Arthur Crawford | |
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Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai (1865-1871) |
Arthur Travers Crawford (1835–1911) was a British government employee and the first
. Crawford was famous as an able administrator as well as for his allegedly, underhand financial dealings.Crawford acquired the Agri-Horticulture Society's gardens at Sewri in order to build the European cemetery in 1865. Crawford Market in South Mumbai was named after him. When he took over as Commissioner, water supply was scanty, garbage was piling up and the mortality rate was a high 40 per 1,000. Crawford cleaned the streets, fixed the drains and lowered the mortality rate by half from 35,000 to 18,000 over the next two years. However his plans greatly overshot the civic budget and he was accused of financial mismanagement after he refused to heed to warnings that the deficit was ever widening. While criticised by many, he was defended by lawyer Pherozeshah Mehta during the Municipal controversy circa 1870.
Later in his career it was alleged that Crawford had accepted bribes from
According to Govid Talwalkar's author of Gopal Krishna Gokhale: His Life and Times, a June 1890
Back in London, he penned his memoirs on his life in India, titled Our Troubles in Poona and the Deccan which was published in 1897. He described many communities in the Bombay region along with their sketches. He meted out special harsh criticism on
References
- Our Troubles in Poona and the Deccan, Arthur Crawford, Archibald Constable & Co., London, UK, 1897.
- Arthur Crawford – TIFR Mumbai pages
- Arthur Crawford who?; Mid-day; Alpana Lath Sawai; August 14, 2005
- The colourful Arthur Crawford; Nina Martyris/Times of India, Mumbai; pg-2; 2006-04-01
- The Arthur Crawford Scandal: Corruption, Governance, and Indian Victims, Michael D. Metelits, Oxford, 2020