Lahore - The City of Gardens

01/01/2025

1st January 1936-7 Lahore Photos and Rights: Emmy Eustace (Thanks for granting permission to Project Lahore ) These photos were taken on January 1st 1936 New Year day and January 1st 1937 Proclamation Day by my father JCW Eustace who was with the ICS up to Independence and who returned to Pakistan on trips for work in the 50's and 60's.

26/12/2024

Bapsi Sidhwa, one of Pakistan’s most acclaimed English-language novelists, died in Houston, Texas in the United States on Wednesday, Dawn reported. She was 86 years old.

Sidhwa was born in 1938 in Karachi to a Gujarati Parsi family. She grew up in Lahore, where she witnessed firsthand the impact of the Partition in 1947, an experience that shaped her writing.

Sidhwa received her BA from Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore in 1957. She immigrated to the United States in 1983.

Sidhwa has been widely celebrated as one of the finest novelists from Pakistan. Her works include The Crow Eaters, An American Brat, The Pakistani Bride and City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore.

22/09/2024

Nedous Hotel Lahore Est. 1880 (now stands Avari Hotel)

The Nedou’s hotel was founded by Michael Adam Nedou, who came from the medieval port city of Ragusa ( Dubrovnik). Michael Adam Nedou an architect by profession was in India to construct a palace for the erstwhile Maharaja Of Gujarat and that’s how the Nedou’s journey began.
The Nedou’s built their first hotel in Lahore in 1880 and it was long known for being a gracious & beautiful building situated in one of the best areas of Lahore facing Mall Road, adjacent to Mela Ram's Building (where now stands WAPDA house).

By the early 1950s, it ceased to be Nidois hotel, as it was converted into an office of West Pakistan Public Relations Department. Later, in the late fiftees, it came to be known as Park Luxury hotel when a new structure was erected in its place by demolishing the original one. After over a decade, Park Luxury hotel was also demolished and a new structure (Present Avari) was put in its place, but then it was named as Hilton Hotel. In the early 1970s its nomenclature was changed to Avari Hotel, when Behram D Avari took charge of its management.

Nedous Family, Lawrence of Arabia and Sheikh Abdullah:-

Michael Adam Nedou's son Harry Nedous was the businessman; his brothers, W***y and Wally, willied and wallied around; his sister, Enid, took charge of the catering and her pâtisserie at their Lahore hotel was considered ‘as good as anything in Europe’.

Harry Nedous married to a Kashmiri girl (a milkmaid) - Harry Nedous first caught sight of Mir Jan when she came to deliver the milk at his holiday lodge in Gulmarg (Kashmir). He was immediately smitten, but she was suspicious. ‘I might be poor,’ she told him later that week, ‘but I am not for sale.’ Harry pleaded that he was serious, that he loved her, that he wanted to marry her. ‘In that case,’ she retorted wrathfully, ‘you must convert to Islam. I cannot marry an unbeliever.’ To her amazement, he did so, and in time they had 12 children (only five of whom survived). Brought up as a devout Muslim.

Their daughter Akbar Jehan (Later wife of Sheikh Abdullah) was a boarder at the Convent of Jesus and Mary in the hill resort of Murree.

According to writer Tariq Ali, in his book "Bitter Chill of Winter" about Akbar Jehan's first marriage with Col T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) was not the lifelong bachelor he has been made out as. He went through a brief marriage in Lahore. This was revealed to Tariq Ali by a senior civil servant from Kashmir who had been told by Benji Nedous, the brother of the bride. Ali said, While Lawrence was stationed in India he used to go to the city of Lahore like many other officers, to relax. It was known as the Paris of the East and the Nedous family had a hotel there that was popular with soldiers wanting to rest and drink and so on, and that is where he met her

In 1928, when a 17-year-old Akbar Jehan had left school and was back in Lahore, a senior figure in British Military Intelligence checked in to the Nedous Hotel on the Upper Mall. Colonel T.E. Lawrence, complete with Valentino-style headgear, had just spent a gruelling few weeks in Afghanistan destabilising the radical, modernising and anti-British regime of King Amanullah. Disguised as ‘Karam Shah’, a visiting Arab cleric, he had organised a black propaganda campaign designed to stoke the religious fervour of the more reactionary tribes and thus provoke a civil war. His mission accomplished, he left for Lahore. Akbar Jehan must have met him at her father’s hotel. A flirtation began and got out of control. Her father insisted that they get married immediately; which they did. Three months later, in January 1929, Amanullah was toppled and replaced by a pro-British ruler. On 12 January, Kipling’s old newspaper in Lahore, the imperialist Civil and Military Gazette, published comparative profiles of Lawrence and ‘Karam Shah’ to reinforce the impression that they were two different people. Several weeks later, the Calcutta newspaper Liberty reported that ‘Karam Shah’ was indeed the ‘British spy Lawrence’ and gave a detailed account of his activities in Waziristan on the Afghan frontier. Lawrence was becoming a liability and the authorities told him to return to Britain. ‘Karam Shah’ was never seen again. Nedous insisted on a divorce for his daughter and again Lawrence obliged. Four years later, Sheikh Abdullah and Akbar Jehan were married in Srinagar. The fact of her previous marriage and divorce was never a secret: only the real name of her first husband was hidden. She now threw herself into the struggle for a new Kashmir.

She raised money to build schools for poor children and encouraged adult education in a state where the bulk of the population was illiterate. She also, crucially, gave support and advice to her husband, alerting him, for example, to the dangers of succumbing to Nehru’s charm and thus compromising his own standing in Kashmir, and died on July 11, 2000)

11/09/2024

A 1948 Rare Footage of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Madar-e-Millat Fatima Jinnah at Lawrence Gardens -

09/09/2024

Public flogging at ca. 1978

08/09/2024

Indian War Prisoners playing games at POW Camp - c. 1965

02/09/2024

G. R. Dasmal & Brothers Bus and Taxi Service - c. 1910-20s

G. R. Dasmal & Brothers Bus and Taxi Service - c. 1910-20s
- Lahore - The City of Gardens

14/08/2024

Promise of Pakistan

14/08/2024

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

PAKISTAN, EK NAI MANZIL - to 1947

PAKISTAN, EK NAI MANZIL - to

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Lahore - The City of Gardens
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30/06/2024

John D. Bevan & Co, Piano Dealer, Mela Ram Building - The Mall - Lahore c. late 1910's

Founded by Mr. John D. Bevan in 1883, first Piano Dealer shop in Lahore on Mall.
- lahore.city-history.com

25/06/2024

Outside Lahore Fort c. mid 1930s
Courtesy: Emy Eustace, UK (Rights Reserved)

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16/06/2024

Lahore Power Plant c. 1917

In February, 1912 the Lahore Electric Supply Company was formed with a capital of Rs. 5,00,000. The Company was registered on March 21, 1912. Lala Harkishen Lal became the first Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company. The construction of the equipment having been completed, supply was commenced on November, 18 1912 though the grant of the licence was not formally gazette till full seven days later.

The opening ceremony was performed in the Gol Bagh by the then Lieutenant Governor, His Honour Sir Louis Dane. The gardens lights, a unique spectacle for the citizens of Lahore.

The Government buildings were the first to be electrified. Applications for connections poured in fast. Within a few months (upto the close of the financial year ending March 31, 1913). The number of consumers had reached 98. By the next year the figure reached 542, and in the subsequent year rose to 884.

The Company ordered out one 150 Kilowatt Diesel generating set from the British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company Limited, one 150 Kilowatt rotary convertor and the necessary
The Company made the best of a bad bargain and arranged to given Direct Current supply to the city by extending mains from the civil station and converting the distribution mains from Alternating Current system to the Director Current System about the end of December, 1916.

The source of Direct Current supply being too far from the city area, the supply within the walled city was defective. It was then decided to continue the Direct Current supply in the city by converting the Alternating Current supply generated at the Mcleod Road Power House by making some make-shift arrangement. This was helped by the 6600-volt underground cable already laid between Mcleod Road Power House and Lauge Mandi sub-station and the rotary convertor already erected at the latter place. A low tension alternator, which was received with the Durbar plant from the Irrigation Department, replaced the D.C generator of one of the generating sets in use.

In 1917 and 1918 the Company was able to declare a dividend of 12 per cent. During these years the demand for energy exceeded the available supply capacity. The Company, however, succeeded in purchasing locally two Babcock and Wilcox water tube boilers, complete with mechanical stokers. Additional generating sets were not found till 1920 when one 300 kilowatt steam-engine set was obtained from England. In the same year, two new Lancashire boilers, one induced draft fan, super-heaters and economizers were ordered out and put into service the next year.

Towards the close of the year 1918, the Company decided to re-organize and a scheme was prepared to provide an up-to-date electric supply scheme in order to meet all requirements of the future, including the municipal street lighting and the requirements of Lahore Cantonment. A plot of land was purchased at Badami Bagh for an up-to-date central power station. The Military Authorities, however, dis-approved of the proposed central station site at Badami Bagh. They desired, for military reasons, that a site nearer the Cantonment should be selected. It was therefore , decided to have a site on Mayo Road, but until 1920 no site could be secured owing to prolonged correspondence that look place between the company and the Military Authorities, on the one hand, and the Company and the Government, on the other, on the subject.

Source: History of Lahore Electric Supply Company

11/06/2024

Life in Lahore c. 1969-71