Chapslee is one of the oldest estates in Shimla having been built between 1828 and 1835. It was built by Doctor Blake, a surgeon in the service of the British East India Company.
Lord Auckland, Governor General of the East India Company Territories, was a resident of the adjoining Auckland House. Finding the accommodation insufficient, he took this property first on rent and later purchased it in 1836, to house his private & Military Secretaries, ‘Aides De Camps’ (ADC's) and named it ‘Secretary’s Lodge’.
The Estate now has a school on it, and the home is run as an exclusive, heritage home by the owner Kanwar Ratanjit Singh and his family. He is the grandson of Raja Charanjit Singh of Kapurthala.
First Anglo-Afghan War
In June 1838, a tripartite treaty between the Government of India, Ranjit Singh and Shah Shuja was signed for the latter's restoration. Following this, Lord Auckland issued the Simla Manifesto announcing the intention of the Government of India to restore Shah Shuja to the throne of Afghanistan.
The ‘Simlah Manifesto’, declaring the first war with Afghanistan, was issued from ‘Secretary’s Lodge’ on 1 October 1838.[1]Lord Ellenborough, who succeeded Lord Auckland as Governor General acknowledged the failure of Lord Auckland's policy in Afghanistan. On 1 October 1842, precisely four years after the issue of the Simla Manifesto, the Government proclaimed its altered intentions.
Lord Hardinge, who succeeded Lord Ellenborough as Governor General, continued to use Secretary's Lodge as the Government Secretariat. General Peter Innes of the Bengal Army purchased Secretary's Lodge in 1848 and changed its name to Chapslee. General Innes sold the house in 1870 and, thereafter, it changed hands every few years and served as the residence of famous persons, including Colonel William Gordon (around 1877),[2]Sir Courtenay Ilbert, General Pemberton, General Sir C. E. Nairne, Surgeon-General Bradshaw, Surgeon-General Cleghorn and so on.[3]
Sir Arthur Mitford Ker, CIE, MVO, manager of the Alliance Bank, eventually purchased it in 1896,[4] and improved its looks to the way it stands today. He not only retained the original structure but enlarged it significantly.
Kanwar Ratanjit Singh, the grandson of the Late Raja Charanjit Singh of Kapurthala, is the present owner. He started a school, known as ‘Chapslee School’, on the premises in 1973 and converted the estate to a hotel in 1976. Chapslee was one of the first ‘heritage hotels’ in India.
European influence in Afghanistan has been present in the country since the Victorian era, when the competing imperial powers of Britain and Russia contested for control over Afghanistan as part of the Great Game.
George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, was an English Whig politician and colonial administrator. He was thrice First Lord of the Admiralty and also served as Governor-General of India between 1836 and 1842. The province of Auckland, which includes the present regions of Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Gisborne along with the city of Auckland, in New Zealand, was named after him.
Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough, was a British Tory politician. He was four times President of the Board of Control and also served as Governor-General of India between 1842 and 1844.
The First Anglo-Afghan War was fought between the British Empire and the Emirate of Kabul from 1838 to 1842. The British initially successfully invaded the country taking sides in a succession dispute between emir Dost Mohammad Khan (Barakzai) and former King Shah Shujah (Durrani), whom they reinstalled upon occupying Kabul in August 1839. The main British Indian force occupied Kabul and endured harsh winters. The force and its camp followers were almost completely massacred during the 1842 retreat from Kabul.
Shimla is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared as the summer capital of British India. After independence, the city became the capital of East Punjab and was later made the capital city of Himachal Pradesh. It is the principal commercial, cultural and educational centre of the state.
Chharabra is a small village situated approximately 8250 feet above sea level, 13 km from Shimla, India, on National Highway 22.
Francis Cunningham was an officer in the Madras Army, member of the Mysore Commission as secretary to Mark Cubbon, and a literary editor. He published a three volume revised edition of Gifford's Works of Ben Jonson in 1871. Cunningham road in Bangalore is named after him.
The Battle of Kabul was part of a punitive campaign undertaken by the British against the Afghans following the disastrous retreat from Kabul. Two British and East India Company armies advanced on the Afghan capital from Kandahar and Jalalabad to avenge the complete annihilation of the British-Indian military-civilian column in January 1842. Having recovered prisoners captured during the retreat, the British demolished parts of Kabul before withdrawing to India. The action was the concluding engagement to the First Anglo-Afghan War.
The Punjab States Agency was an agency of the British Raj. The agency was created in 1921, on the model of the Central India Agency and Rajputana Agency, and dealt with forty princely states in northwest India formerly dealt with by the Province of Punjab.
Major-General Sir Henry Marion Durand, was a British military officer in the Bengal Army and served as Lieutenant Governor of Punjab from 1870 until his death in 1871.
The Retreat Building is the official retreat residence of the President of India at Chharabra, Shimla, in the state of Himachal Pradesh. The President stays at the building for at least two weeks during summer and conducts official business. It is located 13 km away from the city Shimla and is a thousand feet higher than the Shimla Ridge Top, which is part of the Himalayas.
The Battle of Ghazni took place in the city of Ghazni in central Afghanistan on Tuesday, July 23, 1839, during the First Anglo-Afghan War.
Raja Sir Maharaj Singh was the first Indian Governor of Bombay. He was also the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir during Maharaja Hari Singh's rule and also the Dewan of Jodhpur for a short while. Raja Sir Maharaja Singh served as the president of the All India Conference of Indian Christians in the 1940s. He was awarded a number of knighthoods in various orders of chivalry.
Kanwar Sri Bikrama Singh Bahadur was a 19th-century Sikh leader.
Bikrama Singh's Estates Act of 1883, was an unrepealed Act of the Government of India relating to the Awadh Estates of Kanwar Bikrama Singh of Kapurthala
Bharatpur State, which is also known as the Jat State of Bharatpur historically known as the Kingdom of Bharatpur, was a Hindu Kingdom in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. It was ruled by the Sinsinwar clan of the Hindu Jats. At the time of reign of king Suraj Mal (1755–1763) revenue of the state was 17,500,000 rupees per annual.
The Council of State was the upper house of the legislature for British India created by the Government of India Act 1919 from the old Imperial Legislative Council, implementing the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms. The Central Legislative Assembly was the lower house.
St. Edward's School is a premier convent school located at Milsington Estate, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India. It is a boys-only day school. St. Edward's has been ranked among the top schools in India. It was initially affiliated to CISCE but was changed over to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) system in 2008. Today the School is managed by Simla Chandigarh Educational Society, under the Bishop of Simla Chandigarh Diocese. The school offers education from Nursery to Class XII.
The New Year Honours 1897 were appointments by Queen Victoria to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by members of the British Empire. They were published on 1 January 1897.
The New Year Honours 1903, announced at the time as the Durbar Honours, were appointments to various orders and honours of the United Kingdom and British India. The list was announced on the day of the 1903 Delhi Durbar held to celebrate the succession of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra as Emperor and Empress of India. The membership of the two Indian Orders were expanded to allow for all the new appointments.
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