So I had the good fortune of venturing on a short trip over the last weekend to Chennai and thereabouts. The 'thereabouts' bit of the journey included the requirement of taking a short train journey from the Chennai Central railway station early in the morning. I entered the station and realised that this station looks very much like the VT (CST) station in Mumbai and probably, since the Brits built it, would look like the King's Cross station in London as well. My sleep-addled brain was wondering whether I should make the dumb old - "Should we check for Platform 9 and three-quarters... He he he.." joke to Nikhila and thankfully, she spotted something else before I made this eyeroll-worthy comment.
She spotted a book-store called Higginbotham's. If you're from South India and travelled a fair bit by train, you might have spotted this book-store at railway stations when you wanted to buy a Tinkle or Archies comic digest for the journey. However, this time, the name of the bookstore piqued my curiosity (the blatant 'British-ness' of it) instead of my usual yearning to read about Archie's latest antics. Therefore, I made a mental note to read about this bookstore and hopefully, blog about it if it had an interesting history.
So did it have an interesting history? Damn right it did!
Before we get to the story, let's get some of its milestones out of the way first :
India's oldest existing bookstore? - Yup. Since 1844.
Largest bookstore in India? - Yup, until the 1990s.
Did the first ever murder in a bookstore happen here? - Nope
So why did I mention the last milestone? - Because I didn't find any more 'milestones' and I wanted to list more than two milestones.
Okay sorry. Let's get to the story.
Higginbotham's was founded by a Brit called Higginbotham. Abel Joshua Higginbotham. Although it would have been fun if his first name was also Higginbotham. Higginbotham Higginbotham. Then the store would have been called Higginbothams' instead of Higginbotham's.
Lol.
Okay okay. Back to the story.
Abel was a librarian by profession and he reached India as a stowaway on a ship sometime in the early 1840s. He was apparently ejected by his ship's captain in the Madras port after he was discovered (He successfully hid all the way from England to Madras. That's some mad hiding skills). In Madras, he found employment as a librarian at a bookstore run by Protestant Missionaries called the Weslyan Book Store. The store only sold religious books and, not surprisingly, suffered heavy financial losses. Our man Abel then told them Protestant monks to chill while he bought the business from them for cheap. First thing he did was some rebranding and changed the name of the store to HIGGIN-FRICKIN-BOTHAM'S.
He also changed the business model of the store and started sourcing all kinds of books, not just religious ones but also the "ungodly" scientific textbooks and novels that were in demand. He slowly built a formidable collection of books and made a name for himself in the city. But his business got a real boost when John Murray, a popular British publisher, described the store as "the premier bookshop in Madras" in his Guidebook to the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay (1859). Another influencer recommendation that Abel could wrangle was from the Governor of Madras, Lord Trevelyan, who wrote to Lord Macaulay (he's the guy who forced English education on Indians and completely upended the existing education system) praising the store -
Among the many elusive and indescribable charms of life in Madras City, is the existence of my favourite book shop 'Higginbotham's' on Mount Road. In this bookshop I can see beautiful editions of the works of Socrates, Plato, Euripides, Aristophanes, Pindar, Horace, Petrarch, Tasso, Camoyens, Calderon and Racine. I can get the latest editions of Victor Hugo, the great French novelist. Amongst the German writers, I can have Schiller and Goethe. Altogether a delightful place for the casual browser and a serious book lover.
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higginbotham%27s>
So, all in all, Abel ensured he developed a formidable reputation for his store and the company soon got into selling stationery, publishing and printing its own books. The first book they ever published was a cook-book called 'Sweet Dishes: A Little Treatise on Confectionary', essentially a guidebook for the local Brits to teach their Indian cooks how to make English dishes (The book is available on Amazon).
During his lifetime, his store played host to a lot of celebrities of that age including the Prince of Wales and was the unofficial printing partner for the British Raj in India. Abel was also made the Sherriff of Madras in 1888 and 1889. As he grew older, his son took over the business who expanded the business to Bangalore as well.
Higginbotham's grew from strength to strength in the early 20th century, and at one point, had 400 employees! 400! Imagine a bookstore employing so many people (This should have been part of my milestones list. *facepalm*). In the 1940s, it was taken over by an Indian company called Amalgamations Group but it was continued to be named after this stowaway librarian.
Higginbotham's currently runs around 22 outlets across South India. So next time you spot the store, you know what to do. Read my blog (Please).
She spotted a book-store called Higginbotham's. If you're from South India and travelled a fair bit by train, you might have spotted this book-store at railway stations when you wanted to buy a Tinkle or Archies comic digest for the journey. However, this time, the name of the bookstore piqued my curiosity (the blatant 'British-ness' of it) instead of my usual yearning to read about Archie's latest antics. Therefore, I made a mental note to read about this bookstore and hopefully, blog about it if it had an interesting history.
So did it have an interesting history? Damn right it did!
Before we get to the story, let's get some of its milestones out of the way first :
India's oldest existing bookstore? - Yup. Since 1844.
Largest bookstore in India? - Yup, until the 1990s.
Did the first ever murder in a bookstore happen here? - Nope
So why did I mention the last milestone? - Because I didn't find any more 'milestones' and I wanted to list more than two milestones.
Okay sorry. Let's get to the story.
Higginbotham's was founded by a Brit called Higginbotham. Abel Joshua Higginbotham. Although it would have been fun if his first name was also Higginbotham. Higginbotham Higginbotham. Then the store would have been called Higginbothams' instead of Higginbotham's.
Lol.
Okay okay. Back to the story.
Abel was a librarian by profession and he reached India as a stowaway on a ship sometime in the early 1840s. He was apparently ejected by his ship's captain in the Madras port after he was discovered (He successfully hid all the way from England to Madras. That's some mad hiding skills). In Madras, he found employment as a librarian at a bookstore run by Protestant Missionaries called the Weslyan Book Store. The store only sold religious books and, not surprisingly, suffered heavy financial losses. Our man Abel then told them Protestant monks to chill while he bought the business from them for cheap. First thing he did was some rebranding and changed the name of the store to HIGGIN-FRICKIN-BOTHAM'S.
He also changed the business model of the store and started sourcing all kinds of books, not just religious ones but also the "ungodly" scientific textbooks and novels that were in demand. He slowly built a formidable collection of books and made a name for himself in the city. But his business got a real boost when John Murray, a popular British publisher, described the store as "the premier bookshop in Madras" in his Guidebook to the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay (1859). Another influencer recommendation that Abel could wrangle was from the Governor of Madras, Lord Trevelyan, who wrote to Lord Macaulay (he's the guy who forced English education on Indians and completely upended the existing education system) praising the store -
Among the many elusive and indescribable charms of life in Madras City, is the existence of my favourite book shop 'Higginbotham's' on Mount Road. In this bookshop I can see beautiful editions of the works of Socrates, Plato, Euripides, Aristophanes, Pindar, Horace, Petrarch, Tasso, Camoyens, Calderon and Racine. I can get the latest editions of Victor Hugo, the great French novelist. Amongst the German writers, I can have Schiller and Goethe. Altogether a delightful place for the casual browser and a serious book lover.
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higginbotham%27s>
So, all in all, Abel ensured he developed a formidable reputation for his store and the company soon got into selling stationery, publishing and printing its own books. The first book they ever published was a cook-book called 'Sweet Dishes: A Little Treatise on Confectionary', essentially a guidebook for the local Brits to teach their Indian cooks how to make English dishes (The book is available on Amazon).
During his lifetime, his store played host to a lot of celebrities of that age including the Prince of Wales and was the unofficial printing partner for the British Raj in India. Abel was also made the Sherriff of Madras in 1888 and 1889. As he grew older, his son took over the business who expanded the business to Bangalore as well.
Higginbotham's grew from strength to strength in the early 20th century, and at one point, had 400 employees! 400! Imagine a bookstore employing so many people (This should have been part of my milestones list. *facepalm*). In the 1940s, it was taken over by an Indian company called Amalgamations Group but it was continued to be named after this stowaway librarian.
Higginbotham's currently runs around 22 outlets across South India. So next time you spot the store, you know what to do. Read my blog (Please).
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