John Sullivan

The British colonial rule had its share of English administrators who truly loved India and contributed significantly to the welfare of the local people. John Sullivan, who was the Collector of Coimbatore from 1815 to 1830 was one such. No other Englishman, indeed no Indian, had a greater or more long-lasting impact on the life of the Nilgiris than John Sullivan. ‘It is to the energy and enthusiasm of this friend of the native that we owe the final colonization of the hills’ observed the Nilgiri Manual in 1880.

Birth: Sullivan was born in London on 15 June 1788, and baptised on 2 July in the Parish Church of St. George, south of Hannover Square. His parents, Stephen and Ann Sullivan, had him educated privately in arithmetic and merchant accounting.

Indian job: In Aug. 1803, Sullivan, 15-year old then, was nominated for a Writership, a clerical position, in the Madras establishment of the East India Company. His nomination came from Jacob Bosanquet, then Chairman of the Board of Commissioners, on the recommendation of Sullivan’s own father, Stephen John Sullivan, who had previously been in the Madras establishment himself.

Parents: Sullivan’s father joined the Company in 1778 and was the British Resident at the Court of Tanjore (Thanjavur) in 1782. His father, Laurence Sullivan was also been an influential politician, a Director in the Company., and opposed Robert Clive. Stephen Sullivan also possessed the same progressive characteristics of his son and was known for this ‘enlightened zeal in the cause of native education’. Stephen Sullivan had established several schools around Tanjore which promoted the progressive idea of an English-medium education.

A summary of Career of John Sullivan

1788 Born in London on 15 June.

1804 Writer, in Madras.

1805 Assistant to the Secretary, Revenue and Judicial Dept.

1806 Court Registrar, Chittaput, South Arcot District.

1807 Assistant to the Chief Secretary in the Secret, Political and Foreign Dept.

1809 Now 21 years old, he was Acting Asst. to the British Resident at Mysore.

1811-14 In England studying?

1814 Collector at Chingleput (Chengalpattu).

1815 Special Revenue Commissioner in Coimbatore.

1815-30 Permanent Collector of Coimbatore (including the Nilgiris).

1819 First two visits to the Nilgiri Hills; built cottage at Dimhatti.

1819-21Administrative work in Madras.

1820 Member, Board of Revenue; married Henrietta Cecilia Harington on 2 Feb.

1821 First visit to Ootacamund, Feb. 2; young son dies in Coimbatore in July.

1822 Started building ‘Stonehouse’ at Ootacamund.

1823-27 Mostly in Ootacamund with his family.

1828 Ootacamund made into a military cantonment, and thus taken from Sullivan’s control.

1830-35 On absentee allowance in England; on 9 Feb. 1832 appeared before a Select Committee of the House of Commons to give evidence on revenue matters.

1835-36 Resigned his appointment as Member of Council and was made Judge of the Faujdari Adalat and also Senior Member of the Board of Revenue. Being permitted to reside where he liked, he chose Ootacamund.

1836-41 President of the Revenue, Marine, and College boards.

1838 His wife Henrietta and eldest daughter Harriet died in Ootacamund; both buried in St. Stephen’s Church.

1839 Member of the Governor’s Council.

1841 Retired in May from the M.C.S., with an annuity from the Company’s fund; he had seven children to bring up.

1855 Died in England on 16 Jan., aged 66.

Henrietta Sullivan: Henrietta (Mrs. Sullivan) was carried up from the plains in 1820, then a 17-year-old bride and the first European lady to visit the Nilgiris; in 1822 Harriet Ann, her first surviving child, was born; and in 1823 she started housekeeping in Ootacamund. Henrietta Sullivan was in fact destined to die there, in 1838. There is a memorial to her and two of her children in St. Stephen’s Church. Their eldest son, born in Coimbatore but baptised in ‘Stonehouse’ in May of 1823, became the first recorded baptism in Ootacamund. (Despite their Irish name, SuŒilleabhaŒin in Gaelic, the Sullivans were English Protestants.) In 1872 a new font was installed in the church in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan.

Retirement: John Sullivan himself retired to England in 1841 on an annuity, an immensely productive but rather tragic figure who had already buried his wife and two children in Ootacamund, but still had seven more children to care for. One of them, following in the family tradition, was his second son,

Sullivan’s Son: Henry Edward Sullivan, who was born in London on 28 Nov. 1830, was educated there at Kensington Grammar School, and then at the East India College at Haileybury, Herts., joined the M.C.S. in 1850, and later also became the Collector of Coimbatore (1869, where he played host to Madame Blavatsky. He was made a Companion of the Star of India (C.S.I.) in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List, 1886, when he too retired on a government pension. Henry Sullivan died, probably at his home in Southsea, on 2 Dec. 1905.

Death: John Sullivan himself died in England on 16 Jan. 1855. He left behind a flourishing new town, India’s first Hill Station starting a town from the bare earth. Sullivan’s permanent residence at Ooty greatly enhanced his enterprises to make Ooty the most attractive hill resort in the British Indian Empire and perhaps in the whole of the Eastern hemisphere. (Photo to be added)