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Numbers didn't count: the streets of colonial Bombay and Calcutta*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2012

RICHARD HARRIS  and
ROBERT LEWIS
RICHARD HARRIS
Affiliation:
School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada
ROBERT LEWIS
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Program in Planning, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3, Canada
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Abstract:

Street and house numbers are part of the modern state's geo-locational regime, by which people and places are made legible to distant governments and bureaucrats. Some writers have suggested that they were important in colonial cities, where urban regulation and political control was often insecure, but we know little about their extent and significance in such settings. Bombay and Calcutta c.1901 are significant test cases, being two of the largest colonial cities in the world, as well as being recent sites of major disease outbreaks. City directories in Bombay, together with property assessment and census evidence for Calcutta, show that house numbers were rare for all types of property and people. Local residents used other methods to navigate the city, while British administrators did not believe house numbers to be an important aspect of colonial rule. Fragmentary evidence for other colonial cities suggests that the experience of these Indian cities was broadly typical.

Type
History of Urban House Numbering
Information
Urban History , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , November 2012 , pp. 639 - 658
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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Footnotes

*

We would like to thank Nick Lombardo for assistance with the analysis and maps. We are grateful to the editors of this special issue, together with an anonymous reviewer, for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided financial support.

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