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Two roads, one name
Reader Venkat wonders whether cities should encourage the habit of two roads in different areas having the same name. And if they do not mind such indulgence, whether they shouldn’t create separate identities for such roads by prefixing the nam
es with the initials of the respective persons after whom the roads had been named. He has found it particularly difficult to differentiate between the two Hall’s Roads in Madras. One of these roads is in Egmore and leads on from Gandhi Irwin Road to Casa Major Road. The other is in Kilpauk, connecting Taylor’s Road with Kilpauk Garden Road.
Origins of the Egmore Hall’s Road I’ve been able to trace. It would appear that it took its name from General Hamilton Hall or his widow Flora who owned two houses on this road. They owned College Bridge House and Egmore House, but whether they were on what became Hall’s Road is uncertain. General Hall died in Trichinopoly in 1827 while commanding the southern division of the Madras Army.
As for the other Hall’s Road, there’s no information at all. But one possibility is it might have been named after James Stuart Hall, who arrived in Madras in 1775 and was an advocate. Besides practising law, he also edited The Courier.
But where there is a possibility in the Hall’s Road case of there having been two Halls, an even more curious case is that of the two Dr. Nair Roads in Madras – one in Egmore and the other in T’Nagar. Making this even more curious is the retention of the caste name – anathema to the Government – in both cases. And still more curious is the fact that, I think, the two roads refer to the same person, Dr. T.M. Nair, who helped found the Justice Party.
S. MUTHIAH
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