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Charles Alexander Bruce

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Charles Alexander Bruce (11 January 1793 – 23 April 1871)[1][2] was a British naval and gunboat officer, explorer and author. He is known as the father of the tea industry in Assam (which was part of the Bengal Presidency from British annexation in 1826 until 1873).[3][4]

Life

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Bruce was born at Jorhat in the Ahom Kingdom.[5] In 1809 he was a midshipman on the Indiaman Windham, sailing from England to India. The vessel was captured by French forces, twice, in the Indian Ocean, and he was taken to Mauritius. There he was imprisoned on a ship, until the British invasion of 1810. He served as an officer on a British troop ship in the invasion of Java (1811).[6] In India, he worked initially as a naval officer of the East India Company.[7]

Bruce's brother Robert brought to notice the indigenous Assamese tea plant in 1823 and told Charles of its existence.[citation needed]

In 1824, Bruce served in the First Anglo-Burmese War, during which he was posted to Sadiya and made commander of a division of gunboats.[8] When the war ended, he continued work patrolling the rivers in Assam in gunboats, under Captain Andrew Charlton, a political officer.[9]

In 1835, Bruce was charged by the British East India Company to start tea plantations, and in 1836 resigned his commission with the gunboat flotilla when he was appointed as the superintendent of the Assam tea plantations.[10] At first, the East India Company tried to plant Chinese tea in Assam, but the Chinese plants cross-pollinated with the indigenous tea plants and the experiment was considered a disaster. In Sadiya, Bruce, acting on his own initiative, planted a nursery that consisted just of indigenous plants. In 1836, he sent a sample of the manufactured tea to the tea committee in Delhi. Lord Auckland approved this and tea experts stated that the tea was "of good quality". By 1837, Bruce had a consignment delivered to the tea committee – the consignment consisted of 46 chests filled with tea from the indigenous plants.[11]

In 1838, Bruce wrote An Account of the Manufacture of the Black Tea, As Now Practised at Suddeya in Upper Assam, By The Chinamen Sent Thither For That Purpose.[12] In 1839 the first consignment of Indian tea was put up for auction in Mincing Lane, London.[6] It consisted of eight chests weighing 350 pounds, auctioned on 10 January.[11]

In 1871, Bruce received the gold medal from the Royal Society of Arts for cultivation of the indigenous tea plants in Assam.[13] He died aged 78 in Assam, where he was buried in the Christian graveyard at Tezpur.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b Francis, C. (1902). List of Inscriptions on Tombs Or Monuments in Assam. Secretariat Printing Office. p. 57.
  2. ^ Church, CNI. "Burial list at Tezpur Christian cemetery". The church of Epiphany. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  3. ^ Narain, Amarendra; Purendu Kumar; S.N. Singh (2006). Socio-economic and Political Problems of Tea Garden Workers: A Study of Assam. Mittal. p. 28. ISBN 978-8183240987.
  4. ^ Singh, Bavinder (2001). Role of Women Workers in the Tea Industry of North East India. Classical Publishing. p. 15. ISBN 978-8170543206.
  5. ^ Wikisource Buckland, C.E. (1906). "Bruce, Charles Alexander". Dictionary of Indian Biography. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Lim.
  6. ^ a b Ukers, William (14 June 2017). All About Tea. Lulu.com. pp. 146–147. ISBN 978-1-387-04007-0.
  7. ^ Jones, Stephanie (27 July 2016). Two Centuries Of Overseas Trading. Springer. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-349-07376-4.
  8. ^ Barua, Deepali (1994). Urban History of India: A Case Study. South Asia Books. p. 47. ISBN 978-8170995388.
  9. ^ Burkill, Isaac Henry (1963). Chapters on the history of botany in India. Bombay Natural History Society. p. 57.
  10. ^ Kochhar, Rajesh. Natural history in India during 18th and 19th centuries. Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali. p. 21. On 11 February 1835, Charles Bruce was appointed in charge of nurseries to be developed in Upper Assam, at Sadiya and other places (Tea Parliamentary Papers 1839 p 40; hereafter TPP). A year later, from January 1836, Bruce was designated Superintendent of Tea Plantations at a salary of Rs 400 p. m. With this appointment, Charles Bruce closed his personal business and resigned the gunboat charge.
  11. ^ a b Taknet, D.K. (2003). Siddharth Mukherjee (ed.). The heritage of Indian tea: the past, the present, and the road ahead. Indian Institute of Marwari Entrepreneurship. p. 21. ISBN 978-8185878010.
  12. ^ Bruce, Charles Alexander (1838). An Account of the Manufacture of the Black Tea, As Now Practised at Suddeya in Upper Assaam, By The Chinamen Sent Thither For That Purpose. G H Huttmann, Bengal military orphan press.
  13. ^ Committee, India (1871). Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (Volume 19 ed.). Royal Society of Arts. p. 620.
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