The Artist who campaigned for Animal Rights

If one walks down the footpath along the Writer's Building in Kolkata towards the church of St. Andrews, he or she will discover a little white monument at the edge of the footpath, just in front of a police outpost. Located in the heart of the administrative district of the city, this little monument was dedicated to a man named Colesworthy Grant. The plaque on the monument will inform the reader that, the monument was erected in the year 1881 in memory of a man who founded the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals but will say little more about the man who played a pioneering role for animal rights in this country.

Campaigns against cruelty to animals found prominence in Britain during the early decades of the 19th Century. These campaigns achieved some success through the efforts of Colonel Richard Martin, an Irish politician, who was instrumental in introducing a legislation against the cruel treatment of cattle. The act passed in 1822, was of the first pieces of animal rights legislation. Martin’s another lasting legacy was the foundation of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1824. The society, currently one of the largest of its kind in the world, made its way to India through the efforts of Colesworthy Grant.

One of Grant’s comrades at the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was Pyarichand Mitra, who penned a brief biography of Grant after his death. This biography by Pyarichand Mitra, who himself is credited with writing the first Bengali novel among other things, is our primary source of information on Grant. According to Mitra, Grant, who had both Scottish and Irish origins, came to Calcutta in 1832 at the age of nineteen. Grant joined his elder brother, who had an established business of clock-making and designing mathematical instruments in the city. The biography though offers very little information about Grant’s education and training. But we learn from the Indian Monthly Review that he was a self-taught artist and was soon making a name for himself from his lithographic portraits.

Grant’s sketches were published in a number of contemporary periodicals including the Indian Review, Calcutta Review, Calcutta Christian Observer and the India Sporting Review. These early works were mostly studies of prominent personalities of the city. Grant made a total of 169 such sketches, between 1838 to 1850. The sketch that we see below, is of James Prinsep, the man who rediscovered Emperor Ashoka by deciphering the Ashokan edicts. The likenesses of some of the important public figures of 19th Century Calcutta like Prinsep, have only survived in these sketches made by Colesworthy Grant. As was the custom of the colonial period, Grant also contributed in the ethnological study of the native castes and professional classes.  These studies were later published under the title of Oriental Heads.

James Prinsep's Lithographic Sketch

Grant’s‘ ability to offer vivid pictures of people and their customs was also to be found in his writings. This was evident in the accounts of the tours that he made to Rangoon (now Yangon, the capital of Myanmar) and to Mulnath, an Indigo factory in the present day district of Nadia in West Bengal. These travelogues were adorned with Grant’s sketches. Grant also wrote a narrative on Anglo-Indian Domestic life in the city of Calcutta. This particular work was gleaned from the letters that Grant wrote to his mother back home. The letters besides offering a more personal view on the domestic life of the Europeans in Calcutta, also reveal Grant's growing fondness for the city of Calcutta.

Elephant Palace, Amarapura

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Grant’s attachment to the city of Calcutta, first became apparent in his commitment for the Calcutta Mechanics Institution. The objective of this institution founded in 1839, was to impart training in ‘useful knowledge’. Grant, already an established artist took classes on drawing. The Calcutta Mechanics Institution despite the efforts of Grant and his elder brother among others, did not survive for long. However, two future Calcutta institutions had their roots in the Calcutta Mechanics Institution, namely the Bengal Engineering College (now the Indian Institute of Engineering, Science, and Technology, Shibpur) and the Government Art College. The Bengal Engineering when it was founded in 1857, initially operated from the premises of the Presidency College. Grant became the teacher of drawing at the Civil Engineering Department, a post that he held till his death in 1880. The respect and popularity that Grant earned as a teacher is evident from the memorial plaque that was installed by his students at the auditorium of the Bengal Engineering College.

Colesworthy Grant's Memorial Plaque at IISER, Shibpur

Colesworthy Grant’s artistic talent was also recognized in the other major educational institution of the city, the Calcutta Medical College. He was invited by Dr. F.J. Mouat, to be part of his ambitious project of compiling the bilingual anatomical atlas in English and Hindi. The anatomical drawings that went in the compilation were sketched by Colesworthy Grant.

Illustrations from Mouat's Anatomical Atlas

But when Grant passed away in 1880, it was his role as a crusader for animal rights, that was chiefly remembered. Mitra recalls in his biography that, how Grant was distressed with the way, “the cattle and horses were unmercifully used, and while they suffered, there was no one to plead for the alleviation of their suffering.” Grant’s efforts to systematize the campaigns for animal rights, materialized on 4th October 1861, when the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Calcutta branch was founded. The objectives of the Society included generation of public consciousness against cruelty to animals through publications and by reaching out to the educational institutions. The Society was also successful in introducing two legislations for animal rights, Act V and Act XV, “for prosecuting individuals guilty of inhumanity to animals.” The legacy of Colesworthy Grant can still be found alive in the city of Kolkata, as the hospital founded by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, continues to attend the sick and wounded animals to this day.

Calcutta Society for Prevention of cruelty to Animals Hospital at Bowbazar Street.