Canning, Port
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Canning, Port
{Mdf/a). — Village in the head-quarters subdivision of the District of the Twenty-four Parganas, Bengal, situated in 22° 19' N. and 88° 39' E., at the junction of the Bidyadhari and Matla rivers. Population (1901), 1,049. Between 1853 and 1870 an attempt was made to create a port at Canning as an auxiliary to Calcutta, in con- sequence of the deterioration of the river Hooghly, which was then believed to be rapidly closing. Land was acquired by Government in 1853, and in 1862 a municipality was created, to which the land was transferred. In 1865 the Port Canning Company was formed to develop the port.
In that year it was visited by twenty-six ships, and for a time the company's shares rose at an unprecedented rate ; but the number of ships visiting the port dropped to one vessel in 1868-9, ^"^^ the failure of the scheme was then recognized. Litigation ensued, and in 1870 the company went into liquidation and was reconstructed as the ' Port Canning Land Company, Limited.' This company is under Parsi management, the shares being held in Bombay, and is engaged in leasing reclamations in the Sundarbans. The lands held by it have been sub-leased ; and the middlemen, who have again sublet them to others, reap most of the profits. Canning is now a Government estate, and the only relics of the wild speculation of the sixties are a railway which does a little traffic in timber and other produce from the Sundarbans, some ruined jetties, and the remains of a tramway line.
