British Residency, Hyderabad

Koti Residency
General information
Type	Royal mansion
Location	Hyderabad, India
Completed	Circa 1798

Koti Residency or British Residency or "Hyderabad Residency" is an opulent mansion built by James Achilles Kirkpatrick who was British Resident of Hyderabad state between 1798–1805. It is a minor tourist attraction located in the suburb of Koti, Hyderabad.

The villa is in the palladian style and similar in design to its near-contemporary in the United States, the White House. It features in the 2002 William Dalrymple book White Mughals. The house was designed by Lieutenant Samuel Russell of the Madras Engineers and construction began in 1803.

History

Kirkpatrick built the mansion for himself and his Indian wife Khair un Nissa, who bore him two surviving children who were sent to England by the age of five and never saw them again due to the early deaths of their parents.

Koti, meaning a mansion, is a huge mansion built in Palladian Georgian style. The building was at once the embassy of the East India Company to the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the residence of James Kirkpatrick, the British Resident, as well as his successors. Within its compound there were several quarters, including a zenana (women's quarters) where Khair un Nissa lived. Within the compound was a miniature of the building- legend has it that this was so Kirkpatrick's wife, who remained in purdah, could see the entire mansion, including the front. This scale model is now in ruins.

In 1949 it was converted into a women's college, Osmania University College for Women.

After a court directive to the Archaeological Survey of India, it is now a protected monument. However, the building has suffered much damage and part of the ceiling has collapsed.^[1]

British Residents at Hyderabad included:

• Major James Achilles Kirkpatrick (1797–1805)
• Captain Thomas Sydenham (1806–1810)
• Sir Henry Russell (1811–1820)
• Lord Charles Metcalfe (1820–1825)
• Colonel Cuthbert Davidson (1857–1862)
• Sir Richard Temple (1867–1868)
• C. B. Saunders (1868-1872)
• Sir Richard Meade (1875-1881)
• John Graham Cordery (1883–1888)
• Sir Trevor Chichele Plowden (1891–1900)
• Michael O'Dwyer (1908–1909)
• Colonel Alexander Pinhey (1911–1916)
• Sir Stuart Fraser (1916–1919)
• Sir Lennox Russell (1919–1925)
• Sir Duncan Mackenzie (1935–1938)
• Sir Arthur Lothian (1942–1946)

^[2]

References

1. "The British Residency in Hyderabad". Minor Sights. May 2014. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
2. http://www.hindu.com/2006/08/31/stories/2006083123110400.htm

http://www.amazon.com/White-Mughals-Betrayal-Eighteenth-Century-India/dp/014200412X