Tamil Nadu Timeline

InfrastructureEast India Company rule

Ellis orders new wells during the Madras water shortage

· Royapettah

During a severe drinking water shortage in Madras, Collector Francis Whyte Ellis had 27 wells dug, one bearing a Tamil inscription honouring Thiruvalluvar.

In 1818 Madras suffered a severe shortage of drinking water. Francis Whyte Ellis, then Collector of Madras, ordered 27 wells to be dug in the town. An inscription on one of them, at the Periya Palayathamman temple in Royapettah, praises Thiruvalluvar and quotes a Tirukkural couplet to explain his actions. Ellis, a scholar of Tamil and Sanskrit, died at Ramanathapuram in 1819.

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