Residence
The Governor-General of Fort William resided in Belvedere House, Calcutta, until the early nineteenth century, when Government House was constructed. In 1854, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal took up residence there. Now, the Belvedere Estate houses the National Library of India.
Lord Wellesley, who is reputed to have said that 'India should be governed from a palace, not from a country house', constructed a grand mansion, known as Government House, between 1799 and 1803. The mansion remained in use until the capital moved from Calcutta to Delhi in 1912. Thereafter, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, who had hitherto resided in Belvedere House, was upgraded to a full Governor and transferred to Government House. Now, it serves as the residence of the Governor of the Indian state of West Bengal, and is referred to by its Hindi name Raj Bhavan.
After the capital moved from Calcutta to Delhi, the Viceroy occupied the newly-built Viceroy's House, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Though construction began in 1912, it did not conclude until 1929; the palace was not formally inaugurated until 1931. The final cost exceeded £877,000 (over £35,000,000 in modern terms) – more than twice the figure originally allocated. Today the residence, now known by the Hindi name of 'Rashtrapati Bhavan', is used by the President of India.
Throughout the British administration, Governors-General retreated to the Viceregal Lodge (Rashtrapati Niwas) at Shimla each summer to escape the heat, and the government of India moved with them. The Viceregal Lodge now houses the Indian Institute of Advanced Study.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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