Author: Will

One of the most iconic downtown buildings, the High Court building was completed in 1911. It was built on what had been the site of the dramatically titled Death Gate. This was the north-west entrance to the small town of Rangoon, which at the time sat on an island surrounded by swampy marsh. Dead bodies left the town through this gate, and so did convicted criminals being taken to the execution grounds. Those grounds are now buried somewhere under the middle block of 25th and 26th street. Originally the court had a lake in front of it, taking up part of what is now Mahabandoola Park.

“The Government of India, under the control of the Secretary of State in Council, is the supreme authority in Burma. All revenue collected in Burma belongs primarily to the Government of India and the Secretary of State; all the expenditure incurred in Burma is spent on their behalf.”
– M.F.Gauntlet, Accountant-General, in 20th Century Impressions of Burma, 1910

Britain’s colonies were first and foremost a business that had to be profitable. Ownership of revenue was divided between the local British administration and the imperial British government in India, to which it reported. Division was generally done by sector; profits from key strategic industries were controlled centrally, and less crucial ones by local government. It was the responsibility of the Accountant-General that revenue was correctly collected and sent to British India, and that rules were followed on how the remainder could be spent. In the grand bureaucracy of the colonial administration, it was a hugely important position.

The oldest original mosque in the city, the Surti Sunni Jamah Mosque was built in the 1860s by the Sunni community from Western India. It’s apparently on the site of the first ever mosque in the city, built around 1826 but destroyed in the second Anglo-Burmese war. Surti Sunni Jamah sits on what was then Mogul Street, now Shwebonthar, at the heart of the traditionally Indian section of downtown.