Henry Hardy Cole

Among those who contributed in the early years in efforts to preserve India?s monumental heritage, the name of Major Henry Hardy Cole (1843-1916) stands out prominently for the ten folio volumes which appeared under the title Preservation of National Monuments of India published between 1881 and 1885. Appointed as the Curator of Ancient Monuments for a period of three years in 1881, H.H. Cole was asked to work out programme of conservation and to prepare a classified list of monuments of each province in British India indicating whether they were worthy ?to be kept in permanent good repair, or were decayed beyond that point but not in complete ruin, or were unimportant or irretrievably ruined.? During this tenure, he produced three reports formulating programme of conservation for the future. Writing in 1939, Sir John Marshall mentioned about Cole?s contribution as a Curator during the course of which ?apart from the actual repairs that he carried out, they may be said to have laid the foundation?. of an organized scheme of permanent conservation.? Cole also prepared twenty-two preliminary reports on certain groups of monuments in the then Bombay and Madras Presidencies, Rajputana, Hyderabad and the Punjab (in which was included the North-West Frontier). These were accompanied by illustrations and brief explanatory notes on the most famous monuments and antiquities assigned to him. Besides these Reports, Major Cole also personally supervised the repair of several of these buildings. In fact, Sir John Marshall acknowledged that ?up to 1902 his reports remained the sole works of permanent value relating to conservation, as distinct from research, among the whole bibliography representing forty years of archaeological activity in India.? (Taken from ?Introductory Note? by Shri B.M. Pande)