Last of the Nicholases

The Guardian of the Well book. | Photo credit: Special arrangement

Zhayynn James called me last month and asked if I could write the foreword for his book. I asked if it was about the Nicholases and he said yes. It is his favorite subject when he is not busy with his profession as a landscape architect and when he is not winning awards for his photography. You see, he is the last of the Nicholases.

He has patiently explained to me several times how he, James, traces his ancestry back to the Nicholases, but I always lose the thread somewhere. The important thing is that it takes us back in time to the 1880s in the history of our city. This was when seven wells in the George Town area were the main source of water for Fort St George. Initially transported by oxcart, it was piped to the fort in the 18th century from what had by then become Seven Wells, thanks to the initiative of George Baker, who profited by having a street in George Town named after him.

In the 1780s, Madras was threatened by Hyder Ali. The chief strategist determined that Seven Wells was the chicken’s neck to the fortress. Located as it were to the north of George Town, it was a bit far from the fort and in an isolated area. If the water supply to the fort could be cut off, Madras was as good as his. But he did not argue with Nicholas, “an eighteenth-century Irishman of somewhat desperate disposition in his own country”, to quote J Chartres Molony’s book of South India. This Nicholas, according to Molony, saved the water supply during the “tumultuous days of Hyder’s raids” and was appointed keeper of the Seven Wells. Not only that, but the title and the benefits that went with it were granted to the family for 125 years.

Molony claims that the savior of the water supply was Sylvester Nicholas, but HD Love, the definitive historian of our city, in his Vestiges of Old Madras, says that the first Nicholas’s first name is lost and the second in line was Sylvester. Love, which incidentally does not mention the story of the first Nicholas who stood watch over the water, gives us the line after that until 1905. Sylvester, nephew of the first Nicholas, was guardian until his death in 1858, and was succeeded by his son Joseph, who was guardian until 1871. EAS Nicholas succeeded him and remained in charge until 1905.

By the time Molony came to Madras, the care was over, but EAS Nicholas, whose first name we know from Molony as Evelyn, was still living on the premises of Seven Wells. That was one of the perks, as well as a salary of ten pagodas a month. In Sylvester’s day, it was enough for him to maintain his horse, carriage and stretcher. But in Evelyn’s time, inflation ensured it was a pittance. There are some discrepancies in the various accounts we have. According to Love, the bond expired in 1905, roughly corresponding to Hyder Ali’s invasion of Madras in 1780. Nicholas’s family records say it was from 1800 to 1925. This contradicts Molony, who writes that it ended by the time he came to Madras, which was between 1914 and 1920.

It was S. Muthiah who first introduced me to Zhayynn. We invited him to give a lecture during one Madrasa week about St. Nicholas. Which brings me to the present. Zhayynn wrote a work of fiction based on fact (Muthiah called it the faction genre). The Keeper of the Wells is the title and it’s all set to launch at the Victoria Public Hall (yay!) on July 11th. In it, the first of the Nicholases is named John. Zhayynn got this information from another Nicholas, now living somewhere abroad, who had it in his family archive. Many of the Nicholases, by the way, enjoy eternal rest in the cemetery of St. Roque in Old Washermanpet.

The book will join a subset of Madras-based fictional works upon publication. The first that comes to mind is Bithia Mary Croker’s In Old Madras, published in 1913. In it, Captain Mallender comes here in search of an uncle who has long since disappeared. Muthiah made me read it and I found very little of the city in it. We have had a few in recent years, especially in Tamil. The city came to life in the writings of Jayakanthana and Ashokamitran, to name but two. I trust Zhayynn’s, it will be added to the English corpus after release.

(Sriram V. is a writer and historian)

Published – 10 June 2026 07:30 IST