The Rajabai Tower is a clock tower in

South Mumbai South Mumbai, colloquially SoBo from South Bombay in Anglo-Indian English, administratively the Mumbai City District, is the city centre and the southernmost precinct of Greater Bombay. It extends from Colaba to Mahim and Sion neighbour ...

India. It is in the confines of the

Fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

campus of the

University of Mumbai The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed h ...

. It stands at a height of 85 m (280 ft or 25 storeys). The tower is part of

The Victorian and Art Deco Ensemble of Mumbai The Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Bombay is a collection of 19th-century Victorian Revival public and 20th-century Mumbai Art Deco private buildings in the Fort precinct of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. This ensemble was declared ...

, which was added to the list of

World Heritage Sites A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

in 2018.

History

The Rajabai Clock Tower was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, an English architect. He modeled it on Big Ben in London.The foundation stone was laid on 1 March 1869 and construction was completed in November 1878. The total cost of construction came to ₹555000, a large amount of money for the time period. A portion of the total cost of construction was donated by

Premchand Roychand Premchand Roychand was a 19th-century Indian Jain businessman known as the "Cotton King" and "Bullion King" from Bombay. Life Premchand Raichand was born in 1832 in a Porwal Jain family. He was the son of Roychand Dipchand, a merchant from Su ...

, a wealthy broker who founded the

Bombay Stock Exchange BSE Limited, also known as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is an Indian stock exchange. It is located on Dalal Street in Mumbai. Established in 1875 by cotton merchant Premchand Roychand, a Jain businessman, it is the oldest stock exchange i ...

on the condition that the tower be named after his mother Rajabai. Premchand Roychand's mother was blind and as a staunch follower of

Jain Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

religion, she was supposed to consume her dinner before the evening. Legend says that the evening bell of the tower helped her to know the time without anyone's help. The tower was closed to the public after it became a frequent spot for those attempting to commit suicide.

Structure

The tower was built in a fusion of Venetian and Gothic styles. It is built out of the locally available buff coloured Kurla stone. The tower has one of the best stained glass windows in the city. Bombay University Hall Rajabai Tower

The ground floor has two side rooms, each measuring 56 × 27.5 ft (17 × 8.5 m). The tower forms a carriage porch 2.4 m² (26 ft²), and a spiral staircase vestibule of 2.6 m² (28 ft²). The Tower, over the carriage porch, has a square form up to the gallery at the top of the first level which is at a height of 68 feet (20.7 m) from the ground. The form changes from a square to an octagon and the height from this gallery to the top of the tower is 118 feet (36 m) and the third stage to the top of the finial is 94 feet (28.7 m), thus making a total height of . During its time, it was the tallest structure in the city of Mumbai. Image:Rajabai under Const.jpg, A file photo of University of Mumbai taken in the 1870s. Rajabai Clock Tower here seen shrouded in scaffolding was completed in 1878

Chimes

During the 19th century it played the tunes of "

Home! Sweet Home! "Home, Sweet Home" is a song adapted from American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne's 1823 opera ''Clari, or the Maid of Milan'', the song's melody was composed by Englishman Sir Henry Bishop with lyrics by Payne. Bishop had earlier pub ...

" and "

A Handel Symphony A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...

", out of a total of sixteen tunes, which changed four times a day. It currently chimes only one tune every 15 minutes.

Restoration

From October 2013 to 11 May 2015, the tower underwent restoration work under the observation of Anita Garware (Heritage Society), Dr. Rajan Welukar (Vice-Chancellor; University of Mumbai) and N Chandrasekar (CEO, Tata Consultancy Services).It reopened in March 2015 after renovation The restoration efforts were recognised by UNESCO in 2018 when the Library and the Rajabai Clock Tower received the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation.

References

External links

Rajabai Tower
{{Tourist attractions in Mumbai Towers completed in 1878 Clock towers in India The Victorian and Art Deco Ensemble of Mumbai Gothic Revival architecture in India Clock towers