Cecil Ralph Townshend Congreve (17 September 1876 – 3 June 1952), more often referred to as C.R.T. Congreve, was among the earliest English tea planters in the

Anamalai Hills The Anamala or Anaimalai, also known as the Elephant Mountains, are a range of mountains in the southern Western Ghats of central Kerala (Idukki district, Ernakulam district, Palakkad district, Thrissur district) and span the border of wester ...

of southern India.

Life and work

Congreve was born in Stafford,

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

, the son of William Congreve (1831-1902), of Congreve and Burton, D.L. for Staffordshire, and Fanny Emma Townshend, second daughter of Lee Porcher Townshend, of Wincham Hall, co. Chester. One of nine siblings, his eldest brother was Sir General Walter Norris Congreve, V.C. Congreve was educated at

Charterhouse School Charterhouse is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Godalming, Surrey, England. Founded by Thomas Sutton in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in Charter ...

Godalming Godalming ( ) is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers and includes the settl ...

, 1891-93, and at the

Royal Agricultural College The Royal Agricultural University (RAU), formerly the Royal Agricultural College, is a public university in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England. Established in 1845, it was the first agricultural college in the English-speaking world. ...

, Cirencester. He went out to India in 1896 and was trained briefly under E.G. Windle, a prominent planter from The Nilgiris.Langley, W. K. M (1952). C. R.T. Congreve, C.B.E. - An Appreciation
The Planters' Chronicle, July 15, VolXLVII, No. 14
Later he joined G. A. Carver Marsh who was one of the early explorers of

Anaimalai Hills The Anamala or Anaimalai, also known as the Elephant Mountains, are a range of mountains in the southern Western Ghats of central Kerala ( Idukki district, Ernakulam district, Palakkad district, Thrissur district) and span the border of wester ...

in Southern Western Ghats and instrumental in opening up this region for tea and

coffee plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tobacco ...

. Congreve moved to the Anamallais in March 1897 to help Carver Marsh in establishing tea plantations. Congreve married Esme Maud Rowsell on 28 February 1911. They had three sons and lived in Blair Atholl,

Coonoor Coonoor (), is a taluk and a municipal town of the Nilgiris district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. As of 2011, the town had a population of 45,494. The town sits at the south-east corner of the Nilgiri plateau, and at the head of the Coonoo ...

. After a divorce he married Margaret 'Ann' Louis Wilson Somerville on 20 May 1933. They had a daughter named Julia in 1934. Congreve was an honorary secretary of Anamalai Planters Association from 1907 to 1909. He was a member of the

Madras Legislative Council Tamil Nadu Legislative Council was the upper house of the former bicameral legislature of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It began its existence as Madras Legislative Council, the first provincial legislature for Madras Presidency. It was initia ...

during 1922-25 and 1926–29. He was chairman during 1920-21 and 1930-32 of The United Planters' Association of Southern India (UPASI) and served as its president in 1937–38. Congreve was a member of the Ooty hunt club and the Joint Master of the Ooty Hunt 1936 – 1938. He was appointed CBE in 1941. He retired as a planter from Valparai in 1945. He wrote ''The Anamallais'', published in 1941 about his experiences in the Anamalai hills. He died on 3 June 1952, in the Ruthin Castle Clinic, Denbighshire, Wales, when he was 75 years old.

References

External links

Anamalais
(1938, reprint)
original print
{{DEFAULTSORT:Congreve, Cecil Ralph Townshend 1952 deaths People educated at Charterhouse School People from Staffordshire (before 1974) 1876 births Planters from British India Commanders_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire