“The Right Honourable the Governor in Council avails himself of this opportunity of expressing his sense of the very valuable services rendered by the Deputy Commissioner of Police,[80] Mr. Forjett, in the detection of the plot in Bombay in the autumn of 1857. His duties demanded great courage, great acuteness, and great judgment, all of which qualities were conspicuously displayed by Mr. Forjett at that trying period.”

The scars left by the Mutiny in India were barely healed, when Bombay entered upon that extraordinary era of prosperity, engendered by the outbreak of the American Civil war and the consequent stoppage of the American cotton-supply, which gave her in five years 81 millions sterling more than she had regarded in previous years as a fair price for her cotton, and which eventually led, after a period of great inflation, to the financial disasters of 1865. An enormous influx of population took place; the occupied area rapidly expanded; and the burden thrown upon the police force, which was numerically inadequate, must have been excessive. It redounds to Forjett’s credit that in spite of all difficulties, and in conjunction with his duties as a Municipal Commissioner in a time of feverish urban progress, he contrived to keep crime within reasonable bounds, and put an end finally to the hordes of ruffians who infested the skirts of the town and nightly lay in wait for passers-by.[81]

The Indian merchants of Bombay were not slow to recognise his services to the city, and showed their gratitude for the security which he had afforded to them by presenting him in 1859 with an address, and subscribing at the same time “a sum of upwards of £1300 sterling for the purpose of offering to him a more enduring token of their esteem.”[82] That was not all. After his retirement to England early in 1864, the Indian cotton-merchants sent him a purse of £1500, “in token of their strong gratitude for one whose almost despotic powers and zealous energy had so quelled the explosive forces of native society that they seem to have become permanently subdued:” while the Back Bay Reclamation Company, which was formed at the height of the share mania, allotted him five shares in his absence, and when the price reached a high point, sold them and sent him the proceeds in the form of a draft for £13,580.[83] These large sums, presented to Forjett after his final departure from India, form a striking testimony to the value of his work as a police-officer and to the great impression left by his personality upon Indians of all classes in Bombay.

Forjett’s services at the time of the Mutiny were separately acknowledged. From the public he received various addresses and a purse of £3,850, subscribed by both English and Indian residents. The Government, whose eulogy of his action has already been quoted, granted him an extra pension and also bestowed a commission in the Army upon his son, F. H. Forjett, who was in command of one of the native regiments in Bombay at the time of the great Hindu-Muhammadan riots of 1893.[84] Yet Forjett is said to have regarded himself as slighted by Government in not having received from them any decoration.[85] It certainly seems curious that so admirable a public servant should not have been rewarded with a Knighthood or admitted to one of the Orders of Chivalry. But in Forjett’s day the Government bestowed decorations very sparingly, and it may have been thought that this faithful servant of the vanished East India Company was sufficiently recompensed by the grant of a commission to his son and by permission to accept the handsome pecuniary rewards offered to him by a grateful urban population.

After his retirement, Forjett purchased a property near Hughenden, which he called “Cowasjee Jehangir Hall” after the well-known Parsi philanthropist, who gave so largely to educational and charitable institutions in Western India.[86] In 1877 he published Our Real Danger in India, in which he sought to explain the lesson of his own experience during the Mutiny and gave an account of the events of that period in Bombay. He died in London on January 27th 1890, but at what age is unknown, as the date of his birth has never been satisfactorily determined. He can hardly have been less than thirty-five years of age when he was appointed Superintendent of the Bombay Police in 1855, and was possibly older. Sir Lees Knowles of Westwood, Pendlebury, met him in 1886, and describes him at that date as “a man of middle height, with a very pale olive complexion, and highly nervous: he could not without shaking raise a glass of water to his lips.”[87] Forjett’s pension was paid in rupees, and after the more or less permanent decline in the exchange-value of the rupee, he requested the British Government on more than one occasion to permit him to draw his pension in sterling, but failed to obtain sanction to his request.

Here it is well to take leave of Charles Forjett, the first efficient chief that the Bombay Police ever had. One hesitates to imagine what might have happened in Bombay, if a man of less courage and ability had been in charge of the force in 1857: and looking back upon all that he achieved during his nine years of office, one realizes why Lord Elphinstone trusted him so implicitly, and why the Indian and European public regarded him with so much respect and admiration. His name still lives in Forjett Street, a thoroughfare of minor importance leading from Cumballa hill into the mill-area of Tardeo. He himself will live for ever in the history of the “First City in India” as the man who raised the whole tone of police administration, brought the criminal classes of Bombay for the first time under stern control, and saved the city from the horrors and excesses which must inevitably have attended a rebellion of the native garrison.

CHAPTER IV
Sir Frank Souter Kt., C.S.I.
1864-1888

Forjett was succeeded in 1864 by Mr. Frank H. Souter, son of Captain Souter of the 44th Regiment who was a prisoner in Afghanistan in 1842. Mr. Souter had served as a volunteer against the rebels in the Nizam’s dominions in 1850, and was appointed Superintendent of Police, Dharwar, in 1854. During the Mutiny he captured the rebel chief of Nargund, for which he received a sword of honour, and two years later (1859) was engaged in suppressing the Bhil brigands of the northern Deccan. This task he successfully completed by killing Bhagoji Naik, the notorious Bhil outlaw, and capturing his chief followers, showing on several occasions so much courage and resource that he was recommended for the Victoria Cross. He thus had several years of distinguished service to his credit before he assumed charge of the Bombay Police Force in 1864.