Tamil Nadu News

Birth of British Hill Stations

September 15 , 2026 13 hrs 0 min 22 0

Sir Thomas Munro’s visit to Ootacamund (Ooty) on 29 September 1826 helped lead to the formation of the first hill station of the British Raj in the Nilgiri Hills.
Munro was the Governor of the Madras Presidency from 1820 to 1827 and visited Ooty at the invitation of John Sullivan, Collector of Coimbatore.
During the visit, Munro reached the summit of Doddabetta, the highest peak in the Nilgiri Hills, and recorded the landscape and Kurinji flowers of the region.
He later recommended to the East India Company that the Nilgiris be developed as a hill station, partly as a place where sick British officials and soldiers could recover instead of travelling to Europe.
The Madras Government accepted his recommendation on 6 July 1827, the same day Munro died of cholera in Andhra Pradesh.
Munro’s visit also helped bring the postal system to the Nilgiris at an early stage.
Munro introduced the Ryotwari system in the Madras Presidency, which dealt directly with cultivators instead of Zamindars and middlemen.
He also helped shape the modern district administration and initiated a major statistical survey of indigenous education in the Madras Presidency in 1822.