BMC restores history: 152-year-old Fitzgerald Fountain springs back to life after 6 decades

The Fitzgerald Fountain, which had six heads that spout water into their respective troughs, now has one head spouting water, after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) heritage department re-engineered its hydraulics system.

Almost 60 years since Fitzgerald Fountain was last functional, the 152-year-old monument sprang back to life last Friday, after a year of restoration work.

Almost 70 years, when the Fitzgerald fountain was last functional in 1960, the 150 year old monument has started sprouting water again, after BMC conservationists’ restoration work. (HT Photo)

The fountain, which had six heads that spout water into their respective troughs, now has one head spouting water, after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) heritage department re-engineered its hydraulics system. The remaining heads will be restored within a week. Work on the fountain is still underway at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan in Byculla.

Cast in wrought iron, the 16-tonne monument was originally installed at the Metro Cinema Junction in south Mumbai in 1867 by the Esplanade Committee, in honour of Sir Seymour Fitzgerald, the governor of Bombay from 1867 to 1872.

In 1960, the fountain was pulled down from the Metro Cinema Junction during the Samyukta Maharashtra Chaval, as it bore the Royal Coat of Arms, representing the British monarch, a reminder of the British rule in India. It was moved to the Byculla zoo, and assembled haphazardly. Many of its parts were misplaced or lost, and it lay neglected for 60 years. Last September, the BMC began to restore it.

Deepak Paunikar, a renowned sculptor who is working with BMC on the restoration project, said, “All the pipes that made the fountain functional were missing or lost through the years. We had to re-imagine the engineering and install it again.”

During the course of restoration, the BMC dismantled the entire fountain to clean and restore pieces separately.

“While the other three fountain heads are yet to be placed back on the fountain, the fact that one has started working is proof we got the engineering right. Now all we have to do with the other three is place them in their original positions,” Paunikar added.

The fountain also served as a pyau during its time at the Metro Cinema Junction, and the two lion heads that spout water into a trough are the mouths of the pyau. At 40 feet, the monument has a gas lamp atop a tall pillar, which BMC is restoring to now work on electricity.

The BMC’s deadline to complete restoration on the fountain is April 2020, after which it will be moved and installed at the Metro Cinema Junction again, only a few feet from its original position. This time, the Royal Coat of Arms will be removed and replaced with another crest, possibly of BMC itself. The civic body will also beautify the area around the fountain, and develop two selfie points in its vicinity to attract tourists.

Once fully functional, the fountain will use 1,000 litres of water a day, which BMC plans to reuse everyday by setting up a suction tank underground.

Nearly 80 percent of its restoration work is now complete, but it was not an easy task for the civic heritage department. When they began the restoration work a year ago, the team realised 300 pieces of the fountain were missing. Sanjay Adhav, who works with BMC’s heritage department, said, “We did not even know what pieces were missing, or where the once we had, were supposed to go.” Adhav’s team then referred to old photographs of the fountain, and began to fit missing pieces in the structure one by one, like a jigsaw puzzle.

Adhav said, “We received two pieces from the Bhau Daji Lad museum, who brought them to us to check if they were part of the fountain. Another piece lay unidentified somewhere inside the zoo, and was handed to us only last month.” The team working on the restoration will now carry out sand blasting and oxidising processes on the fountain structure, and cover it with a coating of Polyurethane, intended to protect metal from rusting, after replacing all 300 missing pieces on the structure.

The specialty of the Fitzgerald Fountain is that it has a twin in Northampton near London, in the United Kingdom, called the Isaac Fountain, which was installed around the same time Fitzgerald Fountain was set up in Mumbai, in the 1860s. Incidentally, the Isaac Fountain was also removed from the Northampton square in the 1960s. There are records that its parts were separated and sold in scrap, to huge outcry over a decade or so later, according to heritage conservationist Pankaj Joshi, who has been working on the project with BMC. He said, “This is why it is important for us to restore and preserve this piece of history. It is the only one of its kind left.”