‘The Bearded Crossing-Sweeper at the Exchange’ from Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor volume 2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHe built a big lakeside mansion with space for his horses and elephants.<\/p>\n
He progressively spent more time reading and hanging out on Beacon Island (which became his office).<\/p>\n
Revenue from the district fell and rumours of his lifestyle reached the Company\u2019s office in Madras.<\/p>\n
Snodgrass ignored their letters, threatened to shoot a Mr Brown from the Company sent to relieve him of office.<\/p>\n
He played on the remoteness of his outpost which took months to reach by road and was cut off by sea during the Monsoon season.<\/p>\n
The Governor sent a small body of soldiers to bring him back so Snodgrass sent all tax records out into the middle of the lake and sank them (claiming it was an accident).<\/p>\n
Snodgrass was eventually removed from office and denied a company pension.<\/p>\n
In London he fought back by becoming a street sweeper in front of East India House which enabled him to confront the pompous and wealthy directors every day.<\/p>\n
They gave in to escape the public ridicule he had brought upon them and Snodgrass got his pension.<\/p>\n
Source<\/strong>: active360.co.uk | Photo Credit: Udayan Sarathi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Beacon Island is a small rocky outcrop on which Thomas Snodgrass \u2013 an Englishman working for the East India Company back in 1791 built a small room and a spire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83],"yoast_head":"
The Story Behind Beacon Island in Chilika<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n