Origin

Nawab Mohammad Khan, the founder of Farrukhabad City, had built the Fatehgarh Fort in 1720 to cover the crossing of the Ganges. The Fort was built of mud with 12 bastions and a moat.

East India Company set up a temporary brigade in 1777 in the Cantonment at the expense of the Nawab Vazir of Oudh. The Resident, who accompanied it as political officer, also took up his quarters in the Fort. In 1751 Nawab Ahmad, when threatened by the combined forces of Oudh, Marathas and Jats, threw up an entrenched camp around the Fort. He repulsed all assaults for a month. He named the Fort as 'FATEHGARH' or the 'FORT of VICTORY'. No village of that name existed then. However, he was soon defeated and was forced to flee across the Ganges.

There are no records to show the state of the Fort at the end of the 18th century. It had not yet become an arsenal. It was not armed for defence. There were barracks for troops within the walls, which became the shelter of the inhabitants of the station. The Fort then was always called the Magazine, and at sunrise and sunset the signal gun was fired. By August, 1803 the Fort and the cantonment became absolutely defenceless, as all the troops had left for the Delhi campaign, under Major General Charles tojoin Lord Lake's army. The cavalry cantonments at Rakha which were occupied some time in 1804 were also empty. In the month of November of that year when Holkar arrived and camped at Dhilawal village, near Farrukhabad railway station. Rakha cantonment was burnt, and all residents around the Fatehgarh Fort took refuge in the Fort.

The Rajput Regimental Centre was raised in Fatehgarh in 1921 and since then it occupies the Fatehgarh Fort. All offices and the administrative battalion of the Rajput Regimental Centre are inside this historical fort.

General Condition

The Fort was an arsenal displaying great activity. From 1810 onwards the magazine in the Fort was important, and war munitions were stored in it. The present magazine of the Rajput Regimental Centre is in the same building. The Commander-in-Chief as well as Governor General, the Marquees of Hastings, visited the Fort in 1815 and made a thorough inspection. Repairs were going on not only of the walls but of the river bank, which the Ganges had cut away. During his inspection he found the Fort to be a country mud fort of much extent, and that it's only utility was to receive the civilian residents, public treasure and baggage of the corps in the field. At the outbreak of the Mutiny of 1857 the Fort was in a ruinous state. The moat was dry, the bastions out of repair and armament scanty. Most of the guns in the Fort were models, for there was one of each bore. Entering the gateway on the right, occupying the whole of the S.E area to the river front was the house of the Gun carriage agent. A circular drive up to the porch, enclosing a small garden existed. Opposite in the S W. area were two barracks, a guardhouse, and another bungalow also with pigeon house and other accessories. Over looking the main crossings on the Ganges are deployed two cannons, which can still be seen in the same location.

The Cemetery

The cemetery occupied an important place in the Fort. It was then more wooded and indeed trees were well scattered all over the interior. The land at the north east. Corner, on the river side was under cultivation. The north face looked on to a grove of Shisham trees, which surrounded the magazine and a small pond. A communicating gate existed in the same part. The pond is now no more. The whole of western side of the Fort was always an open ground and the attack in 1857 was therefore not made from this direction but from the south where good cover was found. Many eminent persons of the times were buried in the fort cemetery. Among the beautiful tombs is one of Lt Col Gregory Hicks who died in 1828. The oldest tombs date back to late 1700.

Maude Lines

The space now covered by the Maude Lines, where later companies from a British regiment at Agra were quartered, was in the eighteenth century the location of the artillery corps and their lines covered the site of the present barracks. The artillery parade ground was to the North front of the church and the War Memorial. South of the quarter guard of the Rajput Regiment on both sides of the circular road was the infantry rifle range. The Maude Lines are still called the same. Presently the living accommodation of the recruits and the Junior Commissioned Officer's mess of the Rajput Regimental Centre are located in the Maude Lines.

Sudder Lines

The present CSD Canteen of the Rajput Regimental Centre was the bungalow of the Sudder Line Sahib, whose exact functions are a mystery. One duty was to superintendent the bazaars in the Military zone. In the eighteenth century he was called Commissary of Bazaar and later a warrant officer on the Town Majors List was entrusted with the same work, perhaps a kin to that of provost marshal.

The earliest known Commandant, of Fatehgarh Fort, was Lt Col Gervase Pennington. He was at Fatehgarh from 1784 to 1786. Another Commander, of whom a tale is told, was Lt Col James Gordon. It had been foretold by a fortune teller that he would die in his first action, and it so happened that for a long period of his service he was employed in arsenals in lower Bengal. In 1802 he was commanding the artillery at Fatehgarh and in the winter of that year Lord Lake decided to reduce several strongholds near this district. Lt Col Gordon was detailed with the Fatehgarh artillery to bombard these mud forts and after having survived at the action of BIJIGARH he was accidentally killed by explosion in the magazine, while inspecting stores of captured ammunition.

On the other side of the road to the area of the Maude lines, there was a bungalow next to that of the Sudder Line Sahib inhabited by Mrs S Clark, the wife of a deputy collector. In 1824 adjoining her house she built a mosque, which stood up till the Mutiny, but disappeared in wholesale demolitions afterwards.

Kasim Bagh

Half a mile south west of the Fort is Kasim Bagh and its old cemetery, now hidden behind the Rajput Regimental Centre lines. The debris of the mined tomb of Kasim Banga still remains, and it is from this tomb that the name of the area is derived. Kasim was the father-in-law of Nawab Mohammad the founder of the city. Kasim was killed on this spot by Hindu robbers of the Bamtela tribe, and it was his murder which served as a pretext for Nawab Mohammad to seize the Bamtela lands and build the city upon that land. Kasim Bagh is the area to the west of the cemetery, at present containing a small dilapidated bungalow, which forty years ago served as an Indian Infantry Hospital. Prior to the Mutiny, Kasim Bagh was outside the cantonment and consisted of a grove surrounded by a wall, and a compound with a house, were houses and other appurtenances.