The restored Fitzgerald Fountain that stands proudly at the Metro Cinema Junction in south Mumbai since October owes some of the credit for its new lease of life to its ‘twin’ in the UK.
Dumped on the lawns behind the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the cast iron fountain had been left to perish till a few years ago. It took a team of 150 members, comprising experts and staff members, to restore the lost glory of the 157-year-old structure which had over 500 missing parts.
The Fitzgerald Fountain was erected in 1867 at the Metro Junction in Dhobi Talao to mark the arrival of Sir William Robert Seymour Vesey-Fitzgerald, who served as Governor of Bombay from 1867 to 1872. Over the years, however, the structure was pulled down and bundled off to a spot behind the museum.
Fitzgerald Fountain (Photo credit: Twitter/Aaditya Thackeray)
The story behind how the structure returned to its former glory begins with the BMC project to restore all heritage structures with cultural value a few years ago. Among several other projects, the cast iron fountain lying neglected for decades was also taken up.
The restoration team soon realised that the structure had over 500 missing parts, including a lamp at the top, but did not know what exactly these pieces looked like. Without any information on the original design, they would not be able to restore it. Their search led to the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum which then connected them to UK-based industrial archaeologist Peter Perkins.
Perkins had earlier written to the museum to enquire about the Fitzgerald Fountain for a book he had been researching. He was curious about the structure as it had an uncanny similarity to another fountain – the Market Square Fountain at Northamptonshire. The structure was erected in 1863 to commemorate the marriage of Prince Albert to Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
“During the communication, we realised that the Fitzgerald Fountain in India and the Market Square Fountain in the UK were identical to each other,” said an official from the Heritage Cell of the BMC who was part of the team. It wasn’t long before the restoration team got leads on the missing pieces of the Fitzgerald Fountain, including the lamp.
Eventually the team finished the restoration work of the 44 ft x 13 ft fountain. The structure was then moved to the Metro Junction in October 2020, marking a return to its former glory. “Curiously, while the Market Square Fountain in the UK was also pulled down and only three of its pieces survive there in a museum, here we have managed to restore it to its original glory,” the official added.