To THE MOST HONOURABLE

THE MARQUIS OF CREWE, K.G., ETC., ETC.,

His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for India.

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE UNDERSIGNED

Most respectfully sheweth:—

That they would draw your Lordship’s attention to an aspect of the question of the new City of Delhi that they fear may be lost sight of in discussions upon a choice of styles that seem to be beside the point and to confuse the issue.

Here, in England, where, broadly speaking, no traditional craftsmen have survived, and where, in place of un-selfconscious artists practising with intelligence and pleasure their various crafts, there are only mechanics dully earning a living, there is unfortunately a show of reason for treating building as a dead art, and for selecting from our museums examples to imitate.

But India is not England (or Europe), and where there are still master-builders and craftsmen and an unbroken building tradition of more than 2,000 years with all that it implies, there can be no serious question of style; that is better left to the classifiers and historians. The force of genuine craftsmanship is so vital and tremendous, that if its methods are not tampered with, it will always assimilate fresh and foreign forms. English workmen of the sixteenth century by the strength of their inherited craftsmanship made real the architecture of the Renaissance. The native architecture suffered, but the buildings were still living. Indian native architecture would suffer in the same way if it was required to take its inspiration from abroad, but if left to the craftsmen the product would still be living art.

They submit that the question to be discussed is, not in what style, but by what method the new city should be built; whether that of the modern architect in an office with his assistants, detached from materials, craftsmen, and site, carrying his buildings to completion upon paper, with pencil-trained mind and hands, and binding with details and specification those who are to build strictly within these limits; the method that has produced the public buildings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in India those of the Anglo-Indian cities: or, the method that has given us Westminster Abbey, Saint Sofia, Saint Peter’s (Rome), and in India the Tâj, the Palaces of Akbar and Shah Jahân, and the great public works of former times, that of the master-builder with his craftsmen, working in accustomed materials upon the site from simple instructions as to accommodation and arrangement such as would have been given to a master-mason or a master-carpenter by a medieval King who required a palace or a castle, or by a Bishop who desired to found a cathedral. This was the method that has produced all the great buildings of the world, and no modern buildings warrant the assumption that it can be safely departed from. That King and Bishop understood crafts in a way that is not general now, and at the present time there seems to be an urgent need for a sympathetic middle-man with a knowledge of building to act as a protecting buffer to the craftsmen, and to interpret to them modern departmental needs.

Your Petitioners feel that the possibility of work upon these lines is now so rare that its value can hardly be exaggerated. Even in these days, when the arts suffer so much in England from its want, the pricelessness of genuine un-selfconscious craftsmanship is not fully realised. Nothing can revive it, once the chain is definitely broken; it is gone for ever, more hopelessly gone than the general public can understand or imagine.

They submit that it is for the general good, artistically and morally, not only of the United Kingdom and India, but of the world at large, that living craftsmanship should be saved from extinction by a right method of employment; that politically such a method will tie the natives of India more closely to the Mother Country, and at the same time give an outlet for the energies of the college-trained Indians to whom all the arts are at present closed; further, that the use of native master-builders handling native material is financially economical.

That your humble Petitioners beg to lay the foregoing before your Lordship in the earnest hope that your Lordship will be graciously pleased to give them the deepest and most careful consideration.

For which your humble Petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray.

Signatures of:— 

PERCY ALDEN, M.P.

ISABELLE AMEER ALI.

ALFRED AUSTIN, Poet Laureate.

GEORGE P. BANKART.

SIDNEY H. BARNSLEY.

NORA BIGHAM.

FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A.

ALBERT BRUCE-JOY, R.H.A.

LADY ARTHUR BUTLER.

K. H. D. CECIL.

REV. DR. PERCY DEARMER.

H. BUXTON FORMAN.

CHARLES M. GERE.

LORD GLENCONNER.

CLAYRE ANSTRUTHER GRAY.

WALTER GUINNESS, M.P.

ARTHUR HOPKINS, R.W.S.

WILLIAM H. HUDSON.

GEORGE JACK.

WALTER JERROLD.

HENRY ARTHUR JONES.

GERTRUDE KINGSTON.

E. BLAIR LEIGHTON, R.I.

SYDNEY C. COCKERELL.

W. J. COURTHOPE, M.P.

LIONEL F. CRANE.

AUSTIN HARRISON.

ROBERT HICHENS.

LIVE HOLLAND.

SIR OLIVER LODGE.

H. C. MARILLIER.

MAJOR-GENERAL FRANK H. B. MARSH.

SIR HERBERT MAXWELL.

HUGH MORRISON.

HENRY W. NEVINSON.

REV. CONRAD NOEL.

J. W. ORDE.

VISCOUNTESS PARKER.

J. BEAUMONT PEASE.

LISLE MARCH PHILLIPPS.

LADY PLYMOUTH.

GILBERT A. RAMSAY.

SIR JOHN RHYS.

SIR W. B. RICHMOND, R.A.

E. R. ROBSON.

FRANK O. SALISBURY.

ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK (MRS. BASIL DE SELIN-COURT).

BYAM SHAW.

CHARLES SIMS, A.R.A.

JOSEPH E. SOUTHALL.

H. DE VERB STACPOOLE.

G. A. STOREY, A.R.A.

ALFRED SUTRO.

DR. MARGARET TODD.

PROFESSOR H. H. TURNER.

ALLEN UPWARD.

LADY WARWICK.

JOHN G. WOODROFFE.

MARGARET ALLCHIN.

SIR WILLIAM R. ANSON,M.P.

J. HANSHAWE BODELEY.

A SHAW BANKS.

ADELINE, DUCHESS OF BEDFORD.

WALTER B. BLAIKIE.

SIR J. FREDERICK BRIDGE.

SIR MAURICE DE BUNSEN.

GILBERT CANNAN.

W. HARRISON COWLISHAW.

DAVID ERSKINE.

E. REGINALD FRAMPTON.

EDWARD GERMAN.

LADY GLENCONNER.

J. T. GREIN.

E. MARSHALL-HALL, K.C., M.P.

ROY HORNIMAN.

A. HUGHES.

FRED. HUTH JACKSON.

E. BOROUGH JOHNSON.

J. KING, M.P.

DR. W. EGMONT KIRBY.

SIR BRADFORD LESLIE.

GEORGE CLAUSEN, R.A.

W. WARD COOK.

W. L. COURTNEY.

WALTER CRANE, R.W.S.

E. B. HAVELL.

KATHERINE TYNAN HINKSON.

CANON H. S. HOLLAND.

LORD LONSDALE.

MARY A. M. MARKS.

SIR WILLIAM MATHER.

E. D. MOREL.

A. H. HALLAM MURRAY.

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

EDWIN A. NORBERY.

MAJOR VICTOR PAGET.

BERNARD PARTRIDGE.

JOHN PEDDER, R.I.

EDEN PHILLPOTTS.

JOHN POLLOCK.

G. WOOLISCROFT RHEAD, R.E.

B. LEWIS RICE.

PROFESSOR WALTER RIPPMANN.

DR. W. H. D. ROUSE.

ETELKA SARTES.

CECIL J. SHARP.

CHARLOTTE F. SHAW.

MAJOR N. P. SINHA.

LORD SPENCER.

BASIL STEWART.

ALICE STRACEY-CLITHEROW.

JANE S. TEMPLER.

SIR ALLISTON TOKER.

WALTER S. S. TYRWHITT.

EMERY WALKER.

WILLIAM WEIR.

PAUL WOODROFFE.

AMEER ALI, P.C.

C. R. ASHBEE.

OLIVER BAKER.

H. GRANVILLE BARKER.

MGR. ROBERT HUGH BENSON.

SIR J. P. BRABAZON.

ROBERT BRIDGES.

SIR PHILIP BURNE-JONES.

R. CATTERSON-SMITH.

LORD DALRYMPLE, M.P.

SIR ARTHUR J. EVANS.

EDWARD GARNETT.

 ERNEST W. GIMSON.

 SIR LAURENCE GOMME.

 RICHARD C. GROSVKNOR.

J. R. HOLLIDAY.

LAURENCE HOUSMÂN.

ARTHUR D. INNES.

JEROME K. JEROME.

SIR H. H. JOHNSTON.

L. WHITE KING.

CLAUD LAMBTON.

REV. DR. W. F. COBB.

DR. ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY.

VIOLET EYRE CRABBE.

THOMAS HARDY, O.M.

MAURICE HEWLETT.

SIR THOMAS HOLDICH. C

SIR ARTHUR LASENBY LIBERTY.

J. H. LORIMER, R.S.A

CHARLES MARRIOTT.

ALYMER MAUDE.

ARTHUR MORRISON.

LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA.

MARY ETHEL NOBLE.

ALFRED NOYES.

LADY PAGET, WIDOW OF RT. HON. SIR AUGUSTUS BERKELEY PAGET.

JAMES PATERSON, R.S.A.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL A. PHELPS.

MARMADUKE PICKTHALL.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

ERNEST RHYS.

F. STUART RICHARDSON.

J. W. ROBERTSON-SCOTT.

LOUISE JOPLING ROWE.

R. A. SCOTT-JAMES.

G. BERNARD SHAW.

M. SHEFIK. CLEMENT SHORTER.

FRANCIS HENRY SKRINE.

DR. W. A. SPOONER.

MARCUS STONE, R.A.

C. E. STRACEY-CLITHEROW.

ALFRED H. R. THORNTON.

SIR ADOLPH TUCK.

T. FISHER UNWIN.

FABIAN WARE.

A. RANDALL WELLS.