Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/274

 Calcutta, the handsome range of offices now known as the Bengal Secretariat, but which for nearly a century bore the name of Writers' Buildings.

The late Mr. Reginald Craufuird Sterndale, while Collector of Calcutta in 1884, found among the records of that office the original pottah of the land which was granted in October, 1776, to Mr. Thomas Lyon, " for the purpose of erecting a range of buildings for the accommodation of the junior servants of the company." Although the land was granted to Mr. Lyon, whose name has been perpetuated in Lyon's Range, the street behind the "Range," Mr. Sterndale was of opinion that he acted in the matter on behalf of Mr. Richard Barwell, the friend and steady supporter in council of Warren Hastings. Whether this was the case, or Barwell purchased the property from Lyon, he was the acknowledged owner in 1780, the year in which the building was completed and was taken by the Government on a five years' lease, when Francis wrote in his journal, " Mr. Barwells house taken for five years by his own vote. Mr. Wheler and I declare we shall not sign the lease."

The Buildings contained nineteen sets of apartments, each furnished with a separate set of out-offices, and the rent was two hundred Arcot