For most Mumbaikars, Crawford Market is the ‘go-to destination’ when it comes to festive shopping.
Known to able-minded but extravagant, the Bombay Gazetteer reported how Crawford had an ambitious scheme to dig a tunnel through Malabar Hill and to reclaim a part of the foreshore by the material excavated therefrom so as to relocate the Race Course, then at Byculla.
Donald Mackay , the then governor of Bombay, ordered his prosecution before a magistrate.
The inquiry opened in 1880 and the commission held 67 public sittings, and several witnesses were examined.
“Ultimately, the Governor-General issued a modified Act of indemnity.
“Lord Reay, who was a puritan, was scandalized by the lavish living of Crawford, his extravagant and ostentatious hospitality, and his reckless borrowings from all and sundry.