To His Excellency Colonel the Right Hon'ble Sir Francis Stanley Jackson, P. C., G. C. L. E. Governor of Bengal.: May it please Your Excellency.

ONE OF INDIA'S POOREST DISTRICTS PRESENTS A LUXURIOUS SATIN SCROLL ENUMERATING THEIR DISTRICT'S FINANCIAL NEEDS TO SIR FRANCIS JACKSON, GOVERNOR OF BENGAL (AND ONE OF ENGLAND'S MOST FAMOUS CRICKETERS), IN ITS ORIGINAL PRESENTATION CYLINDER

[INDIA]. [BENGAL, DINAJPUR,]. JACKSON, Sir Francis (1870-1947), Governor of Bengal, presented to. To His Excellency Colonel the Right Hon'ble Sir Francis Stanley Jackson, P. C., G. C. L. E. Governor of Bengal. May it please Your Excellency... Folio broadside scroll printed on fine quality, thick, double-sided satin, 25 1/2 x 13" (64cm x 32cm), printed in red and black, 2 decorative gold borders, one of which is inside 2 plain green borders, bordered on all sides with 1/2" gold braid, top and bottom edges of which have long gold fringed ends. HOUSED IN: Original wooden cylinder, 16 1/4 x 3.65" (diameter), with inner felt lining, 3 x 5 1/2" silver metal plaque on the side, reading: "Presented to His Excellency Colonel The Right Honble Sir Francis Jackson P. C. G.C.I.E. The Governor of Bengal By the Members of the Dinajpur District Board," and 2 1/2" engraved silver metal finial caps at each end with raised scenes in relief. Dinajpur [Bengal, India:] The 14th of February, 1928.

A sumptuous appeal to the British Raj for economic help. Sir Francis Stanley Jackson GCSI, GCIE, KStJ, was a storied first-class cricketer, playing 20 Test matches 1893-1905, playing alongside W. G. Grace in the 1899 Ashes series. He captained England in 5 Tests in 1905, and mentored K.S. Ranjitsinhji, a.k.a Ranji, the first Indian to play international cricket. Jackson was a serving officer in both the Boer War and World War I, a Member of Parliament, member of the Privy Council. As Governor of Bengal (1927-1932), he was a colonial administrator "at a time when the province had become the nerve centre of Indian nationalist and protest politics...A committed conservative, Jackson proceeded to meet the crisis-with strong-arm methods."-ODNB. During his governorship he escaped assassination at Calcutta University in 1932. As an aside, Winston Churchill was his servant, or "fag" at Harrow. Jackson died in 1947 of complications from being run over by a taxi. Dinajpur is a district in the Rangpur Division of present-day northern Bangladesh, the largest among all sixteen northern districts of that country. It is also called "City of Maharajas." There were 18 elected members of the Dinajpur District Board in 1928, all of whom have signed their names in ink at the bottom, underneath the printed statement: "We beg most respectfully to subscribe ourselves Your Excellency's most obedient servants." Of the eighteen, four were Hindu, fourteen Muslim. The contentious elections are covered in chapter 2, Divide and Rule, of Bidyut Chakrabarty's, The Partition of Bengal and Assam, 1932-1947: Contour of Freedom (2004). See, "Table 2.1 Elected Members of the District Boards of Bengal, 1928," p. 58, which does not give names of members.

The District Board of Dinajpur, whose finances were clearly stretched, as is apparent from the printed text, presented Governor Jackson with this obviously expensive and luxurious satin scroll on his first visit to one of British India's poorest districts. Despite Dinajpur's poverty the board obviously thought the expenditure of funds for such a gift potentially worth the cost. The Board welcomes Governor and Lady Jackson, "on the occasion of Your Excellency's first visit to this historic town." The District Board was founded in 1887, its members elected rather than nominated since 1920. Their splendid scroll lays out in 62-lines the very great financial needs of the District, as well as their expenditures, saying, "Our responsibilities are great but the funds at our disposal are too inadequate to allow us to discharge them to their full extent." There is an eight-line paragraph thanking "the benign Government" for establishing a Railway in the north, and asks for an extension through the south, pointing out to Jackson's kind attention "the fact that there is a river between the Thakurgaon Sub-Divisional head-quarters and the nearest Railway station," and a bridge would be nice. The next paragraph reminds the governor that "Continued droughts for the last three years have caused a deplorable failure of crops, and brought a considerable portion of the Balurghat Sub-Division to the verge of famine...there is also acute distress for want of drinking water...and unless the benign Government extends its helping hands miseries of the people would know no bounds." Next is the "very relevant and important question of irrigation,...this Board has up till now sunk nearly 900 wells. Many thousands of wells will have to be added before the question of water-supply to the villages can be solved...The district of Dinajpur is notoriously unhealthy. Malaria and Kala-azar [the second largest parasidic killer in the world] have been carrying off a large number of people every year...approximately 84 dispenseries will be needed...." Mentions the recently inaugurated Rural Public Health Organization, and that the board has opened 5 new centers. There are 1646 Primary Schools in an area of 3940 sq. miles, and "The people of the district are very backward in education and we require still many more schools..." The Board maintains 1454 miles of roads, and "The entire trade of the district depends on these roads principally. There are 75,000 carts in the district and an equal number of carts regularly come from the neighbouring districts mainly for trading purposes." Trading carts should be made to pay "something towards the proper maintenance of the roads. Motor Bus traffic has been increasing by leaps and bounds and causing considerable damage to the roads," and the Board should be vested with powers to make bye-laws for their effective control. "The funds at the command of the Board are not enough to efficiently maintain the inter-district roads along which Imperial Troops have to pass occasionally. Many portions of these roads are unbridged...We have, in short, narrated our requirements with the hope that Your Excellency's Government will come to our rescue to meet the situation and to help us to discharge our responsibilities properly and efficiently. In conclusion we beg to assure Your Excellency that we have been and will continue to do with the limited income at our disposal all that is possible for the well-being of the people entrusted to our care." Nearly fine, with some bleeding of the ink signatures, slight creasing of the scroll from being rolled up, and light wear to the cylinder.