Jejeebhoy [Jamsetjee] Bund, Poona [Pune].

Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy was approached by the residents of Pune to build a 'bund' or tank to contain the raging waters of Mulla and Mutha rivers of which this photograph, taken in the 1860s, is a general view. Born in 1783, Jeejeebhoy was the first Indian to receive a knighthood, bestowed on him by Queen Victoria in 1857 when he was 74 years old. Pune was the eighteenth-century capital of Raja Shivaji, the Maratha king who defied the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. In 1802 Jaswant Rao Holkar defeated the combined armies of the Peshwa and Scindia. As a result of this defeat the Peshwa invited British assistance and Pune was occupied by troops under Wellesley in 1803. After the battle of Kirkee in November 1817 it was surrendered to the British who based the summer headquarters of the Government of Bombay here and established a large military cantonment.