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India
Hugli
September 1909. Sri Aurobindo - leader of Nationalists at Bengal Regional Conference at Hugli.
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Hugli, Hughli, or Hooghly, the town, situated on the right bank of the river Hugli, 24 miles above Calcutta by rail, forms one municipality with Chinsura, the old Dutch settlement, lower down the river. Population at 1901: (city) 29,383; district 1,049,282; city 1991 151,800.
The town was founded by the Portuguese in 1537, on the decay of Satgaon, the royal port of Bengal. Upon establishing them-selves, they built a fort at a place called Gholghat (close to the present jail), vestiges of which are still visible in the bed of the river. This fort gradually grew into the town and port of Hugli. In 1629 it was besieged for three months and a half by a large Mahommedan force sent by the emperor Shah Jahan. In 1632 Hugli, having been taken from the Portuguese by the Mahommedans, was made the royal port of Bengal; and all the public offices and records were withdrawn from Satgaon, which rapidly fell into decay. In 164s the East India Company established a factory at Hugli, their first settlement in Lower Bengal. In 1685, a dispute having taken place between the English factors and the nawab, the town was bombarded and burned to the ground. The Dutch established themselves at Chinsura in the 17th century, and held the place till 1825, when it was ceded to Great Britain in exchange for the island of Sumatra. The town Hugli-Chinsura was a municipality formed by the merging of two towns, Hugli and Chinsura, in 1865.
It contains the Hooghly College at Chinsura, a Mahommedan college, two high schools and a hospital with a Lady Dufferin branch for female patients. The principal building is a handsome mosque.
Alongside the River Hooghly there is a concentration of factories which process cotton, rice, and jute, and manufacture rubber goods and chemicals.