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March 14, 1876. S Rose & Co, Bombay, held a small exhibition somewhere near East Street in Poona. According to “The Times of India”, around eighty distinguished personalities from the city attended the event. The company had brought to Poona an “ice machine” designed and developed by Ferdinand Carre. As per the report appearing in the newspaper, three gentlemen bought the newly introduced ice machines for a price of ₹ 160 each. This seems to be the first documented report of an “ice machine” being bought to, purchased, and used in Poona for personal use.

The British in India found it unnerving to function in the sweltering heat of the country they had chosen to colonise. They had stationed most of their troops in the hills of the North and the South. But living on the plains proved to be punishing for them. One Robert Savory wrote about the summers in India – “The wind drops, the sun gets sharper, the shadows go black and you know you are in five months of utter physical discomfort”. The British never found it difficult to convey what tepid water was to one’s palate on a hot day, and “burruf” (ice) was as needful to every Anglo-Indian’s table as were the edibles and drinkables.

The Mughals used to bring ice to the plains from the Himalayan mountains. The British imitated them and brought ice to the plains at great expense.

Frederick Tudor, a Bostonian entrepreneur, dreamt of ruling the world. He also wanted to dominate the global coffee market. He tried hard and ended up in severe debt. He desperately needed enough cash flow and profits in order to repay the debts he had incurred through his misadventures in coffee.

So, he turned his attention to ice. He thought of harvesting and cutting ice from the ponds and lakes of native New England and sending it to hotter lands in a fleet of ships. In 1806, the first ship laden with ice sailed to the Caribbean islands. It took a few years for him to partially succeed in solving the problems of harvesting, insulating, and transporting ice long distances.

Once he had conquered New Orleans and the Caribbean, he turned his gaze towards India. The first consignment arrived at Calcutta on September 13, 1833. The journey from Massachusetts took four months. Of the 180 tonnes of ice packed in double insulated wooden boxes, 100 tonnes had survived when the ship reached India. The next year ice began to be dispatched regularly to Madras and Bombay.

Even though “American” was a pejorative Anglo-Indian epithet for any European who deserted the East India Company, the Indo-American ice trade became an essential requisite of Anglo-Indian society in India in the early nineteenth century. Bombay, like Calcutta, owes a debt of gratitude to the Old American Tudor Ice Company, whose rotunda-shaped store on the “Fort” was a familiar object in bygone years.

“The American residents in Bombay are affecting wondrous changes in this island: the great ice-house of Appollo street is about to present branch depots in various localities; and as a commencement, we are glad to notice that Mr Summers, at Nowrojee Hill, Mazagaon, has a “mugasin” (refrigerated, by the way) of apples, hams, and cheeses, supplied by the Columbian continent; and better than all, a supply of the “futtur ke pannee” carved by Mr Tudor from the lakes and rivers of his native land for Indian consumption”, wrote one Mr Allen in a letter to “The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce” in 1839.

Ice brought to Bombay from Massachusetts reached Poona in trains. It used to be packed in thick wooden boxes filled with sawdust. This “natural ice” imported from the US was referred to in Poona as “thin ice”. Most of it melted before it reached Poona. But still, it had a great demand in the city. Clubs, hotels, and wealthy European residents would reserve their orders months in advance. The dates of arrivals of ships with ice from Boston would be published in Poona dailies. But the supply was never adequate.

Between the 1850s and 1870s, the topic of insufficient supply of ice to Poona was discussed in Bombay, Calcutta, and London several times. There were demands to make the supply more efficient.

In 1868, the subject of supplying troops, at Kirkee and Poona Cantonments, was mooted, and an application was made to the Secretary of State for India for an ice machine, which it was proposed to use experimentally at a station in Rajpootana. At stations on the line of railway, ice was seldom procurable for the sick in sufficient quantity, and the propriety of supplying ice machines at the hot interior stations near Poona was under consideration around the same time.

The Indo-American ice trade grew rapidly until 1857 due to substantial market demand in India and favourable trade and economic conditions and exemptions granted initially by the East India Company and later by the British Government.

The trade however began to decline in the early 1970s. Changes in global maritime transport economics and natural environmental changes in New England were partly to blame for the decline. However, the main factor was the new artificial refrigeration technologies introduced in India. Tudor had his day and was compelled to withdraw with honour from an unequal fight against machine-made ice.

Ferdinand Philippe Edouard Carre (1824–1900) was a French engineer and is best known as the inventor of refrigeration equipment used to produce ice. In 1850, Ferdinand’s brother Edmond Carre developed the first absorption refrigerator, using water and sulfuric acid. Ferdinand continued Edmond’s work on the process and in 1858 developed a machine that used water as the absorbent and ammonia as the refrigerant.

The granting of a US patent in 1860 for Ferdinand’s development of a closed, ammonia-absorption system laid the foundation for widespread modern refrigeration. Unlike vapour-compression machines which used air, Ferdinand used rapidly expanding ammonia which liquefies at a much lower temperature than water and is thus able to absorb more heat. Ferdinand’s refrigeration became, and still is, the most widely used method of cooling.

Carre’s “ice machine” must have arrived in India in the early 1870s. I have not been able to find the exact year when the machine was launched commercially in Bombay and Poona. But several advertisements appearing in local newspapers after 1875 elaborately describe Carre’s machine.

The advertisements also indicate that Carre was constantly working on his machine and modified versions kept appearing regularly in the market. One of the advertisements proclaimed in 1877 - “The Patentees (Carre) have introduced such improvements in the solidity of the Apparatus, that it may now be pronounced perfect in every aspect. The Boiler is now made in solid Galvanised Iron, and for all practical purposes is indestructible. The only expense incurred in such operation is about half an anna for fuel, wood charcoal being preferable to anything. The time occupied in producing four pounds of Ice is from four to four and a half hours.” The cost of this machine in 1877 was ₹ 170 which was increased by ₹ 5 two years later. The machine could be bought from S Rose & Co.

For a long time after 1875, S Rose & Co situated at 9, Rampart Row in Bombay was the sole agent of Carre’s Ice machines. Advertisements appearing in newspapers like “The Bombay Gazette” after 1877 indicate that S Rose & Co opened a branch at East Street, Poona. However, not all advertisements feature the Poona branch.

Initial versions of Carre’s “ice machine” were meant for private use. But soon he developed machines that could make ice on a larger scale. This made the construction of ice factories in Bombay and Poona feasible.

That story is for some other time.

Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com

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