John Sinclair, 1st Baron Pentland

In June 1911, Arthur Lawley had commissioned the construction of a railway bridge connecting Pamban Island with the Indian mainland. The existing railway line ended with the town of Ramanathapuram and it was felt that its extension to Pamban island would boost trade and tourism. It would also make it easier for pilgrims to travel to the sacred Hindu shrine of Rameswaram.

The construction of the 2.06 km long cantilever railway bridge was undertaken by the German engineer Scherzer and completed in 2 years at a cost of Rs. 2,000,000 by 600 workers with no loss of life.[18] The bridge was opened by Lord Pentland for traffic on 24 February 1914.[18] The Pamban bridge is India's largest sea bridge and an UNESCO World Heritage monument.[18]

In 1914, Pentland invited the Scottish botanist and architect Patrick Geddes to conduct an exhibition on town-planning in Madras city. He reached Madras on 20 December 1914 after journeying overland from Calcutta through Vizagapatam, Guntur and Bellary.[19] Pentland had been interacting with Geddes and was fascinated with his models since 1890.[20]

Geddes had prepared for a detailed exhibition at Madras with a series of illustrations and maps. However, the ship by which they were slated to arrive in Madras, the "Clan Grant", was sunk to the south of Cape Comorin by the German ship Emden.[21] This calamity delayed Geddes' visit to Madras by a couple of months and he had to recreate his presentations and illustrations.

The Cities and Town Planning Exhibition opened in the senate of the Madras University on 17 January 1915 and was inaugurated by the Governor who also gave an introductory speech.[22] Patrick Geddes gave a detailed lecture on cost-effective town planning and sanitation with the aid of real-life examples and a presentation with detailed illustrations and maps.[22]

Geddes spent the next few months in Madras touring the countryside and making reports and illustrations of the different towns in the Presidency. He persuaded Pentland to appoint a town planning advisor and suggested the name of H. V. Lancaster who was a Vice-President of the Royal Institute of British Architects.[23] Accordingly, in October 1915, Lancaster joined the service of the Madras government.[23]

Pentland set up a hospital ship which plied regularly between Africa and India and then, between India and the Middle East, caring for sailors injured at sea and treating them. This hospital ship was paid for and maintained by some of the prominent citizens of Madras.[24]

In 1914, the Department of Industries, which had earlier been disbanded in face of protests from the Madras Chamber of Commerce, was re-established.[25] This department commenced the rapid industrialization of the province to cater to the economic and industrialization needs of the war.[25] Factories manufacturing soap, ink, adhesives, paper-making, oil-pressing, food processing and decoration of groundnuts were established all over the province.[25] Industries were set for manufacturing military equipment for the British army.

Shelling of Madras by SMS Emden

On 22 September 1914, the German cruiser Emden which was patrolling the Bay of Bengal launched a surprise attack on Madras [26] shelling the oil tanks of the Burmah Oil Company that we set up on the shore.[27] Five tanks were hit out of which two caught fire.[27] Nearly, 425,000 gallons of oil were lost in the attack.[27] Three Indians were killed and the Indian liner Chupra was damaged in the attack. The battle lasted fifteen minutes and Emden sailed away towards Pondicherry when the coastal defenses of Madras started to retaliate.[26]

Though the casualties due to the attack were minimal, there was a great deal of material damage caused by the shelling. The people of Madras were terrified by these attacks that SMS Emden has carved out a place for itself in local folklore.

Home Rule Movement

In 1915, the Home Rule Movement was started in order to demand home rule for India. In Madras, it was led by Irishwoman Annie Besant and Sir S. Subramania Iyer. As the movement gathered strength, Pentland responded with Annie Besant's arrest in June 1917 for hoisting the provisional flag of free India and a crackdown on the leaders of the movement.[28] Other freedom-fighter as George Arundale and B. P. Wadia were subsequently arrested.[29] These arrests were strongly condemned and her case argued by Mohammad Ali Jinnah.[29]

Lord and Lady Pentland were deeply interested in Hindu religion and philosophy.[24] He appeared captivated by the Hindu shrine at Rameswaram which he visited during the inauguration of Pamban Bridge and recommended to the Viceroy to establish a committee to conduct a detailed undersea exploration at the site.[24]

For me Rameshwaram, very much like India as a whole is the real world. We English men live in a mad house of abstractions. Vital life in Rameshwaram has not yet withdrawn into the capsule of the head. It is the whole body that lives. No wonder the English man feels dreamlike: the complete life of Rameshwaram is something of which he merely dreams. ... I did not see an English man in India who really lived there. They are all living in England, that is, in a sort of bottle filled with English air.... History can be events or memory of events. ... along the Bay of Bengal the Madras Presidency runs, with the well-governed city of Madras at its center and the sublime and glorious temples of Tanjore, Tiruchi, Madurai and Rameshwaram adorning its Southern boundaries. And then Adam’s Bridge- a reef of sunken islands’ beckons us across the Palk Straits to Ceylon, where civilization flourished more than 2000 years ago. ... Linga stones may be seen in many places on the highways in my Presidency. Hindus break upon them the coconuts which they are about to offer in sacrifice. Usually the phallic ritual is simple and becoming; it consists in anointing the stone with consecrated water or oil, and decorating it with leaves. At the Rameshwaram temple, the Linga stone is daily washed with Ganga water, which is afterwards sold to the pious, as holy water or mesmerized water has been sold in Europe. All these are a little part of my beloved Presidency - indeed my favourite India. Right from the dawn of history, India is extraordinarily continuous in time. In space, on the other hand, it is extraordinarily discontinuous. ... from early times in India, it is ethnology, philology, and archaeology that give and will give us some notions of the truth. From archaeology much can be expected. I would earnestly request you to direct the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to undertake an extensive and intensive survey of Rameshwaram and its beautiful environs, particularly with reference to the historic and primordial Adam’s Bridge

— John Sinclair, Letter to Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, 1 December 1914.[24]

Pentland was one of the classical British Indian politicians who shared their views on appeasing Indians and that words were more important than actions. The half-measures at industrial development were primarily undertaken to sustain the wartime economy of the First World War. In 1917, he is believed to have told Edwin Samuel Montagu, the Secretary of State for India:

We ought to play with them (Indians), humour them in politics and discuss with them industrial development, education and social reform; but there is no necessity for doing anything[30]

Lord Pentland is also remembered for having assisted the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan make his journey to England.[31]

On the general poverty of the masses, Pentland remarked that laborers of Madras city had the habit of frequenting cinema halls to watch movies and suggested that this could be one of the possible reasons for their poverty.[32] Pentland's statement also hints at the possibility of a drastic increase in the number of cinema goers during his Governorate.[32]