The Lloyd Barrage at Sukkur opened on 13 January 1932. In the photographs of that day the Viceroy, the Earl of Willingdon, dominates the frame. The man who had drawn the barrage, argued for its dimensions and then watched its headworks rise out of the Indus is much harder to find in the picture. His name was Arnold Albert Musto, and in the closing years of the work his home was a bungalow in Barrage Colony: Bungalow No. 2, the same house that has served since 1974 as the Commissioner House of Sukkur Division.
Published by Rohri.net
| Musto and the barrage at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Engineer | Arnold Albert Musto (1883–1977), Indian Public Works Department, Bombay Government |
| Role | Executive Engineer, Sukkur Barrage, from 1918; Superintending Engineer from 1923 |
| Structure | Lloyd Barrage: 66 bays on 60-foot spans, about 4,725 feet (1,440 m) across the Indus |
| Sanctioned | 9 June 1923 |
| Opened | 13 January 1932, by the Viceroy, the Earl of Willingdon |
| Canals | Seven, including the Nara, Rohri, Khairpur Feeder East and West, Begari Sindh Feeder, Ghotki Feeder and Dadu Canal |
| Commanded area | About 7.6 million acres |
| His Sukkur home | Bungalow No. 2, Barrage Colony, left bank; built 1926–27 |
| Occupied by Musto | 1926–27 to May 1932, then converted into an Inspection Bungalow |
| That house today | Commissioner House, Sukkur Division |
From Stepney to the Indus
Musto was born on 4 October 1883 in Stepney, in the East End of London, and educated at Coopers' School and Birkbeck College. He trained as a civil engineer and in 1907 joined the Indian Public Works Department under the Bombay Government as an Assistant Engineer in the mechanical and agricultural branches — the side of the department concerned with machinery, pumping and the works that served cultivation rather than with roads and buildings.
He became an Executive Engineer in 1915. Three years later, in 1918, he was posted to Sukkur as Executive Engineer of the barrage project, and it was in that post that he prepared and submitted the comprehensive design for the structure that would dam the Indus at the gorge below Rohri.
The scale of the work brought rapid promotion. In 1923 he was appointed Superintending Engineer of the Sukkur Barrage, with charge of the whole of the headworks and the canal system, and in the same year he was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE). The barrage was opened in 1932, the year he was knighted. He died on 29 May 1977, aged 93, having outlived almost everyone else who had worked on the river. The record of his career survives mainly in departmental files and in a short biographical entry for Arnold Musto.
The problem of a river that moved
Before the barrage, the plains around Sukkur were irrigated by inundation canals that fed Sindh's plains: channels that took water only when the Indus was in flood. In a good year they filled; in a bad year they stayed dry, and even in a good year their mouths silted up as the river shifted across its bed. The Indus below the gorge at Rohri has never been a stable stream. It moves, drops its load and changes its course — a behaviour traced in the wider history of the Pakistani river system — and every canal head cut into its bank was a gamble against the next flood.
The solution proposed by Sir George Lloyd, Governor of Bombay, was a weir thrown across the river at Sukkur, holding the water at a fixed level so that canals could draw from it all year round. The scheme was argued over for years and sanctioned on 9 June 1923, in the teeth of doubts about its cost and about whether the river would undermine the works. It was named the Lloyd Barrage after its political patron.
The finished barrage has 66 bays on 60-foot spans and runs about 4,725 feet — some 1,440 metres — across the Indus. Seven canals take off from it, among them the Nara, the Rohri, the Khairpur feeders, the Begari Sindh Feeder, the Ghotki Feeder and the Dadu Canal. Together they commanded roughly 7.6 million acres, and when it opened the barrage was described as the largest irrigation work of its kind in the world. Its place in the longer story of the town is set out in the barrage and the making of modern Sukkur.
Musto's responsibility was not confined to the line drawn on a sheet. As Superintending Engineer he had charge of the headworks and of the canals that carried the water out into the plains, and the completion of that whole system — the gates, the piers, the regulators, the miles of channel — was the work he saw through to the opening in 1932. The design of a barrage is a calculation; the building of one across a silt-laden river is a decade of improvisation.
Bungalow No. 2, Barrage Colony
Barrage Colony was laid out on the left bank at Sukkur as the residential quarter of the project. Dozens of bungalows went up for the engineers, the supervisory staff and the offices that ran the works: two-storey houses with thick brick walls, high ceilings, deep verandahs and gardens, arranged to catch whatever breeze the Sindh summer would allow. The design belongs to the same tradition of hot-climate architecture in Rohri and Sukkur, adapted here for a colonial engineering colony. It was a small town built entirely for one job.
Bungalow No. 2 was the house of the engineer in charge, and it is the one house in the colony whose history can be read off its own wall. The marble plaque in the entrance records that it was built in 1926–27 as the Superintending Engineer's bungalow and was occupied by Sir Arnold Musto until May 1932, the year the barrage opened. Heritage of Sindh's record of the Commissioner House describes the same bungalow as his home before it became the Commissioner's camp office in the 1970s.
22 August 1974: from engineer's house to Commissioner House
Sukkur's administrative geography changed in the 1970s. Local accounts record that when Khairpur Division was wound up and Sukkur Division was constituted on 22 August 1974, the government needed a residence and camp office for the new Divisional Commissioner. It chose the bungalow in Barrage Colony that had belonged to the barrage's engineer — a house of the same generation as Sukkur's 1901 Deputy Commissioner's Office, the town's other great colonial administrative address.
Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim. Built as Superintending Engineer's Bungalow No. 2 in 1926–27, this house was occupied by Sir Arnold Musto, then Superintending Engineer Lloyd's Barrage, till May 1932. Thereafter it was converted into Inspection Bungalow. In 1974 it was turned into Commissioner Sukkur's Residence. The house was renovated & the annexe built in 1986–87.
Marble plaque, Commissioner House, Sukkur (transcribed from the original).
Between Musto's departure in May 1932 and the change of 1974 the plaque names a third phase: the house became an Inspection Bungalow, a rest house kept for officers on tour in the barrage tract. The first commissioner to live there was Allah Bakhsh Soomro. Since then it has been the Commissioner House of Sukkur Division: the official residence of the senior civil administrator of the division, and the place where the division's business is conducted when the commissioner is in camp. The building was renovated and an annexe added in 1986–87, the last entry on the plaque.
There is a neatness to the arrangement. The barrage made modern Sukkur possible — the canals, the cotton and rice, the town that grew on the left bank — and the house built for the man who designed it became the house of the officer who administers the division that grew up around it. The engineer's bungalow and the commissioner's residence are the same building, separated only by a change of occupant in 1974.
What survives today
The barrage still works. Its 66 gates still control the Indus, its canals still water the plains, and the system Musto completed in 1932 remains the foundation of agriculture in central Sindh; the Sindh Irrigation Department still operates the gates he designed. Barrage Colony still stands around the Commissioner House, its streets and bungalows a compact lesson in how colonial engineering projects housed themselves.
The colony is also the natural starting point for a circuit of Sukkur's colonial heritage. Within a short drive are the Ghanta Ghar clock tower, Saint Saviour's Church, Tekchand Bolchand Park and the first power house of 1922; across the water sits the Sadh Belo island temple, reached by boat from Sukkur.
The house itself is not a monument. It is a working official residence, and visitors should not expect to walk in. What can be seen from the road is the setting: the trees, the compound wall, the scale of a house built for a senior engineer of the Raj, in a colony laid out for the biggest irrigation project of its age. The man's name survives mainly in the record — in the files of the Public Works Department, in the date of the opening, and in the address of the house he lived in.
Visiting Barrage Colony and the barrage
Barrage Colony lies on the left bank at Sukkur, close to the river and within easy reach of the Lansdowne Bridge and the town. The barrage itself can be seen from the approach roads and the bridge; the colony's streets are open, but Commissioner House is a private official residence and entry is by permission only. Winter mornings are the best time to look at the barrage, when the river is low and the gates and piers are clearly visible. Combine a visit with Sukkur's 1895 waterworks and 136 years of Lansdowne Bridge history for a day of colonial engineering, or use the Rohri and Sukkur heritage travel guide to plan a longer stay.
Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1883 | Born on 4 October at Stepney, London |
| 1907 | Joins the Indian Public Works Department, Bombay Government, as Assistant Engineer (mechanical and agricultural branches) |
| 1915 | Appointed Executive Engineer |
| 1918 | Posted to Sukkur as Executive Engineer, barrage project; prepares and submits the design |
| 1923 | Superintending Engineer, Sukkur Barrage; made CIE; barrage sanctioned on 9 June |
| 1926–27 | Bungalow No. 2 built in Barrage Colony as the Superintending Engineer's residence; Musto moves in |
| 1932 | Knighted; Lloyd Barrage opened on 13 January by the Earl of Willingdon |
| May 1932 | Musto leaves Bungalow No. 2; the house becomes an Inspection Bungalow |
| 1974 | 22 August: Khairpur Division wound up, Sukkur Division constituted; Bungalow No. 2 becomes Commissioner House |
| 1977 | Dies on 29 May, aged 93 |
| 1986–87 | Commissioner House renovated and an annexe built, as recorded on the entrance plaque |
Frequently Asked Questions
Who designed the Sukkur Barrage?
The barrage was designed by Arnold Albert Musto, a British civil engineer of the Indian Public Works Department. Posted to Sukkur in 1918 as Executive Engineer, he prepared and submitted the design, and from 1923 served as Superintending Engineer until the headworks and canals were complete. The barrage opened on 13 January 1932.
Where did Arnold Musto live while the barrage was being built?
He lived in Bungalow No. 2 in Barrage Colony on the left bank at Sukkur, the settlement of bungalows built for the barrage project staff. The entrance plaque records that the house was built in 1926–27 and that he occupied it until May 1932. The same house is now the Commissioner House of Sukkur Division.
Why is Musto's bungalow now called Commissioner House?
When Khairpur Division was wound up and Sukkur Division was constituted on 22 August 1974, the bungalow was taken over as the official residence of the Divisional Commissioner. The first commissioner to live there was Allah Bakhsh Soomro.
Can visitors go inside Commissioner House, Sukkur?
No. It is a working official residence and camp office, not a museum. The exterior and the tree-lined streets of Barrage Colony can be seen from the road, and the barrage itself is open to visitors.
Continue reading
- The surveyors and designers of the Lansdowne Bridge
- Sukkur Waterworks 1895: how a river town got piped water
- The unique architecture of Rohri: building for the hot climate
- Rohri, Sindh: complete history, heritage sites and travel guide
Sources
- Marble plaque at the entrance of Commissioner House, Sukkur, transcribed on site for this article: the build date of 1926–27, Musto's occupation until May 1932, the Inspection Bungalow phase, the conversion of 1974 and the renovation of 1986–87.
- Arnold Musto, Wikipedia, for the biography: birth at Stepney on 4 October 1883, education, CIE in 1923, knighthood in 1932 and death on 29 May 1977.
- Sukkur Barrage, Wikipedia, for the 66 bays, 60-foot spans, 4,725-foot length, the seven canals, the commanded area, the sanction of 9 June 1923 and the opening on 13 January 1932.
- Commissioner House, Sukkur, Heritage of Sindh, for the bungalow's origin in the Lloyd Barrage project and its description as Musto's home before becoming the Commissioner's camp office.
- Sindh Irrigation Department, Government of Sindh, for the barrage's continuing operation and the canal system it supplies.
- Imperial Gazetteer of India, Digital South Asia Library, for the gazetteer background to Sukkur District and its colonial public works.
Image note: the portrait of Musto is a photograph restored and colourised for legibility; restoration can alter tone and fine detail. The photographs of Commissioner House and of its entrance plaque were taken on site. The bungalow view and the two construction scenes are reconstruction illustrations drawn from the historical record, watermarked www.Rohri.net, and are not photographs.
Published by Rohri.net · Rohri, Sindh: Heritage, History & Travel Guide · Heritage Research • Historical Documentation • Travel Information · Rohri • Sukkur • Sindh • Pakistan · https://www.rohri.net
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