283x225mm. View from the S.W. looking towards the newly completed Royal Exchange in Clive Street, dated 1917 on the frieze. The terrace-roofed, four storey building has a colonnade of coupled Corinthian columns running through two floors along the Clive Street facade, with Corinthian pilasters on the end pavilions. The Exchange was designed by T.S. Gregson and erected by the firm of J.C. Banerjee (see Playne pp.647-651). The Calcutta Chamber of Commerce (superseded by the
Bengal Chamber of Commerce in 1853) had been established in 1834, its members forming a commercial exchange in 1858. In 1867 this became the Brokers' Exchange. A mercantile exchange (entitled Royal Exchange) was established in 1893 and took over the premises of the Oriental Bank Corporation in Clive Street in the following year. This building (illustrated in Massey p.76) stood on the site of the residences of Sir Philip Francis and Robert Clive. The precise date of the demolition of the old Exchange has not been determined, (Massey p.77).