Untitled (Set of seven wood engravings published in The Engineer depicting the Prince’s Dock, Nhava Sheva Hydraulic Dock, and Sun Cotton Mill)

a) The Prince’s Dock, Bombay – View of the Harbour Front
Wood engraving on paper
13.7 x 9.2 in (35 × 23.5 cm)
Published in The Engineer, 8 August 1879

This engraving depicts the Prince’s Dock (later more commonly known as Princess Dock), completed in 1879 as the first of Bombay’s modern tidal docks. Designed to handle increased shipping traffic, the dock became central to the city’s maritime infrastructure and remains a defining feature of its eastern waterfront. The image also includes Cross Island in the distance, highlighting the harbour’s layered geography at a moment of industrial expansion.

b) Hydraulic Ship-Lifting Dock at Nhava Sheva, Bombay
Wood engraving on paper
13.7 x 9.2 in (35 × 23.5 cm)
Published in The Engineer, 19 May 1882

A technical engraving of the pioneering hydraulic ship-lifting dock at Nhava Sheva, across the harbour from Bombay. Published in The Engineer in 1882, the print illustrates the sophisticated lifting mechanism designed to raise vessels clear of the water for repair and maintenance, a striking innovation in Victorian marine engineering. By situating this new technology within the expanding Bombay harbour, the engraving embodies the city’s increasing importance as a naval and mercantile hub for the British Empire.

c) Hydraulic Ship-Lifting Dock, Bombay – Sectional View
Wood engraving on paper
13.7 x 9.2 in (35 × 23.5 cm)
Published in The Engineer, 19 May 1882

A companion engraving, this sectional perspective details the hydraulic workings of the Nhava Sheva dock. Such imagery, disseminated through technical journals, not only recorded but also celebrated feats of modern engineering in colonial India. Together with its pair, the plate underscores how late-19th-century Bombay combined imperial finance and industrial design to position itself as a leading maritime centre.

d) The Prince’s Dock, Bombay – Industrial Expansion of the Harbour
Wood engraving on paper
9.2 x 13.7 in (23.5 x 35 cm)
Published in The Engineer, 8 August 1879

A second engraving of Prince’s Dock from The Engineer, capturing the layout of the new tidal basin and associated warehousing. By the late 1870s, Bombay had firmly established itself as the principal port of western India, handling not only cotton but also opium, grain, and manufactured imports. The print serves as a documentary record of this infrastructural leap, when engineering ambition reshaped Bombay’s coastline to accommodate global trade.

e) Plan of the Sun Cotton Mill, Bombay
Wood engraving on paper
13.7 x 9.2 in (35 × 23.5 cm)
Published in The Engineer, 3 April 1891

This engraving presents the plan and layout of the Sun Cotton Mill, one of the many textile mills that proliferated in Bombay during the late 19th century. By 1891, the city had emerged as the epicentre of India’s textile industry, earning the sobriquet “Manchester of the East.” The plate provides not only a technical record of mill architecture and machinery but also an emblem of the industrial energy that underpinned Bombay’s economy and social transformation.

f) The Prince’s Dock, Bombay – Alternative Perspective
Wood engraving on paper
13.7 x 9.2 in (35 × 23.5 cm)
Published in The Engineer, 8 August 1879

The third of the Prince’s Dock engravings, this plate provides an alternative angle of the newly opened facility, emphasising its role as a symbol of Bombay’s maritime ascendancy. By offering multiple visual perspectives, The Engineer underscored the significance of the project not merely for the city but for imperial shipping at large. The dock, still in use today, was an early foundation of the port complex that grew into one of Asia’s busiest.

g) Interior Arrangement of the Sun Cotton Mill, Bombay
Wood engraving on paper
13.7 x 9.2 in (35 × 23.5 cm)
Published in The Engineer, 3 April 1891

A companion plate, this engraving illustrates the internal arrangement of the Sun Cotton Mill. Rows of looms and mechanised spinning frames reflect the industrial logic of efficiency and mass production that powered Bombay’s cotton industry in the late Victorian period. Together, the two plates provide rare visual testimony to the technological and architectural organisation of the city’s textile mills, which shaped both its economy and its labour history.

ENGINES OF PROGRESS: DOCKS, MILLS AND INDUSTRIAL BOMBAY, 1879–1891

This group of seven technical engravings from The Engineer charts Bombay’s emergence as one of the British Empire’s foremost industrial and maritime hubs. Issued between 1879 and 1891, they document the creation of the Prince’s Dock—the first modern tidal dock of the city—alongside pioneering hydraulic ship-lifting facilities at Nhava Sheva and the layouts of the Sun Cotton Mill, emblematic of Bombay’s textile ascendancy.

Together, these prints reveal the interplay between engineering innovation, maritime infrastructure, and industrial capitalism that transformed the city in the late Victorian period. Hydraulic docks enabled the repair of oceangoing vessels with unprecedented efficiency; Prince’s Dock reshaped the eastern seaboard for global trade; and the cotton mills established Bombay as the “Manchester of the East”. As a collective, the engravings embody the technological ambition and industrial identity that underpinned the city’s rise to prominence on the world stage.

(Set of seven)

This work will be shipped unframed.

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This lot will be shipped in "as is" condition. For further details, please refer to the images of individual lots as reference for the condition of each book.