Thalassery is a small town on the malabar cost. It is the second largest city of north malabar.Thalassery was the word originated from the word "Thalakkathe", Thala means head and cheri means place . It later became Thalassery. Thalassery was a major commercial centre during the british rule of india.The earliest mention of telicherry in European records appears about the end of 17th century ,when the east india company established a factory here with the object of commanding the pepper trade of north malabar. The site which had previously been occupied by a French mud fort , was granted by the Kolathiri Raja in 1683. In 1708 the Raja was induced to build the tellicherry fort,which he handed over to the company for the protection of their factory and during the first half of the 18th century, the factory obtained from various Rajas many small parts of land with administrative privileges within them. They also secured the monopoly of the trade in pepper and cardamoms kolathnad,kadathanad,and kottayam. The factory thus became the principal British trading station on the west cost.
EDWARD BRENNHEN AND HERMAN GUNDERT CONTRIBUTION
Tellichery's writing will be incomplete without mentioning of Edward Brennhens contribution. His contribution are mainly in education and spiritual field.The Brennhen college and the Anglican church are the standing monument of his contribution.
Thalassery is a beautiful place gifted with an extensive sea coast from near the st joseph high school to chalil. Thalassery is the first settlement of the British in malabar coast.Dr Herman dundert was another foreigner like Brennhen who lived for the well being of tellicherry. He was a German missionary scholar. He is the person who gave a malayalam english dictionary to the malayalees in 1872 . It was rememberable work by gundert. Ooraacheri Gurukanmar, the teacher of Gundert , who helped Gundert to compile the dictionary. Another foreign contribution was Malabar Manual by William Logan. Nowadays also it is an important refering material for students and researchers who want to know the history of malabar.
Circus
Thalassery had contributed many artist in indian circus. One among them is kileri kunchikannan, the founder of malabar circus .His contribution is so large for the development of circus. Kileri established the first circus gymnesium in tellicherry and trained both men amd women. Apart from him there were many other well known circus masters like sri karayi krishnan, sri paralayi kannan, sri keezhandi gopalan,sri m k Raman,sri kithuny and sri k Damodaran. Killeri kunchikannan was a renowned and outstanding circus performer.Each malayallee can never forget this extraordinary man who lived for circus
