The British established the post of 'Mysore Resident' of Mysore Kingdom in 1799 and appointed Col.Sir Barry Close as the first Resident. In 1804 The Mysore Resident was shifted from Mysore to Bangalore. The Resident's office & house known as 'The Residency' was first situated in the SACRED HEARTS SCHOOL (GOOD SHEPHERD CONVENT) building opp St.Joseph's college in Bangalore. It also housed a jail, while the site across the road where convicts were hanged now houses the ST. JOSEPH'S COLLEGE. Many a ghost was seen wandering about before the College came up! The Road along the 'Residency' came to be called 'RESIDENCY ROAD' and even today it's known as Residency Road though officially it has been changed to 'Gen. Cariappa Road'. In fact 'The Residency' later in 1881 shifted to what is today the RAJ BHAVAN, but Residency Road has retained it's name ever since 1804 (now 200 years).
The Raj Bhavan in Bangalore was built in 1840s & owned by Sir Mark Cubbon, who was Commissioner then. Cubbon was passionately fond of Arabian horses and used to keep at least fifty horses in his stable here. Lewin Benthem Bowring who succeeded Cubbon as Commissioner purchased the bungalow with its vast estate in 1862 for the British Govt to be used as the official Commissioner's Bunglow. Later when the post of Commissioner was abolished, the Resident came to stay here and it came to be known as 'The Residency'. But the road still was known as Commissioner's Road, that is the reason why the road on the old Residency building continued to be known as 'Residency Road'.
In 1806, the British established a new CANTONMENT AREA in Bangalore (at Ulsoor) for it's army and called it the 'Civil & Military Station'. Till India's independence this Cantonment area was ruled directly by the British. Thus Bangalore comprised of two separate areas, to the West, Bangalore (Pettah) administered by the Mysore Maharaja, and to the East, Bangalore Cantonment,
administered as a separate unit by the British Govt through the Resident. Soon the Cantonment area became not only a military base for the British army & it's family, but also a settlement for a large number of Europeans, Anglo-Indians, missionaries, and Tamil speaking workers & traders from the neighbouring British controlled Madras Presidency. This is why the Cantonment area is today dominated by Tamilians.
The Cantonment area under the British consisted of Shoolay, Blackpully (now SHIVAJINAGAR), The Parade (M.G ROAD AREA), St. John's Hill, Fraser Town, Benson Town, Cleveland Town, Cox Town, Richard's Town, Ulsoor, Knoxpet (Murphy Town), Agram, Richmond Town, Langford Town, Austin Town (named after British Resident, Sir James Austin Bourdillon), Whitefield (Anglo-Indian Colony created in 1882), etc. Even today these Suburbs still exist. The names given to the roads in the Cantonment were according to the military arrangement and campus. Thus, there was Artillery Rd, Brigade Rd, Infantry Rd, Cavalry Rd, South Parade (now M.G ROAD), East Parade (near Mittal Towers), etc. The heart of the city in those days was the so called MacIver Town, the area around South Parade, St. Mark's Road, Brigade Road and Cubbon Road.