John Lawrence and the railways

The Odisha famine of 1866-67 gave an impulse to Lawrence's policy of constructing railways and canals across the country

John Lawrence was viceroy and governor general between 1864 and 1869. Recently, I came across a book published in 1882, titled Men and Events of My Time in India and authored by Richard Temple. Since Temple was private secretary to Lawrence for a few years, he wrote other books/monographs on Lawrence too. In Men and Events, Temple mentions a connection between Lawrence, railways and Odisha. “John Lawrence’s next trouble (after Bhutan) was the famine in Orissa, which probably caused him more grief than any other event during his rule…This misfortune gave an impulse to the policy which John Lawrence had desired from