File:Gateway of India2.jpg

English: The Gateway of India was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Mumbai, prior to the Delhi Durbar in December 1911. However, they only got to see a cardboard model of the monument, since the construction did not begin till 1915 The foundation stone was laid on March 31, 1913 by the governor of Bombay, Sir George Sydenham Clarke with the final design of George Wittet sanctioned on March 31, 1914.

The land on which the Gateway was built on was previously a crude jetty, used by the fishing community which was later renovated and used as a landing place for British governors and other prominent people. In earlier times, it would have been the first structure that visitors arriving by boat in Mumbai would have seen Between 1915 and 1919, work proceeded at Apollo Bundar (Port) to reclaim the land on which the gateway and the new sea wall would be built. The foundations were completed in 1920 and construction was finished in 1924. The gateway was opened on December 4, 1924 by the Viceroy, the Earl of Reading.

The last British troops to leave India following the country's independence, the First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry, passed through the Gateway on their way out in a ceremony on February 28, 1948, signalling the end of British rule.