Things seem a wee bit quiet on the Scottish front just now, so here is another blast from the past, this time an article I wrote for the former magazine, Discover My Past Scotland (Issue 5, April 2009), looking at a recce made in 2008 of the Scots Cemetery in Kolkata by what was then the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. (I have updated links and terminology):
The Scottish Cemetery in Kolkata
Chris Paton take a look at efforts to preserve a fascinating Scottish colonial legacy in the heart of India.
In November 2008, a team of experts from Scotland travelled to Kolkata, in the Indian province of West Bengal, at the invitation of the Kolkata Scottish Heritage Trust and the Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage. Their purpose was to survey a unique cemetery which has been in existence for almost two hundred years in order to help design a project to help rescue it from ruin. With over 1600 graves, the site has a special connection to Scotland, for the majority of those buried within its grounds are Scots who lived and worked in India during British imperial rule.
The team, comprised of architects James Simpson and Laura Bishop, Clare Sorenson and Steve Wallace from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, and archaeologists Tom Addyman, Kenny McFadden and Amanda Gow, set out to assess the damage to the cemetery, which has been overgrown and virtually abandoned for decades, with a view to developing a plan for its restoration. Joining them on location was local architectural practice, Manish Chakroborti.
Kolkata
Known as Calcutta until 2001, the West Bengal city of Kolkata was founded on the banks of the River Hooghly in 1690 as a trading post for the English East India Company. Soon after its foundation, thousands of British migrants were making there way to the settlement to partake of the economic opportunities that soon followed, particularly during the 18th and 19th centuries, when the city was the centre of the Company’s opium trade, with the locally grown opium crop shipped to China after auction. Kolkata remained the capital of the British Raj until 1911.
The Scottish Cemetery was established in Kolkata about a mile and half from the original British cemetery site at North Park Street, and was opened shortly after the construction of St. Andrew’s Church at Dalhousie Square in 1818. The kirk, now part of the Church of India, was the first adhering to the Church of Scotland to be built in India, and was raised to cater for an ever growing Scottish contingent within the Kolkata population. Amongst its worshippers were migrants from Dundee who came to develop and work within the city’s fledgling jute industry, building new jute mills and facilitating the export of raw materials from India back to the Highland city for processing. Other settlers from Scotland included industrialists, soldiers, and missionaries. Between eighty and ninety per cent of the burials are believed to be of Scots, with the remainder comprising of Christian Bengalis, and adherents to non-Anglican faiths, such as members of the English and Welsh dissenting churches.
The survey
Prior to the survey team’s arrival, a concerted effort was organised locally to clear away much of the overgrown site of its dense foliage, such as the thick branches of bunyan trees, which can grow some twenty feet in just a year. When the Scottish delegation arrived, it concentrated on the study of one particular quadrant believed to contain the oldest burials, and examined approximately four hundred graves within it, careful to avoid the dangers of rats and snakes resident on the site. An old cemetery plan from the 1930s showing the lay out was used as a guide to the work, and in addition to work on the graves, a full survey was also carried out of the cemetery’s lodge.
The trip represented the first ever overseas trip for the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland (now Historic Scotland), and an interesting project for the body within its centenary year. For architectural historian Claire Sorenson, the work asked of her was similar to that carried out many times before on similar sites across Scotland. “It was astonishing how Scottish much of the place felt. Many of the monuments were constructed from Aberdeen granite, with others from brick and lime mortar, and many were in good condition, despite the deterioration of the site. On several stones, however, the lead inscriptions had since been picked out, and the iron railings removed.”
Whilst many graves from mill workers, missionaries and soldiers were identified, the recce also provided Claire with a glimpse into some of other professionals who once made a living in the former Indian capital. “Of particular interest to me was to find the names of so many Scottish masons recorded on the stones, but also the names of the many doctors from Scotland who were laid to rest in the grounds”.
With photographer colleague Steve Wallace, the monuments were extensively photographed, with most of the images recorded now available to view on the Historic Scotland's Canmore database at https://canmore.org.uk. From a genealogical point of view, the images provide a great deal of information for those who may have ancestors buried there. A good example is that of James Miller, who died in Calcutta on November 2nd 1918, with his stone recording that he was ‘aged 27 years, dearly loved and only son of Alexander & Jeanne Miller, Inverkeithing, Scotland’.
Whilst the cemetery was believed to have commenced its burials in the early 1820s, it is thought that the last bodies to be interred there were done so during the 1960s. The monumental styles discovered by the survey team ranged from very ornate classical monuments and urns to the most simplistic inscribed headstones. Amongst some of the more interesting discoveries on the site were the graves of a Glasgow iron master named Boyle, a director of Calcutta’s zoological gardens, and the Reverend John Adam, noted as a ‘late Missionary to the heathen…’. Within the site, James Wilson of Hawick is also believed to lie, who in addition to introducing a paper currency and income tax into India was also the founder of the Economist magazine in Britain.
Future plans
The initiative of architect James Simpson, a former member of the RCAHMS, the work of the Kolkata Scottish Heritage Trust (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC344642) is designed to further cement the historic links between Scotland and the famous Indian city. With the survey now complete, the results are being analysed with a view to turning what is currently a derelict abandoned site into a useful green space environment in India which also respects the locale’s uniquely Scottish heritage.
Simpson’s aim is not just to restore the site, but to create work for the current generation of residents in the area. “It is hoped that we can establish a centre for training locals in the traditional skills needed for such delicate repairs at the cemetery, but we are in urgent need of funds to help put these projects into practice”.
To find out more about how the survey team got on during their recce, a fascinating daily blog outlining their activities in Kolkata is available online at https://scottishcemeterykolkata.wordpress.com.
Chris
My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.
