South Park Street Cemetery, Kolkata - personalities buried there!! - 02

South Park Street Cemetery, Kolkata. nshmpgmedia2013.blogspot.com


South Park street centery, Kolkata. www.bcmtouring.com


Considered to be one of the earliest non-church cemeteries in the world, and presumably the largest Christian cemetery outside Europe and America in the 19th century, the  South Park Street Cemetery  was opened in 1767  to cater to the growing  Christian population of Kolkata. It is located on Mother Teresa Sarani, Kolkata, West Bengal State, NE India. This cemetery has become a heritage site and is under the care of the ASI (Archaeological Society of India) and it was once a marshy area prior to the construction of the cemetery.  The expansion of the cemetery took place in 1785 and later in 1840. The earliest grave, on record, dates  back to 1768 and the last memorial was erected in 1895. However, by 1790, the Europeans stopped using this site for burial purposes and the reason attributed was  Plague epidemic. A marble plaque at the gate which reads "South Park Street, Opened:1767, Closed:1790confirms this.

 It is simply an open-air museum of a large number of neo-classical, funerary sculptures of various pyramids, mausoleums and tomb statues built in a mix of Indo-Gothic-Saracenic style. The aura of the British Raj is well expressed by the architectural features. The heroic exploits of so many Europeans in the by-gone colonial period, etc are frozen in each one of the graves. Given below are some of the personalities buried here and their heroic and poignant stories frozen in the tombstones


William Joneshttp://navrangindia.blogspot.in



www.bcmtouring.com


The tomb of Sir William Jones(28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794)  He was an Anglo-Welsh philologist, an Indologist, a  judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal and a scholar of ancient India. He showed the possible existence of a relationship among European and Indian languages, which would later be known as Indo-European languages. He, along with Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed, founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, and started a journal called Asiatic Researches. The cause of his death: due to an inflammation of the liver.


Tomb of william Jones bcmtouring.com


    The Tomb of Rose Aylmer (died 1800): And here's the spiral-columned tomb of young Rose Aylmer, a 17 year- old young girl who used to go for a walk with the poet Savage Landor. Unfortunately, the girl died of cholera a year after arriving in India. Poignant end of a charming girl. As for poet Landor, it was a terrible shock.  Heartbroken, the thoughts of young Rose haunted him that led him to dedicate a famous ode to her, which was added to the tomb in 1910.


Tomb of Rose Aylmer, , is the first one on the left.
/bcmtouring.com


Elisabeth Jane Barwell,  Kolkata. harpermcalpineblack.blogspot


 The Tomb of   Elizabeth Barwell (died 1779): She is famous for her great beauty, the Helen of British India. She arrived in India in 1775. Since her arrival, she had grabbed the attention of Young promising British officers of the East India, who, being far away from England,  led a lonely life. They vied with one another to seek her hand. Her tomb, pyramidal in shape is the largest one. At last, as ill-luck would have it,  she married a womanizer and gambler, Richard Barwell.


George Bogle.http://artuk.org


The Tomb of  George Bogle: (26 November 1746 – 3 April 1781) was a Scottish adventurer and diplomat. He took the honor of being the first to establish diplomatic relations with Tibet and to attempt recognition by the Chinese Qing dynasty. His mission is still used today as a reference point in debates between China and Tibetan independence activists.


Sir John Clavering wiki.fibis.org


 The Tomb of Lieut. Gen. John Clavering (bapt. 1722 – 30 August 1777) : Baptised in Lanchester, County Durham, England in 1722, Clavering was the younger son of Sir James Clavering and Catherine Yorke. During the Seven Years' War, he saw duty in the West Indies and successfully commanded the attack on Guadeloupe, in 1759.  Later he was promoted to Lieutenant General, in 1770, Clavering was appointed as governor of Landguard Fort. In 1773, Clavering landed in  India as a member of the Supreme Council of Bengal. In 1774, shortly after Warren Hastings had become the  Governor General, Clavering was appointed as Commander in chief of India. He was bestowed with a Knight of the Bath in 1775. In  August 1777 at the age of 55, he died at Calcutta,  and was buried there in South Park Street Cemetery.


The Tomb of  Dennison:  The monument, known as the "Bleeding Tomb," because at certain times of year it appears to bleed. (Probably iron oxide leeching out during the rains.).
  

The tomb of Augustus Cleveland (d. 1784):  Cleveland was an East India Company administrator in the Province of Bengal, a Collector of the Revenues and a Judge of the Dewanny Adawlut of the Districts of Bhagalpur and various others. He was quite sympathetic towards natives and won their friendship and admiration. He was killed by a rebel tribe when he was just 30 years old.  After his death, he became revered by the native Indians as a Demi-god and his domed monument became a holy shrine.  


The Tomb of Captain Edward Cooke, (1772-1799): Royal Navy officer. he was known for his wonderful service during the French Revolutionary Wars. He captured the  French frigate HMS Sybille in the Indian Ocean in 1798; he led a successful bloodless raid on the port of Manila in the Spanish Philippines.


Henry Louis Vivian Derozio .istampgallery.com


The Tomb of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809–1831):  He was a 21 year- old Anglo-Indian teacher and poet. He worked in the Hindu College (later Presidency College) and helped inspire the young Bengal Movement in the early 19th century. He got a bad rap and was accused of preaching atheism. Later he was fired from the college; he died when he was just 22 years of age.


Tomb of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio & Bengal Movement. bcmtouring.com



impeached Justice Sir Elijah Impey.en.wikipedia.org


The Tomb of Judge Sir Elijah Impey (1732-1809) He along with Warren Hastings became a notorious figure. First British judge in history impeached by the house of Commons, London. Being the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, he was charged with dereliction of his duty. In 1775  he presided over the trial of Maharaja Nandakumar, who was  falsely accused of forging a bond in an attempt to deprive an Indian widow of more than half her inheritance. As a result of his biased verdict to save his high school buddy Warren Hastings' name and mistrial trial, an innocent man, an associate of the British company was hanged to death. In 1787 he was subjected to impeachment, along with Warren Hastings at the instigation of Lord Macaulay and other


The Tomb of Colonel Robert Kyd (1746–1793): Botanist,
 a British army officer stationed in India. He founded the famous botanical garden at Calcutta in 1787.


Kyd memorial urn  (1795) A,J .C Bose Botanic Garden.  en.wikipedia.or



Col. Robert Kyd. en.wikipedia.org


The Tomb of Lieut.Col. Colin Mackenzie (1754–1821): Surveyor General of India. Scottish.  An orientalist and an amazing collector of antiques. His collections consisting of thousands of manuscripts, inscriptions, translations, coins and paintings, which were acquired after his death by the India Office Library and are an important source for the study of Indian history.

 
col. Colin Mackenzie. twitter.com


The Tomb of Sir John Hadley D'Oyly, 6th Baronet (1754–1818): Politician, his eldest son the  Collector of Customs at Calcutta, Member of Parliament for Ipswich. He married Diana Cotes, widow of William Cotes and daughter of William Rochfort.


Gen. Charles Hindoo Stuart. bonaventura.co.uk


The Tomb of Major-General Charles Stuart (1758–1828): An Irish Army officer and Indophile popularly known as "Hindoo Stuart"ie.  Charles "Hindoo" Stuart, a British major general who "went native," adopting the customs, dress and even religion of the locals. His tomb is shaped like a small Hindu temple. He is
commemorated under that appellation on the plaque. He lived in Calcutta for more than 50 years. He had a large collection of idols of Hindu deities. When he died on  March 31, 1828, he was buried with his idols in the coffin.
Tomb of Major-General Charles Hindoo Stuart,bcmtouring.com


Above image: Stuart observed rituals, including a daily bath in the river Ganges as Hindus would do. His tomb resembles like a Hindu temple.

Tomb of Lt. Col. Valentine Blacker, Sur. Gen. of India . bcmtouring.com


Lt. Col. Valentine Blacker, Sur. Gen. of India, 1363 and the oldest: This grave contains only the following epitaph, possibly indicating that the person wished to remain anonymous: "A virtuous mother (died 1825)". The oldest grave in this graveyard is of Mrs.S.Pearson.(1768)

The cemetery contains the tomb of Colonel Vansittart, whose wife was a descendant of Oliver Cromwell.
 

There is a tomb sacred to the memory of Samuel Oldham, the first British undertaker in Bengal. He got his tombstone (stone being rare in this alluvial region) from the ruins of the city of Gaur, north of the Ganga near English Bazaar.  Mr. Oldham amassed a fortune before he himself was laid to rest here in 1788 surrounded by numerous of his own handicraft.