James Pattle: The Notorious Liar of British India and the Legend of His Exploding Corpse!!

Navrang India November 20, 2025

 James Pattle, a senior official of the Bengal Civil Service during the era of the British East India Company, is remembered less for his long administrative career and more for the extraordinary legend that surrounds his death. Born on 31 December 1775 in Bengal to Thomas Pattle, a director of the East India Company, and Sarah Haslesby, James belonged to a prominent Anglo-Indian family. Starting his career in 1792—with support from Warren Hastings—he rose steadily, eventually becoming a senior member of the Board of Revenue and later a judge of the Court of Appeal at Murshidabad. With an exceptional 53 years of service, he was among the longest-serving EIC officers.

James Prattle,medium.com

James & Adeline Pattle,their daughters.pattledomcreations.com

St. John's church, Kolkata. marble plaque,-James Pattle&  
Adeline.double-dolphin.blogspot.com

Despite his status, Pattle carried a notorious reputation. According to his great-granddaughter, the celebrated writer Virginia Woolf, he was “the greatest liar in India,” a habitual drinker and a man with a turbulent personal life. Others in the family, however, later defended him, suggesting his infamous traits might have belonged instead to his brother, Colonel William Pattle—nicknamed “Jemmy Blazes”—a flamboyant military figure who led a famous charge in Sindh in 1843.

Adelina Pattle (1793–1845) medium.com

Quotes .quotesvalley.com

James Pattle lived in the Garden Reach area of Calcutta, overlooking the Hooghly River. He died on 4 September 1845 on Chowringhee Road at the age of 69. His wife, Adeline de L’Etang, daughter of the Chevalier de L’Etang—once a page to Queen Marie Antoinette—died mysteriously two months later. Both lie commemorated by a marble plaque in St. John’s Church, Kolkata, near Job Charnock’s mausoleum.

The extraordinary tale begins with Pattle’s insistence, stated in his will, that his body be taken to England for burial. To preserve it, his corpse was embalmed and sealed in a cask of spirits. During the voyage, however, gases built up inside, causing the cask to burst open in the middle of the night—sending the corpse springing upright “like a jack-in-the-box” before the horrified widow. Terrified sailors refused to keep the body on board, and the cask was forced ashore.

According to local legend, the storm-damaged cask later washed up near Adeline’s residence. When stored in her home, it exploded a second time, allegedly causing her fatal shock. Virginia Woolf later quipped that Pattle was such a scoundrel that “the devil wouldn’t let him leave India.”

Today, his monument at St. John’s Church continues to receive occasional visits from descendants, and the bizarre story of the “corpse in the cask” remains one of colonial Calcutta’s most extraordinary legends.