Darjeeling

Darjeeling
Presidency: Bengal
Coordinates:	27.037559, 88.263044
Altitude:	2,134 m (7,001 ft)
Present Day Details
Place Name:	Darjeeling
State/Province:	West Bengal
Country:	India
Transport links
Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway

FibiWiki Maps
See our interactive map of this location showing places of interest during the British period
Darjeeling

Darjeeling was a hill station in Bengal.

There were military cantonments at Jalapahar (alternative spelling Jellapahar) (established 1848), Darjeeling and at Lebong, situated below Darjeeling about eight miles away. Lebong cantonment was established in 1882 as part of the Jalapahar cantonment, and became a separate cantonment in 1895. There were artillery barracks at Katapahar, above Darjeeling and it appears that this was what was called the Darjeeling cantonment. The term "Darjeeling cantonment" seems at times to have also included Jalapahar, which was a convalescent depot.
Senchal was a station five miles from Darjeeling, at an elevation of about 8,600 feet.
Takdah 16 miles south east of Darjeeling by motor road was in use as a cantonment for two Gurkha battalions 1910 to 1926, when it was closed due to unsuitable climatic conditions. In 1915 it was the Depot for 2nd 10th Gurkha Rifles and in January 1919 was listed as a Place of Internment/Prisoner of War Camp.

Spelling variants

Modern name: Darjeeling
Variants: Darjeeling/Darjiiling/Darjiling/Dorjeling

Cemeteries

• Darjeeling Old Cemetery darjeeling-tourism.com (This cemetery is also known as Hill Cart Road Cemetery or Hooker Road cemetery)
  • Named images of graves at Hill Cart Road cemetery Fibis database
  • Darjeeling’s English Cemetery by Rebecca Bragg with informative comments at the end, November 06, 2009 DarjeelingTimes.com, (now archived), a subsequent article dated 7 February 2010 (now archived) and also the updated information from her website (now archived) including a Questions and Answer session with a BACSA representative in July 2010 and Cemetery photos, now archived.
• Darjeeling New Cemetery. (Singtom Cemetery] Established 1858. In the 1980s this cemetery was in a devastated condition, but subsequently BACSA provided a substantial grant for restoration c 1998 for the Singtom cemetery and a further grant for the old St Andrew's Cemetery.
• The Jewish cemetery. The approximate location is mentioned in the comments by Peter J. Karthak on November 8, 2009 in Rebecca Bragg's article above. No records appear to have survived.
• Jalahapar Old Cemetery
• Jalahapar New Cemetery

A BACSA (British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia) cemetery publication is

• Darjeeling and the Dooars: Christian Cemeteries and Memorials 1842–1995 by Eileen Hewson, 2006. A record of the cemeteries and isolated graves from this corner of India with MIs and biographical notes on the planters and other notable tombs. 93pp, 23 illustrations, and map. See BACSA Books. BACSA have put the indexes to its cemetery books online and these indexes are free to browse. If an indexed name is of interest then application can be made to BACSA for full details of the relevant burial inscription - charges apply for this service.

The above publication is now also available as part of a pdf publication Burials In Assam & N.E. India 1793-1974 by Eileen Hewson, from Kabristan Archives.

The BACSA Archive at the British Library contains two files relating to Darjeeling Mss Eur F370/653-654, the latter includes "registers".

There is advice in the webpage "Darjeeling’s historic graves" that Find a Grave, refer External links below, has entries for several specified Darjeeling cemeteries.

Churches and Missions

St Andrew's Church, Darjeeling

• St Columba's Church (Estab 1894) trekearth.com
• Immaculate Conception Church (Catholic) - (Estab 1848)
• Sacred Heart Church - (Catholic) - (Estab 1898)

Schools and Colleges

Loretto Convent, Darjeeling

St Joseph's School, Darjeeling

(See also Schools)

• Bethany College
• Bishop Cotton School
• Loretto Convent
  • List of "The Children of Mary" taken from a roll of honour at the Loreto Convent School at Darjeeling 1888-1912 Fibis database
• Mount Hermon School
• St Joseph's , North Point
  • North Point Annuals from 1895 including
    • The North Point Annual Volume II, No 5, 1917 html version, pdf. Includes details of students' war service.
    • A Century Observed 1888-1898 History of the School
• St Michael's (girls school). Changed it's name to Government College in 1947.
• St Paul's (Jalapahar)

History of St. Paul's School, Darjeeling from the School website.

St. Paul’s was run on the lines of a typical British public school. C 1937 most of the teachers were British, some Anglo-Indians and two Indians. Most of the pupils were Christians, Jews and Armenians, and there were also some Hindus and a few Moslems. Whenever the students went out they wore the school cap and carried an umbrella as it rained quite often in Darjeeling.

Records

• The British Library has the following book in its catalogue:

Taylor’s Maps of the following Tea Districts, Darjeeling, Terai, Jalpaiguri and Dooars, Darrang, Golaghat, Jorhat Nowgong, Sibsagar, Lakhimpur, Dibrugarh, Cachar, Sylhet, with complete Index to all Tea Gardens, published 1910

Related Articles

• Tea Plantation
• Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway
• Darjeeling Images Fibiwiki page containing various images of Darjeeling - click on thumbnails to expand.

External links

• Darjeeling Wikipedia
• Jalapahar Wikipedia
• Find A Grave: Darjeeling
• Memories: Darjeeling from the website Koi-Hai
• Darjeeling Tea History, archived.
• Photograph of a tea plantation, Darjeeling.
• Photos of Darjeeling from Old Indian Photos
• Das Studio, Darjeeling -capturing moments

Old photographs of Darjeeling from the Das Studio Photo Archives from Ratna D Pradhan’s Himalayan Light: Images of the Himalayas. If you cannot access this link, the archived link provides an indication of the content.

• Scroll down for some photographs of Darjeeling from an 1887 album from Albumen photographs of the 19th Century.
• Old Mount Hermon Students' Association (UK)
  • Old Darjeeling Photographs
• Photographs: Darjeeling English Cath Forrest’s collection on flickr.com. The Album description includes the wording "...the New School, set up during the Second World War to educate the children of British families in India safely, away from the threat of Japanese bombs, was closed at the end of the war. My mother and her classmates, some as young as five, were sent up here all the way from Calcutta on the Darjeeling Mail and the Toy Train.".
• "Darjeeling is all the Raj" by Michael Gebicki August 01, 2009 news.com.au. Article about a hotel in Darjeeling “where the clock stopped ticking circa 1930”, and where the library has a substantial collection relating to India's railways.
• The cantonment at Lebong 1910 Postcard from Images of Asia, now archived.
• 20th Century Barracks in India Includes Lebong. From Photo Gallery: Accommodation for Soldiers and Officers. King's Own Royal Regiment Museum, Lancaster.
• Photograph: Missionary being taken up hill on a litter [dandy], Darjeeling, ca.1890 Photographs from Scottish Missions, the National Library of Scotland. USC Digital Library

Historical books online

• "Darjeeling Town" Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume 11, page 178
• "Jalapahar" Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume 14, page 17.
• "Lebong" Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume 16, page 158.
• Bengal District Gazetteers: Darjeeling by L.S.S.O’Malley 1907 Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.
  • "The cantonments at Darjeeling", page 189
  • "Jalapahar", page 191
  • "Lebong", page 201

Bengal District Gazetteers - Darjeeling by Arthur Jules Dash 1947. Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.

• "Map of Darjeeling" between pages 314 and 315, A Handbook for Travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon published by John Murray, London Eighth Edition 1911 Archive.org.
• "Darjeeling -The New Indian Sanitarium" page 261 Parbury's Oriental Herald and Colonial intelligencer Volume Ii, July-December 1838. Google Books
• "“Bye Laws” and Office Rules at Darjeeling 1st August 1841" page 263 The Bengal and Agra Annual Guide and Gazetteer for 1842 Volume II Google Books
• "Darjeeling in 1841" by J. D., page 74 Bengal, Past and Present, Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society Volume 44, July-Dec 1932. Archive.org. Digital Library of India Collection.
• "Darjeeling" page 196 Calcutta Review Volume 28, January-June 1857 Google Books
• A Sketch of the Physical and Topographical Characters and Other Relations of the Hill Sanitaria of Darjeeling, Nynee Tal, Landour and Murree, in the Bengal Presidency, page 305 Army Medical Department: Report for the Year 1862 Google Books
• "Darjeeling" page 396 Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Sanitary State of the Army in India : with Abstract of Evidence, and of Reports Received from Indian Military Stations 1864 Archive.org
• The station of Senchal, five miles from Darjeeling c 1865 is mentioned in " India: Bengal. Report" by C. Macnamara, Medical Officer-in-Charge of the "Chandnie" Hospital, Calcutta, and Surgeon to the Ophthalmic Hospital. Page 89 Reports on the progress of practical and scientific medicine, ed. by H. Dobell, Volume 2‬, 1871 Google Books
• The Indian Alps and how we crossed them: being a narrative of two years' residence in the eastern Himalaya and two months' tour into the interior by a Lady Pioneer [catalogued Mrs Nina Elizabeth Mazuchelli]. With Illustrations by herself. 1876 Archive.org. Elizabeth Sarah Mazuchelli (1832-1914) Wikipedia. She was married to Francis Mazuchelli, Army Chaplain, who was appointed to Darjeeling in 1869. A detailed account of the above trip is given in

On Top of the World–Five Women Explorers in Tibet by Luree Miller 1976. Link to a pdf download Pahar- Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. If download button does not display, locate under Books/Tibet And China/1976.

• Notes on Tea in Darjeeling by A Planter. 1888 Archive.org.
• Thacker’s Guide Book to Darjeeling and its Neighbourhood by Mitchell 1891. Link to a pdf download Pahar- Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. If download link does not display, locate under Books/Indian Subcontinent.
• "Darjeeling 1888" page 363, and "Deputy Commissionership of Darjeeling 1890-92" page 373 The Ritchies in India; extracts from the correspondence of William Ritchie, 1817-1862; and personal reminiscences of Gerald Ritchie compiled and edited by Gerald Ritchie 1920. Archive.org
• The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway: Illustrated Guide for Tourists 1896 Archive.org
• Darjeeling is mentioned in the first chapter of Among the Himalayas by Major L A Waddell, Indian Army Medical Corps 1899 edition, 2nd edition 1900 Archive.org
• Newman's Guide to Darjeeling and Its Surroundings, Historical & Descriptive 1900 Archive.org

Newman’s Guide to Darjeeling 1930. Pdf download Pahar- Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. If download link does not display, locate under Books/Indian Subcontinent.

• Darjeeling Route Guide by George P Robertson 1913. Archive.org, mirror from Digital Library of India. Full title: Darjeeling route guide: With directions, plans, a map and a complete index for the instruction and guidance of visitors to the town.
• "Beriberi in Lebong" [in 1914] by Major J C Kennedy, Royal Army Medical Corps, Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, page 268 September 1915
  • Rough plan of Lebong cantonment, showing the bungalows page 277
• “Darjeeling” from Bengal and Assam, Behar and Orissa : their history, people, commerce and industrial resources by Somerset Playne 1917 Archive.org
• Catalogued as History Of The Darjeeling District by E C Dozey 1917, Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection. Full title as for 2nd edition. A chapter on schools commences digital page 99, and a chapter on cemeteries, with details of some burials, commences digital page 140. Note some pages appear to be missing.

A revised 2nd edition, published c 1922 is titled A Concise History of the Darjeeling District since 1835 by E C Dozey Archive.org. The chapter on cemeteries commences page 146. Another file, Archive.org, where images perhaps may be better.

• Darjeeling & its Mountain Railway: A Guide and Souvenir published by the Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway Co. Ld. 1921 vsdh.org
  • Chapter 6 "Suburbs of Darjeeling" includes details about the cantonments at Lebong, Jalapahar and Katapahar (although confusingly the latter is also called Jalapahar)

This book is also available to download as a pdf file from Pahar-Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. If download link does not display, locate under Books/Indian Subcontinent.

• A trip to Darjeeling (1941) page 68 A Traveler's Tale : Memories of India by Enid Saunders Candlin 1974. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. The author’s husband was a metallurgist/chemical engineer who worked in India 1941-46.
• The Children of Kanchenjunga by David Wilson Fletcher. Link to a pdf download PAHAR Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. Full title: The Children of Kanchenjunga. On the lives of a tea-planter and his family in the Darjeeling Hills, Published London 1955.

Himalayan Tea Garden by David Wilson Fletcher. Link to a pdf download PAHAR Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. Full title: Himalayan Tea Garden: A Young Family's Adventures on a Tea Plantation Near Darjeeling. Published New York, 1955. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library edition, catalogued 1956. Catalogue details state "Originally published in London in 1955 under title: The children of Kanchenjunga". Elsewhere, the author was stated to be a Gurkha officer who ran a tea plantation in Darjeeling in 1953.

• The Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj by Dane Kennedy, 1996 University of California Press