Calcutta

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Calcutta
Presidency: Bengal
Coordinates: 22.572625°N, 88.363893°E
Altitude: 9 m (30 ft)
Present Day Details
Place Name: Kolkata
State/Province: West Bengal
Country: India
Transport links
East Indian Railway (Howrah)
Bengal-Nagpur Railway
Calcutta and South Eastern Railway (Sealdah)
Eastern Bengal Railway (Sealdah)
Calcutta Port Commissioners' Railway
Arrah-Sasaram Light Railway
Barasat-Basirhat Light Railway
Futwah-Islampur Light Railway
Howrah-Amta Light Railway
Howrah-Sheakhalla Light Railway
FibiWiki Maps
See our interactive map of this location showing
places of interest during the British period
Calcutta



Calcutta (present day Kolkata) is a large city in north-east India. Calcutta was the headquarters of the Government of the Bengal Presidency. It was also the capital of British India until Delhi became the capital on 12th December 1911. The city had a large European mercantile community.

Spelling Variants

Modern name: Kolkata
Variants: Calcutta

FIBIS resources

  • FIBIS database: Percy-Smith/Bullock papers Graves and Monuments contains some entries from the "Church of Our Lady of Delores, Baithakhana, Calcutta and Surah Cemetary. Hand written transcript taken and rearranged from 'The Registers & Inscriptions of the Church of Our Lady etc. by Rev H. Hosten Calcutta 1915", refer Churches and missions, Roman Catholic, below. This church was founded in 1810 and some of the records date back to that early period. Entries were noted in Inscriptions Volume 1, but it is not known if there are additional entries in other volumes
  • Images of Calcutta in Fibiwiki collection
  • "Eliza Fay: New Aspects" by David Atkinson FIBIS Journal Number 24 (Autumn 2010), pages 1-11. For details of how to access this article, see FIBIS Journals.
  • "The Imhoff Inheritance" by Pippa Milnamow FIBIS Journal Number 27 (Spring 2012), pages 3-13. Includes details of Belvedere House, now the National Library.

Military history

Battle of Calcutta 1757
3rd Carnatic War

Location

Calcutta is now known as Kolkata in modern day India and is situated at 22°33′N, 88°20′E in the Ganges Delta.

Places of interest

Calcutta in 1862

The Maidan

The site of Fort William, the Maidan was (and still is) the centre of Calcutta. It was bounded on the west side by the Hooghly River and the Strand Road, and on the east side by Chowringhi Road. Government House, the Governor's residence, was at the north end of the Maidan and Belvedere, the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, was near the southern end.

Eden Gardens

The Eden Gardens were started by Lord Auckland's sisters and are beautifully laid out. They were the main gathering place of Calcutta Society in the time of the British Raj. They are also the home of India's oldest cricket ground, the Calcutta Cricket Club, and have a lake which was the home of the Calcutta Rowing Club. Beside the lake is a Burmese Pagoda brought from Prome and set up in 1856. There were many statues in the Gardens. Calcutta Eden Gardens Links to a postcard of Eden Gardens in the Fibiwiki images collection

Churches and missions

Anglican

  • Exterior View of St James Church
    Exterior View of St James Church
  • Pulpit at St James Church
    Pulpit at St James Church
  • Interior View of St James Church
    Interior View of St James Church
  • Altar of St James Church
    Altar of St James Church
  • Early Vicars of St James Church
    Early Vicars of St James Church
  • Font of St James Church
    Font of St James Church
Roman Catholic Church, Dhurrumtollah Street, Calcutta

Roman Catholic

  • RC Cathedral (Virgin Mary of the Rosary) - built 1797
  • St Patrick's Chapel, Fort William - built 1857
  • St Theresa - built 1893
  • St Thomas' Church - (Middleton Row). Begun in 1841, adjacent to the Convent of Our Lady of Loreto
  • Church of Our Lady of Dolours, Boitakhana (Baithakhana), founded in 1810, as a Portuguese mission church. The address of the Church was 147 Bipin Behari Ganguly Street (Old Bowbazar Street. This India List post advises it is situated quite close to the Sealdah Station, and near the Railway Barracks where most of the Anglo Indian who were employed by the Railway lived. A book was published in 1915 in Calcutta The Registers & Inscriptions of the Church of Our Lady of Dolours, Baithakhana (1810-1914) by Fr H Hosten. A copy of this book is available in Calcutta at the Goethals Indian Library category Various Indian Missions subcategory Portuguese Jurisdiction. At least some of the records appear in the FIBIS database, refer above, but it is suspected that only some of the records were copied by Percy-Smith and Bullock. From copies of baptismal records obtained from the Church in the 1960s, and held by the FIBIS research co-ordinator, it would appear that some of the registers in the 1800s were noted in Portuguese.
  • Catholic [and other] Heritage Churches of Calcutta goethals.in
  • The [Catholic] Archdiocese of Calcutta with contact details

Other denominations

  • St Andrew's Church of Scotland - opened 1818. Website for St Andrew’s Church with contact email. The website advises that the church holds the Scottish Cemetery Burial Register from its inception in 1826 and Baptism and Marriage Registers of St Andrew's Church, Kolkata and for small fee will search and provide a copy of an extract. It also holds the Baptism and Marriage Registers and some other documents for Church of Scotland cantonment Churches throughout India, Ceylon, Burma and some Gulf stations. Note however this India List post dated 28 May 2012 reports a problem obtaining a copy of a record.
  • Greek Church - established 1780.
  • Holy Church of Nazareth (Armenian) - built in 1724. Dr. Reuben Khachaturyan/Liz Chater have transcribed all the baptisms at this church. They can be viewed on the FIBIS database. Liz also has many photos of graves at the Nazareth Church on her website.

Missions

  • Church Mission Society
  • Free Church of Scotland - started in 1830
  • London Missionary Society
  • Oxford Mission - Church of England
  • Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (Anglican)

External links

Non-Christian places of worship

As well as the temples and mosques that served the general Indian populace, Calcutta also housed:

  • Parsi temple
  • Synagogue
  • Chinese temple

Cemeteries

See Cemeteries in Calcutta. There is also information about the crematorium.

Education

Colleges

  • Bengal School of Art
  • Bishop's College, Circular Road - run by the Oxford Mission
  • Calcutta Medical College - formerly Bengal Medical College, founded 1835
  • Doveton College
  • Presidency College

Schools

Also refer Orphans and Calcutta schools c late 1700s

Economy and business

External Links

Encyclopedia entries
Maps
Guides and directories

See Directories online for links to many directories with information on Calcutta.

Images
Other

Historical books online

Also see Newspapers and journals online for many Calcutta publications including the Calcutta Review

Bengal, Past and Present, Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society was first published 1907 and is a very valuable source of information. Volumes are available at the British Library. There are published indexes, each of one volume, as follows: Volumes 1 (July 1907)-8 (June 1914); Volumes 9 (1914)-18 (1919); Volumes 1 (1907)-85 (1966); Volumes 1 (1907)-104 (1985). In addition, the British Library has an index for Volumes 19-29.
Note that a different Journal, with a somewhat similar name, is the Calcutta Historical Journal, published by the University of Calcutta, first published July 1976, available at the British Library
  • Volume 39, Part 1 Jan-March 1930 Archive.org
  • Volume 41, Part 2, April- June 1931 pages 101-188 Archive.org
  • A broken range of volumes is available to read online on the Digital Library of India website. Volume 2, part 2, commences at (actual) page 205, contents is computer page 8. Volume 25 has Volume 26 from computer page 211. Volume 44 is July-December 1932 and commences page 103, contents is computer page 7. Volume 49 has the language coded as bengali, so will not appear if the search is for english language books. Refer Online books-Digital Library of India for more details about this site.
    • Baptisms 1767 -1777 and Baptisms 1778-1782 Transcriptions from Registers of St John's, Calcutta by E W Madge as they appeared in Bengal Past and Present[2] – this link is to website of Madge Family of Bengal. Each listing contains many pages of biographical notes (13 and 16 pages respectively). The first page of the second document lists articles in other volumes of BP&P containing transcriptions of baptisms, marriages and burials to 1800, some of which are available online on the Digital Library of India website. Other articles are available at the British Library.
      • Baptisms 1713-1758 BPP Volume XXI, pp 143-159
      • Baptisms 1769-1766 BPP Volume V, pp 325-332
      • Marriages 1713-1754 BBP Volume IX, Part II, Serial No 18, Oct-Dec 1914 pp 217-243. Available online on DLI, catalogued as vol. 9, 1918; computer pages 86-112.
      • Marriages 1759-1779 BBP Volume IV, July-Dec 1909 pp 486-512. Available online on DLI as (1909) vol. 4; computer pages 107-147
      • Marriages 1780-1785 BPP Volume VII, pp 164-171. Available online on DLI, catalogued as (1917) vol. 7 but published c 1911; computer pages 197-204
      • Marriages 1785-1792 BBP Volume XVI, Part I, Serial No 31, Jan-March 1918 pp 41-71 Available online on DLI as vol.16, pt. 1; computer pages 52-82
      • Marriages 1781-1800 (Supplementary Register) BBP Volume XXI, pp 76-141
      • Burials 1713-1755 BPP Volume X, Jan-June 1915, Serial Nos 19-20, pp 257-284 Available online on DLI as vol.10; computer pages 84-111
      • Burials 1759-1761 BBP Volume V, pp 136-142
      • Burials 1762-1774 BBP Volume VI 1910, pp 92-126 Available online on DLI, catalogued as Volume 6, no 12; computer pages 143-177
      • Burials 1775-81 BPP Volume 31 (Jan-Jun 1926) pages 130-156. Available online on DLI, catalogued as Vol.31,Part.1,Serial no.61, computer pages 149-175
      • Burials 1782-88 Volume 32 II (Oct-Dec 1926) pages 109-132. Available online on DLI, catalogued as vol.32, computer pages 132-155
  • "Slavery Days in Old Calcutta" by Syud Hossain, Bengal Past and Present, Volume II, Part II 1908, pages 271-276 is available to read online on the Digital Library of India website. Catalogued as (1908) vol. 2, pt. 2; computer pages 22-27
  • John Williamson Palmer was an American doctor and author who wrote c 1858 "The Chorus of the Palanquin Bearers", a description of his transit through Cossitollah Street, Calcutta[3]. Photograph of Man in Palki (Palanquin) in Calcutta from the Smithsonian Institution. Click image to enlarge.
  • There are many references to Calcutta in History of The Portuguese in Bengal by J J A Campos 1919 which is available to read online on the Digital Library of India website. For barcode 99999990174384, the Contents is computer page 16.
  • A novel: Life in India; or, The English at Calcutta by Anne Catharine Monkland 1828 Volume I, Volume II, Volume III Google Books

References

  1. ↑ Footnote in "The Muharram Riot Of 1779 And The Struggle For Status And Authority In Early Colonial Calcutta" by P J Marshall Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Golden Jubilee Volume 50 2005
  2. ↑ Available on the Digital Library of India website. Bengal Past and Present Volume 25, Parts I and II (Series nos 49-50) January-June 1923, pages 130-155 and Volume 26, part 2, 1923, pages 142-168, DLI computer pages 45-71
  3. ↑ Reprinted in Oliver Wendell Holmes, poet, littérateur, scientist, page 330 by William Sloane Kennedy 1883, Archive.org, originally from Atlantic Monthly, January 1858

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