Formerly known as the
‘Great Christian Burial Ground’, South Park Street Cemetery was initially
located in the middle of a dense tropical forest quite away from the British
settlement at Dalhousie, in Calcutta. The year was 1767 … when Calcutta being a
malarial swamp, mortality rate was shockingly high. The cemetery was renamed
when Sir Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at Fort
William, built a private deer park here. Burials usually took place after dark,
with lighted torches, so as not to alarm the British residents with the large
number of deaths … and also to ward off tigers that roamed in this area towards
the end of the 18th century! Military funerals took place in daytime
and were accompanied by gun salutes. After nearly 250 years, this cemetery now
stands in the heart of Kolkata. South Park Street Cemetery is one of the
earliest non-Church cemeteries in the world, one of the largest colonial
cemeteries, and a Grade One heritage site in Kolkata which attracts visitors from
near and far.
The cemetery is the final
resting place of several prominent personalities – there are numerous family vaults
and individual graves of British soldiers, administrators and their families. Walking
down the neatly-laid paths and reading the epitaphs, makes it clear that the life
expectancy for the British in India was shockingly low – thirty years for men
and twenty-five for women. The oldest person resting here was aged eighty-five.
India was a perilous land for European settlers / invaders. Apart from tropical
disease, soldiers were killed in battles; and sailors were lost in shipwrecks. As Theon Wilkinson notes in Two Monsoons (1976): “In Calcutta in one
year, out of the total 1200, over a third died between August and end of
December. It was a regular annual occurrence: the survivors used to hold
thanksgiving banquets towards the end of October to celebrate the deliverance.”
Hence, there are graves of children as well.
The architecture in the South Park Street Cemetery reflects the grandeur of Europe in the 18th century – specially the love of Classicism – that the British carried with them to distant colonies. There is a unique blend of European Gothic and Indo-Saracenic styles, reflected in grand tombs and mausoleums decorated with columns, cupolas, domes, obelisks, sarcophagi and urns. It is interesting to note the absence of the symbols of Christianity. Perhaps, it is a reflection of the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ in 18th century Europe that saw a conscious move away from the established church and organised religion, towards the mysteries of the natural world created by God.
The plaque at the gate of South Park Street Cemetery gives a list of the prominent personalities who were laid to rest here. The first person to be buried here was John Wood, a writer in the Customs House, but no trace remains of his gravesite. Among the well-known people resting here are Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, the Eurasian poet, teacher and reformer; Sir William Jones, Indologist and founder of the Asiatic Society, Major General John Garstin, architect of Calcutta’s Town Hall; Major General Charles (Hindoo) Stuart, an Englishman “gone native” who worshipped Hindu deities – his grave resembles an ancient Hindu temple as a testimony to his faith. Rose Aylmer, the ill-fated fiancée of the British poet Walter Savage Landor, who inspired Landor’s ‘Ode to Rose’, lies here in a unique grave with the poem inscribed at the base. Also resting here are, Elizabeth Barwell, who enchanted many a Company man with her beauty; Lr. Col. Robert Kyd, renowned botanist and founder of the East India Company’s Botanical Gardens; Lieutenant Colonel Colin Mackenzie, the first Surveyor General of India; George Bogel, the first British envoy to Tibet and Augustus Cleveland, Collector and Judge of the East India Company, who empowered Santhal tribes of Bihar to resist exploitation by money-lenders and was deified in the “Chilmil Temple” of Bhagalpur. There are the lesser-known lmpeys and the Princeps; Henry Vansittart and his wife, who was a descendent of Oliver Cromwell, Walter Landor Dickens, son of Victorian novelist Charles Dickens, Lady Anne Monson, a notable 18th century botanist and the great-granddaughter of King Charles II, lying beside her husband, Colonel Monson. The most poignant sights are the graves of children – the four years old, Warren Hastings Larkins – whom the parents describe lovingly as a child of uncommon intelligence, uncommon perception. The epitaphs proudly proclaim their claim to fame or simply their occupations – doctor, lawyer, architect, merchant, silversmith, civil servant, jail-keeper, aristocrats with hereditary titles, socialites with connections, breeder of cattle, livery stable-keeper, steward to the Governors-General, Governor General’s Bodyguard, park superintendent, surgeon, and also the undertaker – who during their lifetimes made British Calcutta the first city of the Raj.
An oasis of tranquility
just off the busy Park Street, this place is a repository of stories … and of
resilience. The ambience of the place is more impressive than the grandiose
structures and illustrious names. As I left the cemetery, I carried the stories
with me as a reminder, that even in death, life endures. South Park Street
Cemetery is not merely a burial ground; it is a chronicle of an age that is
gone but strangely endures, it boldly declares the presence of the British in
Calcutta: “we were here; we served; we are important; even death will not erase
us” … just as, some of us will leave an enduring legacy of our lives on the Internet.
