St John's Church: From Gour, Graves to a Growing Kolkata
- Shreya Teresita
- Jun 26, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 18, 2025
Whose graves these are I think I know. Their homes were in a faraway land though; They will not see me stopping here To watch as age wash over their bones.
At the corner of BBD Bagh’s Kiran Shankar Ray Road and Council House Street, not too far from Raj Bhavan, stands Kolkata’s third oldest church — St John’s Church. Don't let those rosy yellow walls and sleek, parked cars fool you — this place holds bones and memories from the 1700s.
Walk in through the iron gates on a lazy, late afternoon. The further you walk down the rocky driveway, the farther the pandemonium of the 21st century city will get; the louder the chorus of bird calls will become, and the longer the shade of the trees will turn.
Right ahead will be St John's Church's main building in all its Neoclassical glory, mirroring a resemblance of London's St Martin’s-in-the-Fields. Marble plaques that adorn its entryway will tell you how the land the church stands on (which was supposedly a graveyard once) was donated by Sovabazar Raj family's Maharaja Nabo Kishen Bahadur, and how then-Governor General Warren Hastings laid its foundation stone on an April day in 1784.
What the plaques won't tell you is a story you may find tucked away in the minutes of old kirk sessions, which, according to reports, document the exchanges between officials in the 1780s about taking stones from the ruins of Gour, all the way in the Malda district, for the construction of the new church!
Inside St John's Church
If you walk around to the back and into the church, a strong scent of incense wafting from the dome-shaped altar will usher you in. Ornate lamps and ancient fans will peer down from the high ceilings that are staple to old churches, and sunlight will pour in through the stained glass windows.
On the soft-blue walls, you'll find the many flowery plaques commemorating people from the colonial era, two of which you can trace back to famous writer William Dalrymple. One is James Achilles Kirkpatrick, who was the main character of Dalrymple's 2002 history book, White Mughals. The other is the author's ancestor, James Peter Pattle, who apparently drank himself to death after earning the title of "the greatest liar of India" in life.
The story of his body being pickled in rum and getting accidentally cremated after the ship carrying it to England wrecked on Hooghly is quite well-known. But what I find more interesting about James Pattle is the name of another great writer on his family tree - Virginia Woolf. Woolf, who edited a collection of photographs by Pattle's daughter, Julia Margaret Cameron, once discussed in an essay how even "the devil wouldn't let" this forefather of hers "go out of India!".
The church's inner sanctum houses many more such stories, like that of British artist Johann Zoffany's rendition of The Last Supper. The closer you get to the painting, the more you realise what an odd replica of the real deal it is.
Don't forget to take in a glance-full of the antique, 19th century pipe organ, said to the grandest one in the city till date. But also don't miss the blue and black marbles you walk on; these are said to be the very stones taken from Gour.
St John's Many Memorials
Step out on the portico and, on the Northern corridor, you will find the grand memorial dedicated to Lady Charlotte Canning. History books will tell you that she was the wife of a governor general and viceroy who died of malaria in the 1860s.
But her interesting legacy lie in the scrumptious Bengali sweet called 'Lady Kenny' (colloquially 'Ledikeni'), which famous confectioner Bhim Chandra Nag had created in her honour, and a special sequence in the song ‘Piu Bole’ from movie Parinita, which was shot around her elaborate memorial.
Once you step back on to the compound of St. John's Church's, you will find the round-domed Second Rohilla War Memorial, which, held by 12 pillars, commemorates the British soldiers killed in the Rohilla War. Then, there's the much-controversial Black Hole Memorial, which was built in memoriam of those who were said to have perished in 1756 while being imprisoned in a tiny dungeon in Fort William during the siege of Calcutta.
This memorial links Dalrymple back to Bengal once again, as you find a name of another one of his ancestors, Stair Dalrymple, on its plaque.
St John's Famous Graves
You will spot a few graves scattered around the compound. But as you walk further north, you'll reach a sectioned-off area, parted from the rest of the church with a gate. Here lies what is said to be a small portion of the original burial ground from the 1700s.
Shadowed under the drooping canopies on a sunny day, the first monument you'll spot here is the octagonal mausoleum of Job Charnock, the so-called “founder” of Calcutta.
Now, he’s not alone in this grave; there’s his ‘Indian’ wife, and many others from his time.
To your right, with Charnock’s mausoleum in front, you’ll find other, smaller cenotaphs.
But the most interesting bit of this cemetery sits a few steps away from Charnock’s grave.
This is the mausoleum of Frances “Begum” Johnson, also nicknamed as “the grand old lady of Calcutta”, who, after 89 long years and four marriages, was laid to rest here. Take some time and read her epitaph; it will be worth your time.
If you look down, you'll find that the path you're walking on is etched with epitaphs and dedications to countless departed souls, almost all of them snubbed out of life in their 20s or early 30s.
So, on a lazy afternoon, when the breeze is cool and the sun is mellow, walk around this ancient church that is sculpted with ornate architecture and elaborate memorials; perhaps even take a peek at the graves of these long-gone foreigners who are eternally asleep far away from their homeland.
While St John's stood witness, Calcutta grew into Kolkata. The City of Joy we know now looks over the church with encroaching walls and air-conditioner units.
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