South Park Street Cemetery | |
---|---|
Details | |
Established | 1767 |
Location | |
Country | India |
Coordinates | 22°32′47″N88°21′37″E / 22.54639°N 88.36028°E |
Type | Historic |
Owned by | Christian Burial Board, Kolkata |
South Park Street Cemetery, formerly known as the 'Great Christian Burial Ground', was one of the earliest non-church cemeteries in the world. [1] [2] The cemetery houses numerous graves and monuments belonging to British soldiers, administrators, and their families. It is also the final resting place of several prominent personalities, including Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Sir William Jones. It is located on Mother Teresa Sarani (also known as Park Street), Central Kolkata, India.
The burial ground, along with a new road leading to it, known as the Burial Ground Road, was built in 1767. The cemetery and the road were later renamed Park Street after a private deer park established by Sir Elijah Impey. [3] By the year 1785, the cemetery had been extended on the northern side of Park Street. Even though a marble plaque at the cemetery gate reads “South Park Street, Opened:1767, Closed:1790”, the burials continued in the 1830s, [2] until a vast new cemetery was opened to the east of the Lower Circular Road.
After the independence of India, the Park Street cemeteries were decided to be leveled off, as funding for the colonial civil cemeteries were withdrawn. This decision met with resistance from Anglo-Indian citizens of Calcutta. [1] In 1953, the North Park Street Cemetery was decided to be demolished, and the income obtained by leasing the land was used to upkeep the South Park Street Cemetery. [1] In the late 1970s, the cemetery came under the purview of the Association for the Preservation of Historical Cemeteries in India (APHCI) and the Christian Burial Board.
In 1984, Apeejay Trust attempted to demolish the cemetery in order to build an arts center, which was later stopped by an intervention from the Calcutta High Court. [4] [5] Nevertheless, substantial damage had already been done by then, and many graves were lost. The grave of Charles Stuart was destroyed (and was later restored) and the demolition of Derozio's grave had been initiated. In the early 2000s, a restoration project was launched to conserve the cemetery's heritage and prevent its further deterioration.
The cemetery is considered to be an important example of colonial-era architecture, with its Gothic-style tombs and monuments, mixed with the rich flavor of the Greek, Egyptian, and Indo-Saracenic styles. In certain instances, elements from Hindu architecture and Islamic tombs have also been adopted. [6] Many of the monuments in the cemetery are adorned with intricate carvings, sculptures, and epitaphs. The structures are primarily constructed of sandstone, marble, and bricks, and feature a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from simple headstones to grand mausoleums.
Bunhill Fields is a former burial ground in central London, in the London Borough of Islington, just north of the City of London. What remains is about 1.6 hectares in extent and the bulk of the site is a public garden maintained by the City of London Corporation.
The Granary Burying Ground in Massachusetts is the city of Boston's third-oldest cemetery, founded in 1660 and located on Tremont Street. It is the burial location of Revolutionary War-era patriots, including Paul Revere, the five victims of the Boston Massacre, and three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine. The cemetery has 2,345 grave-markers, but historians estimate that as many as 5,000 people are buried in it. The cemetery is adjacent to Park Street Church, behind the Boston Athenæum and immediately across from Suffolk University Law School. It is a site on Boston's Freedom Trail. The cemetery's Egyptian revival gate and fence were designed by architect Isaiah Rogers (1800–1869), who designed an identical gate for Newport's Touro Cemetery.
Charles Stuart was an officer in the East India Company Army and is well known for being one of the few British officers to embrace Hindu culture while stationed there, earning the nickname Hindoo Stuart. He also wrote books and several newspaper articles extolling Hindu culture and tradition and urging its adoption by Europeans settled in India, and deploring the attitudes and activities of the Utilitarians and missionaries who deprecated Indian culture. He is mentioned in William Dalrymple's book White Mughals (2002).
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was an Indian poet and assistant headmaster of Hindu College, Kolkata. He was a radical thinker of his time and one of the first Indian educators to disseminate Western learning and science among the young men of Bengal.
Signers Monument is a granite obelisk located on Greene Street in Augusta, Georgia recognizing the state's three signatories of the Declaration of Independence: George Walton, Lyman Hall, and Button Gwinnett, all of whom are considered Founding Fathers of the United States. The remains of Walton and Hall lay beneath the monument, while Gwinnett's have not been located for certain.
Camperdown Cemetery is an historic cemetery located on Church Street in Newtown, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The cemetery was founded in 1848 and was for twenty years the main general cemetery for Sydney, with the total number of burials being about 18,000. Many people who were important to the early history of colonial Australia are buried there. It is the only one of Sydney's three main early cemeteries that still exists.
Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium in southwest London is located in Putney Vale, surrounded by Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park. It is located within 47 acres (19 ha) of parkland. The cemetery was opened in 1891 and the crematorium in 1938. The cemetery was originally laid out on land which had belonged to Newlands Farm, which was established in the medieval period.
Honouring individuals buried in Westminster Abbey has a long tradition. Over 3,300 people are buried or commemorated in the abbey. For much of the abbey's history, most of the people buried there besides monarchs were people with a connection to the church – either ordinary locals or the monks of the abbey itself, who were generally buried without surviving markers. Since the 18th century, it has become a prestigious honour for any British person to be buried or commemorated in the abbey, a practice much boosted by the lavish funeral and monument of Sir Isaac Newton, who died in 1727. By 1900, so many prominent figures were buried in the abbey that the writer William Morris called it a "National Valhalla".
Eastern Cemetery is a historic cemetery at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Congress Street in the Munjoy Hill neighborhood of Portland, Maine. Established in 1668, it is the city's oldest historic site. It has more than 4,000 marked graves with an estimated further 3,000 burials in unmarked plots. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
The Canongate Kirkyard stands around Canongate Kirk on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. The churchyard was used for burials from the late 1680s until the mid-20th century.
Greyfriars Kirkyard is the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located at the southern edge of the Old Town, adjacent to George Heriot's School. Burials have been taking place since the late 16th century, and a number of notable Edinburgh residents are interred at Greyfriars. The Kirkyard is operated by City of Edinburgh Council in liaison with a charitable trust, which is linked to but separate from the church. The Kirkyard and its monuments are protected as a category A listed building.
The Central Burying Ground is a cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was established on Boston Common in 1756. It is located on Boylston Street between Tremont Street and Charles Street.
Augustus Clevland (1754–1784) was an East India Company administrator in the Province of Bengal, a Collector of the Revenues and a Judge of the Dewanny Adawlut of the Districts of Bhagalpur and various others. He was very hostile towards the native Indians, after the 1777 famine the natives revolted against the company and he was killed by the rebellion leader Tilka Manjhi. He died in mid-career at the early age of 30.
St. John's Church, originally a cathedral, was among the first public buildings erected by the East India Company after Kolkata (Calcutta) became the effective capital of British India. It is located at the North-Western corner of Raj Bhavan, and served as the Anglican Cathedral of Calcutta till 1847, when the see was transferred to St. Paul's Cathedral. Construction of the building, modelled on St Martin-in-the-Fields of London, started in 1784, with Rs 30,000 raised through a public lottery, and was completed in 1787. The land the church stands on was gifted by Maharaja Nabo Kishen Bahadur of Sobhabazar. It is the third oldest church in the city, next to the Armenian Church of the Holy Nazareth and the Old Mission Church.
New Calton Burial Ground is a burial ground in Edinburgh. It was built as an overspill and functional replacement to Old Calton Burial Ground and lies half a mile to its east on Regent Road in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the south-east slopes of Calton Hill. On its southern edge it attaches to the north-east edge of the Canongate in the Old Town. It lies on a fairly steep south-facing slope with views to Holyrood Palace, the Scottish Parliament Building and Arthur’s Seat.
Henry Meredith Parker (1796–1868) was a British writer who lived in Calcutta, India, working in the Bengal Civil Service, who wrote poems and essays. He contributed a lot to local Indian periodicals such as the Calcutta Review. A major work was his two volume Bole Ponjis. Along with Theodore Dickens, Ashutosh Dey and others he established the Union Bank of Calcutta in 1829.
St John's Cemetery, Parramatta, also known as St John's Anglican Cemetery, Saint John's Cemetery, and First Fleet Cemetery, is a heritage-listed cemetery at 1 O'Connell Street, Parramatta, City of Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia.
Residency Cemetery, Babulbona also known as Station Burial ground or Babulbona Cemetery is a heritage Christian cemetery situated at Babulbona, Baharampur, Murshidabad district in the Indian state of West Bengal.
Colonial Park Cemetery is a historic cemetery located in downtown Savannah, Georgia. It became a city park in 1896, 43 years after burials in the cemetery ceased.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help)