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This book by Dr Neeta Das, the renowned Kolkata architect, is available to download free of charge.

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Pompous Graves is packed full of relevant photographs and maps as well as previously unknown facts which have been diligently uncovered by Bhadra.  For example, the notable difference between the truly pompous monuments of South Park Street and the much humbler memorials of later cemeteries had previously been attributed to a fundamental religious shift.  It was thought the Evangelical movement encouraged a simpler, less grandiose style of commemoration of the dead.  Not so.  On page 38 we find ‘Great inconvenience having arisen…. from the general practice  which prevails among all classes of erecting Tombs of unreasonable dimensions over the remains of Relatives and Friends, the Rt. Hon’ble Governor-in-Council has been pleased to resolve that the size of monuments hereafter to be erected in the burial ground of any outstation shall be limited to 7 ft x 3ft. 6ins.’  So it was for a pragmatic reason, rather than a spiritual one that the change occurred.  Tribute is paid to BACSA’s founder, Theon Wilkinson and to Dr Maurice Shellim, who lived in Calcutta for many years. A less well-known name is Roger Pearson, a young British accountant working in Calcutta in the 1950s.  He persuaded the Burial Board to halt its proposed demolition of South Park Street cemetery while he raised funds for restoration. With the help of Calcutta-based architect Bernard Matthews and Aurelius Khan ICS, Pearson succeeded in restoring most of the monuments.  Aurelius Khan subsequently became Secretary of the Christian Burial Board.

Â鶹´«Ã½was so impressed by the draft manuscript of Pompous Graves that it has funded its publication.  The book is not only the first detailed history of the Park Street cemeteries, it is well-written, informative and with a touch of humour too – a final chapter on ‘Looking for the Paranormal’ is instructive.  There is a chronology, a list of notable burials and a good index.  Highly recommended.   Copies may be ordered online through the Â鶹´«Ã½website. In addition a limited number of copies are available in Britain from the Editor of Chowkidar (rosieljai@clara.co.uk), and it is also on sale at the gate-house of South Park Street cemetery itself.

This review of Pompous Graves appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Chowkidar, Vol 16 No.6. Published by Â鶹´«Ã½(ISBN 978 0 907799 95 5). pp160.

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A Portable Document Format (PDF) copy will be emailed to the customer and is no longer available in printed book format.

edited by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones 2015, 212pp

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‘Jhansi Cantonment Cemetery’ contains information about military personnel from a huge range of regiments; Indian, Scottish, Welsh, English even West African. It has army wives, children and babies, railway workers and their families, even Boer prisoners of war and those who lost their lives in an Air France Air crash in 1938.

Ancestry researchers, military aficionados, even epidemiology researchers will find this publication of huge interest.

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