Balmer Lawrie & Co., Clive Street

Calcutta’s central business district around Dalhousie Square has two things in abundance. One, Scottish firms set up during the Raj, but now continuing under Indian management, and two, heritage buildings, belonging to the aforementioned Scottish firms, approximately half of which are in a woeful state. If one were only to look at the names – Mackinnon Mackenzie, Turner Morrison, Shaw Wallace, Graham, these are all Scottish names. The Scots were the merchants of the Raj and they made their fortune in the imperial capital. What sets Balmer Lawrie & Co. apart from the rest is the fact that it has survived and prospered much better than its neighbours. The head office on Clive Street (now N.S. Road), therefore, is also one of the best maintained in the Dalhousie area. The legendary Calcutta firm has a rich history filled with many fascinating stories, beginning with how the firm got its name.

 

Mackinnon Mackenzie & Co., Strand Road

Inchcape House, known to most as the Mackinnon Mackenzie Building and today as Diamond Heritage, is one of the most prominent buildings on Strand Road and part of Calcutta’s skyline visible from across the river. While the building is not as remarkable architecturally as some of the other buildings in the Dalhousie area, it is magnificent because of its staggering proportions and its history. Mackinnon Mackenzie’s story is another of the great Scottish success stories in Calcutta (Kolkata). It is also one of the rare buildings in the city that has been saved from complete oblivion.

Graham Building, Clive Street

One of the reasons why I do what I do, photographing and writing about old buildings, is because I personally got fed up looking at buildings and not knowing what they were. According to author Brian Paul Bach, Calcutta is one of the least demolished cities in the world and a combination of declining economic activity in the East of India, a hopelessly overstretched judiciary and antiquated laws has meant that many of Calcutta’s colonial era buildings survive, still occupied by tenants. However, pro-tenant laws ensure that the revenue generated by many such buildings is so minuscule that their proper upkeep is often not possible. The sad truth is that if you own a commercial building with a heritage tag in Calcutta, it is much more profitable for you if that building collapses or goes up in flames. Thus, many of Calcutta’s old buildings continue to exist in a precarious condition, ghostly reminders of a colonial past. One such building is the one at 14, Netaji Subhas Road (formerly Clive Street).

 

Duff College (Jorabagan Police Station), Nimtala Ghat Street

I'm standing on Calcutta’s (Kolkata) Nimtala Ghat Street taking photographs of the building known as Duff College (now Jorabagan Police Station) when suddenly I hear a voice behind me say, “I see you've found our heritage forest”. The cheeky humour and sarcasm, as well as the voice itself, make me turn around. This is the voice of a man who is used to commanding people. The only equivalent that comes to mind is Bengali actor Kamal Mitra whose portrayal of tough father-in-law characters would make people quake in their boots. The source of the voice turns out to be advocate and author Guru Biswas. “You should upload this photograph with the caption, Is this a heritage forest?”, he chuckles, and he isn't very wrong. The building is completely overgrown with weeds and trees making it impossible to get a clear shot. Mr. Biswas takes me inside the Jorabagan Police Station, which now occupies a modern building behind Duff College, and I manage to get a few shots of the northern side of the building as well. But ever since I saw photographs of this building in INTACH’s book on Calcutta’s built heritage, I have wanted to find out exactly what this massive structure was, and how it was connected to Scottish Missionary Alexander Duff. Let us begin with Duff himself.

 

St. Andrew's Church, Dalhousie Square

St. Andrews Church, located at the North Eastern corner of Dalhousie Square, has two other names; The Scotch Kirk and Lat Sahib Ka Girja. The second name it probably acquired from the fact that the foundation stone was laid by the Countess of Loudon and Moira, wife of the then Governor General, The Marquess of Hastings. The former nickname stemmed from that fact that it was built to serve the Scottish Presbyterian community of Calcutta (Kolkata).

St. Andrew's Church. The tram seen here is entering the B.B.D. Bag Depot

The place where St. Andrews Church now stands was once occupied by the Old Court House. It may have originally been a charity school, which then became the Mayor’s Court, and finally the Supreme Court, before the magnificent Gothic pile on Esplanade Row West came up. The road leading from the Church to the Maidan is still known as Old Court House Street. This was the same court house where Maharaja Nandakumar was tried and sentenced to death in 1775. The Old Court House eventually fell into disrepair, and was pulled down in 1792. The Anglo-Indian Presbytery was created by the Charter of 1813 along with the Anglo India Episcopate. The Court of Directors in a public general letter dated 12th November 1813 informed the Governor General of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal of the appointment of “one Minister of the Church of Scotland with the same Salary as is granted to the Junior Chaplain at each of the Presidencies, and we direct that a suitable place of Worship be provided or erected”. The Rev. Dr. James Bryce arrived in Calcutta on 28th November 1814 to fill the position of Chaplain on the Bengal Ecclesiastical Establishment. It seems that right from the beginning a bitter rivalry existed between Rev. Bryce, and the first Bishop of the Indian Episcopate, Bishop Fanshawe Middleton, who headed the Anglican St. John’s Church located at the North Eastern corner of Government House (Raj Bhavan).

Bathgate & Co., Camac Street & Ballygunge Circular Road

The first time I heard the name Bathgate & Co. was when I asked my mother about the dilapidated building that once housed my Kindergarten school. That was the name originally associated with building, she said. Thus, my digging began. I present to you here, information that I have gathered through countless hours of internet trawling. Because, in spite of the fact that Bathgate & Co. were Calcutta’s very first chemists, there is no book or website dedicated to their history.

The root encrusted walls of Bathgate & Co's Ballygunge Dispensary

Finlay Muir & Co., Royal Exchange Place

Although some of the heritage buildings of Calcutta’s Dalhousie Square area are government buildings, the majority of them are, or were, offices of mercantile houses of the colonial era. The vast majority of these mercantile houses were Scottish, and among them was the headquarters of Finlay Muir & Co..

Finlay Muir building today

The company began with the Finlay family of Glasgow, who were in the cotton trade. James Finlay had, by the time of his death in 1790, established the firm in his name, as a manufacturer and merchant, trading in cotton, muslin, and other textiles. James’ second son, Kirkman Finlay, expanded the business further. He used his influence as MP for Glasgow, to break the East India Company’s monopoly in trade in Asia, and the first Finlay ship arrived in India in 1813. Demand for Finlay’s cotton fabric was so astronomically high in India that the company found this one market to be getting them more profits than all their other outlets in Europe and America. The first Finlay agency to be set up in India was in Bombay, in 1816.

Wallace House, 4 Bankshall Street

Although it is the English that most Indians think of when they think of the British Raj, there was a very large Scottish presence in Calcutta, and it was the Scots who ran the majority of businesses in Calcutta, and most of India. One such firm was Shaw Wallace, a name that most Indians are familiar with even today. Their building, called Wallace House, on 4 Bankshall Street, remains in good condition today.

The company was established in 1886 in Calcutta by Robert Gordon Shaw and Charles William Wallace. While not much information is available about Shaw, Wallace, it is known, was born in Calcutta in 1855, and was the brother of Major General Sir Alexander Wallace. Returning to India after completing his education, in 1875, he was invited by Shaw to join him as a consultant. The company at that point, managed tea estates in India and among them The Budla Beta Tea Company Limited. Under Wallace, they diversified into timber and textiles. Offices were established in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, in 1909, in the name of R. G. Shaw & Company, with Rufus Wilson in charge. On 1st January 1912, it became a branch of Shaw Wallace & Company (India). The address was No. 28, Chatham Street in the Fort. Wallace eventually became the Vice Chairman of the Anglo Persian Oil Company, which later became British Petroleum.

McLeod House, 3, N.S. Road

McLeod House today

Calcutta’s Dalhousie Square is one of the last surviving colonial areas of the world. Due to it’s proximity to the Hooghly river, it developed as a major centre of commerce, and is dotted with heritage buildings, all originally belonging to mercantile houses. Now, whenever Indians think of colonial rule, the vast majority think of English people. But the fact is that an extremely large number of mercantile houses in Calcutta, and indeed all over the world, were run by the Scots. In the Dalhousie Square area may be found evidence of this in the form of Balmer, Lawrie & Co, Gillanders, Arbuthnot & Co, Mackinnon, Mackenzie & Co, Shaw, Wallace & Co and many others. Calcutta’s Scottish connection is not limited to Mercantile houses either. There is a Scottish Cemetery at the crossing of Karaya Road and Acre Road which is the final resting place for more than 1600 of Scotland’s sons and daughters.

McLeod & Co. was founded in 1887 and was one of the largest merchants and agents in Calcutta at the beginning of the twentieth century with interests in tea, coal, rubber, steamer services, indigo and light railways. McLeod House may be found on the Western side of Dalhousie Square, located near the crossing of Council House Street and Hare Street, next to the much more flamboyant Royal Insurance Building. Although the building is not as extensively ornamented as some of the other buildings in the Dalhousie Square area, it is in good condition, and continues to be used as an office today. 

- by Deepanjan Ghosh

Scottish Cemetery

Deep in the heart of Karaya Road, in the Park Circus/Mallickbazaar area, lies Calcutta's only Scottish Cemetery. You can find it on Google Maps by clicking here.

Established in 1820, it was abandoned around the 1940's and remained in a very neglected condition for many years. But, in the last 5 years conservation work has begun with funds and expertise from Scotland. Most of the graves are in fairly bad shape at present.

The cemetery contains around 1600 plots with around 2000 burials, and while many of the graves have obviously Scottish names, some of the graves are of Bengali Christians, such as the grave of the Bhattacharya family.

Some of the graves have been restored by surviving family members of the deceased.

The caretaker, Mr. Norman Hall is genial and helpful and accompanied me on my walk around the place. He stays right there with his family, and had a good laugh when I asked him if he was scared of ghosts.

The most famous resident of the cemetery of course is Rev. Thomas Jones, who was a Welsh Missionary known for his work in the Khasi Hills, where he helped develop the Khasi alphabet.

It is possible to visit the cemetery on any day of the week, and there is no entrance charge. However, I recommend that you visit in the winter, as during summer or the monsoons, there is the risk of snakes.

For those really interested, it is possible to obtain a list of those buried here from the government, and I am led to believe that a complete list is held by St. John's Church.

The site is a reminder of Calcutta's colonial history, and for me, now in 2013 it is a strange experience to look at graves bearing names such as McGregor. It is one thing to read about the people who were once our colonial masters. It is quite another to look at their graves. It makes them seem more like real people somehow, and it makes me wonder what made people from halfway around the world want to come and live and die in our country. Perhaps this was their home then, as much as it is mine now.