The Scottish Cemetery in Kolkata

Just across the road and a short walk away from the South Park Street Cemetery and its famous tombs of Sir William Jones, Rose Aylmer and ‘Hindoo’ Stuart, one finds the Scottish Cemetery, earlier known as the Scots and Dissenters’ Cemetery, Calcutta.

Kareya Road in the early 20th century

The cemetery is not too easy to spot and one needs to turn into the rather narrow Karaya Road, once notorious as the European red-light quarter. A two-minute-walk down the road past motor-garages takes you to the Scottish Cemetery. The cemetery is now under the supervision of St. Andrew’s Church, Dalhousie Square and conservation work is being carried out by the Kolkata Scottish Heritage Trust (KSHT).

Visitors are welcome from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and need to contact the caretaker to get inside.


The Scottish Cemetery Project at Presidency

The Digital Humanities initiative at Presidency University, Kolkata (India) is happy to announce the completion of the digital archive of the Scottish cemetery in Kolkata. The Narratives of Migration project, in collaboration with our British partners, the University of St. Andrews is aimed at jointly researching the lives and the impact of the groups of people who left their countries to settle elsewhere, whether willingly or under duress (for example, during the partition of India). This particular strand within the larger project aims to research the role of cemeteries as repositories of collective memory. Continuing our Digital Humanities initiative of archiving colonial cemeteries, we focus on creating a digital archive of the Scottish Cemetery on Kolkata’s Kareya Road - a unique space for researching the history of colonial India and of the global impact of the Scots.

Besides our collaboration with the University of St. Andrews, this project owes a lot to the assistance received from the Kolkata Scottish Heritage Trust (headed by Lord Charles Bruce), St. Andrews Kirk in Kolkata and Dr Neeta Das. Besides our work on the Scottish cemetery, we have also completed a similar database on the Dutch settlement in Chinsurah, last year. The website is available at: http://dutchcemeterybengal.com.

As part of out Digital Humanities initiative, we also plan to create similar databases for the other colonial cemeteries in India and to aid the efforts of any others who wish to do so. Any expressions of interest and support are warmly solicited.

Stories from the Scots' Cemetery