GIS Map of the Scottish Cemetery
The Scottish cemetery is located on Kareya Road, now called Ustad Enayet Khan Road and Goristhan Lane ['Gorosthan' means 'graveyard' in Bengali]. The local bus-stop is Mullick Bazar and to reach the cemetery, one needs to continue on Park Street towards Park Circus and turn right after the Jameson Inn hotel. A twenty-minute bus or auto-rickshaw journey from the Sealdah railway station and five minutes away from the Park Street - AJC Bose crossing, this cemetery houses over 1600 graves where quite a few that are in various stages of disrepair. The tombs are a mix of nationalities - mainly Scots, English, Irish, Bengalis and Portuguese. This map aims to provide an indicative idea of the locations of the various tombs that were researched for this project and will be useful for potential historians of 19th-century colonial India as well as genealogists and anyone interested in similar topics.
How to Use the Map
In this interactive map, we can locate the individual tombs via their geotagged positions. Using GIS (geographic information systems), our team has identified the location of over eighty-five percent of the tombs and on clicking on a tomb, you will be able to see the name of the person. Click the name to view the full record in our database. The tombs are mapped on a Google Maps interface. It is also possible to view the satellite image in Google Maps. The icon allows you to change the view to ‘Google Hybrid’ and ‘Google Satellite’. If you do change the view, please keep the ‘Scottish Cemetery all tombs’ box checked so as to view the tombs. The map zooms to the cemetery and its environs automatically but it is possible to zoom in or out using the controls on the left. Some plaques from the tombs have been relocated to the South Park Street Cemetery and when the tombs cannot be located despite our best efforts, we have used the co-ordinates of the plaques in that South Park Cemetery.
Methodology and Technical Note
Within the database too, records will show the position of the tomb on the cemetery map if the GIS data is available for the tomb. Our team members have individually photographed each tomb and simultaneously geotagged them using Wolf GIS and GPS Test both freemium apps for mobile phones that are available on Google Play and the Apple Store. Wolf GIS was chosen because it was able to give readings up to the 12th decimal place for the latitude-longitude (lat-long) values. As the tombs are sometimes very close to each other, the readings needed to be extremely accurate. Many of the tombs have their original grave plot number inscribed on them. We have recorded these in the database where they are available. The photographs and the GIS readings have been repeatedly checked and tallied for accuracy by alternate groups within the team.We are using Drupal 7 as a CMS and MySql 5 as database. Geofield, Geocoder ,GeoPHP andOpen Layers modules are used here to build the GIS based application.
Map of Calcutta and its Environs, 1792/3 by A. Upjohn
Cemetery map 1828 (Lottery Committee)
Legend
Tomb
Besides our research and the efforts of KSHT, the British Library, the FIBIS website and Eileen Hewson have also attempted to compile lists of graves in recent times, albeit in a much less complete manner.