Excursion: PG Department of English

On January 11, 2023 the third semester students from the PG Department of English were taken on a trip to the South Park Street Cemetery and St. John’s Church, accompanied and supervised by Dr. Subhasree Basu.

The walk began from Loreto College, the erstwhile residence of Henry Vansittart who played a significant role in the colonial history of Kolkata.. The cemetery invited careful attention to its stately architecture and the graves of important figures such as Henry Vansittart, Charles “Hindoo” Stuart, Henry Derozio and Sir William Jones were visited. This was followed by a discussion on the city’s relationship with monuments and on how monuments contribute to the formation of historical, social and personal memories. St. John’s Church was visited together with the mausoleum of Job Charnock, Lady Charlotte Canning’s Memorial and the Black Hole Tragedy monument. The church was initially a cathedral and served as the first Anglican cathedral of Calcutta with Thomas Fanshawe Middleton (on whom Middleton Row and Middleton Street are named) as the first Bishop of Calcutta. The inner architecture was a marvel with a pipe organ, stained glass to the right of the altar and a painting of ‘The Last Supper’ by Johann Zoffany.

The trip also became fruitful for the nature enthusiasts of the group who made their own specimen collections of the following- norfolk island pine, petunia, four-leaf clover, foxtail, blackberry nightshade, and areca palm.