The Bengal Obituary Available Online

'The Bengal Obituary, or a Record to Perpetuate the Memory of Departed Worth, Being a Compilation of Tablets and Monumental Inscriptions from Various Parts of the Bengal and Agra Presidencies. To Which Is Added Biographical Sketches and Memoirs of Such As Have Pre-Eminently Distinguished Themselves in the History of British India, since the Formation of European Settlement to the Present Time'
is the title of a book that was published in 1848 for Holmes & Co (a firm of undertakers and monumental sculptors in Calcutta) and is over 400 pages long and contains over 5,000 transcriptions of (mainly) Europeans’ gravestones with brief biographies of 130 people who played notable roles in the colonial history of Bengal.

Most of the gravestones are for officials of the East India Company, soldiers, sailors or their families.

One of the notables was Gilbert Elliot, first Earl Minto (1751-1814), Governor General of India from 1807 to 1813.  Although he died in Stevenage, England, a month after his return from India, he was recognised for supporting the addition of a South Gallery to St John’s Church, Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1811 and for erecting at his own expense a cenotaph at Barrackpore in memory of the officers and men who fell in the conquest of Mauritius and Java in 1811.

For more information see The Bengal Obituary.

Dr John Leyden, His Life and Family

In September 1775, in a thatched cottage overlooking Denholm Green, a young father proudly looked down on his first child, to be named John after his father and forefathers. At the time, neither of the parents, John Leyden nor his wife Isabel Scott, could have predicted the fascinating life ahead for their son - a life which was to see him master over 30 Oriental languages, become a minister, surgeon and naturalist, bring him fame as a poet and linguist and earn the respect, admiration and friendship of Sir Walter Scott and other eminent members of 19th century society before travelling to India and an untimely death in Java. A genius had been born - Dr John Leyden.

The title is the title of a talk to be given by Marjorie Gavin at Hawick Library, North Bridge Street, Hawick, TD9 9QT, Scotland on Tuesday 16th November at 7.15pm.

200th anniversary of the death of Dr John Leyden

August 2011 sees the 200th anniversary of the death of Dr John Leyden, the famous poet and Orientalist from Denholm in the Scottish Borders.

Dr Leyden was a great friend of Sir Walter Scott and it is said that after his death, Scott could never talk about Leyden without a tear in his eye. He really appears to have been a most remarkable man.

Over the next year, one of our members, Marjorie Gavin, who has served our Society both as Editor and as Chairman, and has transcribed births, marriages and deaths overseas from the Hawick Advertiser and Kelso Mail, hopes to visit as many groups and organisations as possible to talk about the life and achievements of the great Dr Leyden whose story deserves to be more widely known.

If you have any memorabilia or documents relating to Dr John Leyden that might assist her in this task please contact her by sending her a private message in our forum or replying to her forum topic.

More about Dr Leyden is in one of Marjorie's articles, The Life and Family of Dr. John Leyden.

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