East India Company At Home Project Podcasts

Some of the short presentations at the East India Company At Home Project conference held in Edinburgh a few weeks ago are on History Spot. The speakers are Helen Clifford, Ellen Filor, Margot Finn and Kate Smith.

That website has lots of other interesting history podcasts. 

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.

Borders Heritage Week 12 - 23 September

 There's a great series of walks, talks and events scheduled for the next week (and a half) throughout the Borders with the theme Myths and Legends - from Coldingham in the east to Ettrick and Eskdalemuir in the west and from Drumelzier in the north to Jedburgh and Hawick in the south.  Ranging from Bats in Innerleithen to Burns (Rabbie) in Jedburgh, there will be something for everyone.

Ettrick Kirk

Events are arranged by the Scottish Borders Council Ranger Service, the Haining, Borders Journeys, Historic Scotland, Borders Forest Trust, Friends of Coldingham Priory, Trimontium Trust, the Heritage Hub, Kelso Connections, Bowhill and more.

For more info http://www.scottishbordersheritage.co.uk