Calcutta in the Nineteenth Century : An Archival Exploration

The English East India Company started out as a trading company but soon found itself saddled with administrative responsibilities. The British built Calcutta around Fort William, not just for the burgeoning European population but also as the nerve centre of their growing Indian empire. As word spread about how the British wanted to make Calcutta the ‘London of the East’, people from all over Bengal, India and the rest of the world flocked to Calcutta throughout the nineteenth century. This book delves into several archival sources and unearths not just the grandeur of such an ambitious undertaking but also the meticulous planning that went with it. Through rare photographs, plans and blueprints we get a glimpse of Calcutta as the British wanted the city to be.

Bidisha Chakraborty

Bidisha Chakraborty has been an archivist at the State Archives of West Bengal for the last twenty years. An alumni of Presidency College and of Calcutta University, her areas of interest are the socio-economic aspects of nineteenth-century Bengal, particularly sources of supply of prostitutes in colonial Bengal.

Sarmistha De

Sarmistha De is an archivist at the State Archives of West Bengal. She did her PhD in History from Jadavpur University. Her research is mostly driven by archival sources and she is interested in the condition and treatment of the marginalised Europeans in colonial India.