Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:37:48.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The English Cemetery at Surat: Pre-Colonial Cultural Encounters in Western India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Chris Scarre  and
Judith Roberts
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the seventeenth century East India Company merchants settled in several cities of western India under the control of the Mughal Empire. The most important of these was Surat in Gujarat, where an English cemetery of impressive brick and stucco tombs was established. The style and nature of these monuments provide an insight into the cultural interactions that took place between the English merchants and the local population, as well as indicating the political aspirations of the East India Company officials. A description of these tombs, the earliest dating to 1649, is followed by a discussion of the origins of the cemetery, the chronology of the tombs and the identity and status of the dead. It is shown how the adoption of Indo-Islamic architectural styles for the earliest tombs was modified during the eighteenth century by the increasing use of Western architectural features, in line with growing British political power in India during this period. Changing architectural styles are paralleled by the changing attitudes of British visitors to the tombs from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 85 , September 2005 , pp. 251 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, P 1856. The English in Western India, being the History of the Factory at Surat, of Bombay and the Subordinate Factories on the Western Coast, 2nd edn, LondonGoogle Scholar
Anon 1848. ‘Surat its past and present’, Calcutta Review, 9, 103–37Google Scholar
Bellasis, A F 1862. ‘Old tombs in the cemeteries of Surat’, J Bombay Branch Roy Asiatic Soc (January 1862), 146–56Google Scholar
Chakrabarti, D K 2003. The Archaeology of European Expansion in India. Gujarat, c. 16th-18th Centuries, New DelhiGoogle Scholar
Commissariat, M S 1980. History of Gujarat, III, AhmedabadGoogle Scholar
Curl, J S 1993. A Celebration of Death. An Introduction to Some of the Buildings, Monuments, and Settings of Funerary Architecture in the Western European Tradition, rev edn, LondonGoogle Scholar
Fawcett, C 1936. The English Factories in India. Volume I (New Series) The Western Presidency 1670-1677, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Fawcett, C 1954. The English Factories in India. Volume III (New Series) Bombay, Surat and Malabar Coast, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Fergusson, J 1876. History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, LondonGoogle Scholar
Foster, W 1899. The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul 1615-1619, LondonGoogle Scholar
Foster, W 1906-1927. The English Factories in India, 13 vols, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Foster, W 1911. The English Factories in India 1634-1636, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Foster, W 1914. The English Factories in India 1646-1650, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Foster, W 1921. The English Factories in India 1655-1660, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Foster, W 1923. The English Factories in India 1661-1664, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Foster, W 1927. The English Factories in India 1668-1669, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Foster, W 1936. The English Factories in India 1634-1636, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Fryer, J 1698. A New Account of East India and Presidency to Persia, being Nine Years' Travels, 1672-1681 (ed Crooke, W, 1909), LondonGoogle Scholar
E, Koch 1991. Mughal Architecture. An Outline of its History and Development (1526-1858), MunichGoogle Scholar
Maloni, R 1992. European Capital and the Indian Economy. Surat Factory Records 1630-1668, New DelhiGoogle Scholar
Metcalf, T R 1989. An Imperial Vision. Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj, LondonGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, C P 2000. Sir Thomas Roe and the Mughal Empire, KarachiGoogle Scholar
Nilsson, S 1968. European Architecture in India 1750-1850, LondonGoogle Scholar
Ovington, J 1696. A Voyage to Surat in the Year 1689 (ed Rawlinson, H G, 1929), LondonGoogle Scholar
Prakesh, O 1998. European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India, New Cambridge History of India II.5, CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Rawlinson, H G 1920. British Beginnings in Western India 1579-1657. An Account of the Early Days of the British Factory of Surat, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, E B 1912. A Calendar of the Court Minutes etc. of the East India Company 1644-1649, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, E B 1929. A Calendar of the Court Minutes etc. of the East India Company 1668-1670, OxfordGoogle Scholar
Smith, T R 1873. ‘Architectural art in India’, J Soc Arts, 21, 278–86Google Scholar
Tavernier, J.B 1676. Travels in India, 2nd edn (trans Ball, V, ed Crooke, W, 1925), LondonGoogle Scholar
Varma, K M 1983. Stucco in India from Pre-Mohenjodaro Times to the Beginning of the Christian Era, SantiniketanGoogle Scholar
Williams, R 2000. ‘Vanbrugh's India and his mausolea for England’, in Sir John Vanbrugh and Landscape Architecture in Baroque England 1690-1730 (eds Ridgway, C and Williams, R), 114–30, LondonGoogle Scholar
Wright, A 1918. Annesley of Surat and his Times. The True Story of the Mythical Wesley Fortune, LondonGoogle Scholar