Caledonia Dock

While researching for a project, I recently stumbled upon the name of “Caledonia Dock”. It’s not of extraordinary interest, but I’m still trying to figure out why exactly it was called so. One reason could be that it was located in the thick of James Mackenzie’s (Esq.) business area. One thing led to another and soon I ended up with a vague idea of Mackenzie’s early life. He was married at St. John’s Cathedral to Ann Forbes, second daughter of Captain Daniel Ross of Howrah, on 15 March 1822 (?). Soon after they had a child, little James Ross, who died a year old. It seems they had at least a couple more children by 1844 or thereabouts. More interesting than his personal life, is an advertisement I found by the Calcutta Gas Light and Waterworks Company, where he was one of the directors. Among the other office-holders was “Baboo Dwarkanauth Tagore”. The advertisement for gas-light said among other things:

“The darkness of the streets of Calcutta is particularly felt, as there is no twilight, and the inhabitants have recourse to the primitive habits of torch-light. It is proposed to introduce gas-light, not only into the public streets,—and so lessen the opportunity for crime,—but also into the dwelling houses of the inhabitants of the city, and this has been strongly seconded and approved of by that enterprising and intelligent native merchant, Baboo Dwarkanauth Tagore, at this time in Europe.” (Allen’s India Mail, 1846. p. 143)

Be that as it may, his ship-building and dockyard works seem fairly well-documented.

The Caledonian Dock was founded as a “Patent Slip” around 1810 by one Mr. Beauchamp. It was sold 39 years later to Tarak Nath Pramanik. Taraknath, the son of Gurucharan Pramanik, belonged to the first Calcutta family to enter the ship-building industry. Their shops, the Charitabidhan says, were in Burrabazar and in Chandni. Tarak Nath purchased it and “converted it into a dock in 1850 and called it the Caledonia Dock”. The area we are looking at is known as Golabari. This is largely taken from Bengal Distric Gazetteers: Howrah, by L.S.S. O’Malley and Monmohan Chakravarti, 1909. I'm curious: is the name a reference to the jute trade? And why did he use the Roman name for Scotland? Here is where the dock is.

"Traffic Intensities", E.P. Richards (1913). From the Harvard Library Map Collection.

The Ragged and the Rovers

Mary Carpenter, a Unitarian and a friend of Keshub Sen and Monomohun Ghose, made certain valuable contributions in the field of education, especially of female education, in Calcutta. In 1866, apparently, she started a school, which she left shortly after. She did however go on paying the rent for the building December 1867. The school was then taken over by one C.H. Dall, an American Unitarian missionary, who had arrived in Calcutta in 1855. (The Unitarian-Brahmo connection seems to have been written about in various scholarly publications.) The first mention of the school that I found was in the Report of the Second Meeting of the National Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, which said that “admission is only possible to the very poorest and most morally exposed and forsaken.” The school back then received a Government grant of Rs. 20 a month. The author also hoped that it will be able to carry on another year with a little help from friends. It did better than that, and in the 1874 Cone’s & Co.’s Calcutta Directory we find mention of “The Calcutta (Ragged or) Rover’s School. It was located “near the corner of Mirzapore street and Old Bytakhauna Bazar road”, admitting “boys and young men only of the most indigent and homeless classes.” The attendance projected is remarkably high by today’s standards, an average of 100 out of 120. There were six teachers and the instruction was in Bengali. Baboo Dwarkanath Ghottock, the Directory says, was the headmaster. Of interest to book-historians would be the fact that apart from the ordinary branches of learning, “30 pupils learn knitting and 10 (Mahomedans) are at bookbinding.” One hopes to find out more!