APPENDIX F HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF THE CALCUTTA GENERAL POST OFFICE

This handsome building is situated on the west side of Dalhousie Square at the corner of Koila Ghat Street, being a portion of the site of the old Fort of Calcutta. The removal of the old foundations was a work of great difficulty owing to the extreme hardness of the masonry, which in many cases had to be blasted away. The building was erected from designs by Mr. Walter B. Granville, Architect to the Government of India. It was opened to the public in the year 1868 and cost 6,30,000 rupees. It consists of two lofty storys, the east and south fronts being faced with tall Corinthian columns flanked by massive piers in which are the staircases. The south-east angle of the building is semicircular, also faced with Corinthian columns leading to a lofty circular hall in which are the public counters. This is surmounted by a lantern crowned by a dome, which forms a conspicuous object in the city.

The site of the General Post Office is of great historical interest owing to its association with the great tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta. On entering the Post Office courtyard from Koila Ghat Street there are two tablets with the following inscriptions:—

I. The brass lines in the stone,
on the adjacent ground,
mark the position and extent
of the South Curtain
of old Fort William.

GENERAL POST OFFICE. CALCUTTA

BLACK HOLE, CALCUTTA.
ADJOINING THE GENERAL POST OFFICE

II. The two lines of twelve arches
to the west of this tablet
are all that now remains above ground
of old Fort William and
originally formed a portion of the arcade
within the South Curtain.
The Black Hole Prison was a small room
formed by bricking up two arches
of a similar but smaller arcade
within the East Curtain
south of the East Gate.

The sunken arches, where the Post Office vans were kept, once formed part of the arcade within the south curtain, the wall line of which is marked out by brass lines let into the pavement. The wall of the curtain, a portion of which was still standing in 1895, backed the old export and import warehouses, and through the arches one would have in the old days looked into the parade ground within the Fort. The export and import warehouses were built against the south curtain in 1741 and would have followed the line of Koila Ghat Street.

The angle of the south-east bastion and the thickness of its walls is indicated by brass lines let into the steps of the Post Office. A tablet pointing out this fact is on the adjacent wall, and the entrance to the east gate of the Fort is commemorated by a tablet fixed into the red building opposite the Holwell obelisk:

Sixteen feet behind this wall
was the entrance of the East Gate
of old Fort William through which
the bodies of those who perished
in the Black Hole were brought and
thrown into the ditch of the Ravelin
on 21st June, 1756.

To the north of the General Post Office building, inside the large gateway, is a tablet with the following inscription:—

THE BLACK HOLE.

The marble pavement below this spot
was placed here
by
Lord Curzon, Viceroy and Governor-General of India,
in 1901
To mark the site of the prison in Old Fort William
known as the Black Hole.
In which 146 British Inhabitants of Calcutta were
confined on the night of the 20th June, 1756,
and from which only 23 came out alive.
The pavement marks the exact breadth of the prison,
14 ft. 10 in., but not its full length, 18 feet.
About one-third of the area at the north end being
covered by the building on which this tablet is erected.

Near by Mr. Holwell, then Collector of Calcutta, who was one of the survivors, erected an obelisk at his own expense to the memory of those who perished in the Black Hole on the spot where the 123 killed were buried. The tablet bore the following inscriptions:—

To the Memory of—

Edward Eyre, William Bailie, Esqrs.; the Revd.
Jervas Bellamy; Messrs. Jenks, Reeveley, Law, Coates,
Napcourt, Jebb, Torrians, E. Page, S. Page, Grub, Street,
Harod, P. Johnstone, Ballard, N. Drake, Carse, Knapton,
Goslin, Dod, Dalrymple; Captains Clayton, Buchanan, and
Witherington; Lieutenants Bishop, Hays, Blagge, Simpson,
and J. Bellamy; Ensigns Paccard, Scott, Hastings,
C. Wedderburn, and Dymbleton; Sea-Captains Hunt, Osburn,
and Purnell; Messrs. Carey, Leech, Stevenson, Guy Porter,
Parker, Caulkee, Bendal and Atkinson;
Who, with sundry other inhabitants, Military and
Militia, to the number of 123 persons, were, by
the tyrannic violence of Suraj-ud-Dowlah,
Suba of Bengal,
Suffocated in the Black-Hole Prison of Fort William,
on the night of the 20th day of June, 1756,
and promiscuously thrown the succeeding
morning into the ditch
of the ravelin of this place.
This monument is erected by their surviving fellow-sufferer,
J. Z. Holwell.
This horrid act of violence was as amply as deservedly
revenged on Suraj-ud-Dowlah, by His Majesty's arms,
under the conduct of Vice-Admiral Watson and Col. Clive,
Anno 1757.

The Marquis of Hastings in 1840 had the monument pulled down, but Lord Curzon in 1903 had a replica made and placed in the same spot where it now stands.