27] A DETAILED SURVEY OF THE EUROPEAN GRAVES IN THE CEMETERY OF ST. JOHN'S ANGLICAN [C. S. I.] CHURCH AT THALASSERY [TELLICHERRY], KANNUR [CANNANORE]

St John's Anglican [ C. S. I.] Church, ThalasserryCemetery of St. John's Anglican [ C. S. I.] Church, Thalasserry

 Introduction

The English presence in Tellicherry [Thalasserry] begins with the East India Company [E. I. C] establishing a factory in 1683. In 1708, a fort was built for the protection of the factory. In 1780, the fort was besieged by the Mysorean troops under Hyder Ali. Thalasserry’s military importance declined after the large Cannanore [Kannur] Cantonment was laid out in between 1805 and 1810. 

Thalasserry Fort and a view from the Fort to the Churches and Cemetery

The First Anglican Church at Thalasserry

Today, in the compound of St John’s Anglican [C. S. I.] Church is a sign board that says it was built in 1869 CE using an endowment from Sir Edward Brennan, a Master Attendant at Thalasserry Port. It is true that Brennan funded the construction of the current church, but this is not the first church on the site. The first church here was built by Rev. Frederick James Spring around 1818. He was the first and only Chaplain sent by the E. I. C to Thalasserry, who arrived in 1816 and remained there till 1823. At the time of his arrival, Thalassery had a small garrison, but there was no Church. He raised around Rs. 5000 [of which, Rs. 4000 was advanced by himself] and erected the church which measured 90 x 50 feet capable of seating about 250 persons. However, soon after the building was finished the European troops were withdrawn to Kannur, and he was left with a congregation averaging 35 persons only [See Frank, 1912, pp. 55-56; 261-266 for more details]. 

St John's Anglican Church and Cemetery, 1912 vs 2024.

The Government of Fort St. George issued an injunction in 1818 that no place of worship should thereafter be erected without the permission of the Government previously obtained. Though, there is no evidence as to when exactly the Spring’s Church was erected, it may have been built before the 1818 rule reached Thalasserry. Anyway, it was built certainly before 1820, when Rev. Spring appealed to the Government of Fort St. George to repay him the Rs.4000 he had expended. The church was one of the few built without Government assistance but at the cost of subscribers. Apparently, it was neither well-built nor well designed. 

In 1824, Lieutenants Ward and Connor who conducted survey in Thalasserry reported: “though of very good materials, it [Church] was found necessary to prop it up by buttresses a few years after it was finished. There is no officiating clergyman, but invalids and native protestants have divine service performed on Sundays”. They also mention about the “Burying ground adjoining it only divided by a wall is a Roman Catholic Church” [Ward and Connor, 1906].

In 1826, Rev. James Hough visited the church and also found that it was in a dilapidated state with no chaplain at the station. Despite the poor condition of the building, he saw British inhabitants and native Christians assembled in the church on Sunday for divine worship. However, when a request was sent to the Government to repair the church, the orders were to pull it down, but with his intervention, “Sir Thomas Munro acceded to the request; and it was put into a state of repair, and continues there to this day” writes Hough [Hough, 1860, vol. 5]. Rev. Hough was giving evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1832 on the affairs of the E. I. C.

The Second Anglican [Current] Church at Thalasserry

From the year 1830 onward the Chaplain came from Cannanore and there was no one living in the place to save the building from ruin and decay [Frank, 1912]. This was the situation when Master Attendant, Edward Brennen [d. 1859] by his will left Rs.4000 to the Governor in Council for the building of a chapel, and another Rs.4000 as an endowment fund to provide for its upkeep. He also left the Governor in Council Rs.4000 to build a school, and Rs.8000 as its permanent endowment. The cost of a new church was estimated at Rs. 7280. The major share came from Brennen’s fund and accrued interest on it, which alone was Rs. 6200. The foundation stone of the new church was laid by Lord Napier on November 16, 1866 on the same site where Spring’s church stood. The architect of the new building was Captain Bailey. The church was used for the first time on January 28, 1868; and it was consecrated by the Bishop of Madras on October 22, 1868, and named in honour of St. John the Evangelist [Frank, 1912].

The Cemetery of the Anglican Church, Thalasserry-A History

It is not known when exactly the European cemetery started to function, but it is certain that there was a burial ground before the church was established. This is corroborated by several graves in the cemetery that can be dated before 1820. In the previous post, we saw the earliest grave in the cemetery is from 1752. It is therefore reasonable to expect that Tellicherry had a burial ground meant for the garrison at least a few decades after the fort was established in 1708. The fort burial ground is dated 1761 by Roberts and Chekkutty [2013], but how they arrived at this date is not given. We learn that in 1820, Rev. Spring appealed to the Government to build a wall around the cemetery, and Rs. 4771 was sanctioned towards the cost [Frank, 1912]. 

Location of the Cemetery and the Division of European and Indian Section

The cemetery lies between the St John’s Anglican [C. S. I.] Church and the Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church of Thalasserry, and only a few steps from the Thalasserry Fort. The cemetery is about one acre in size. It is a functional graveyard still used by the C. S. I. churches of Thalasserry, and you see many native graves also inside. Most of the European graves are found on the SW half of the cemetery, whereas the Indian graves are concentrated on the NE half of the cemetery [see Map and the photograph below]. I had the opportunity to visit the cemetery when it was freshly cleaned, so many graves became accessible, which is usually not the case under normal circumstances. The European and Indian graves in the cemetery can be normally distinguished depending on the age and masonry style used. However, there are unplastered tombs scattered throughout the European part of the cemetery, many of them are without gravestones and are in a crumbling and decaying state. Some on the other hand are impressive large tomb structures, but they too remain anonymous without headstones.

List of the Burials in the Cemetery

Regarding burials in the cemetery, two inventories are available for us.
1] The inventory in Malabar Christian Memorials, Vol. 1 [collected by Roberts and Chekkutty, 2013], hereafter MCM-1, lists 235 burials, the oldest is Hall, John, d. 20/5/1756 and the latest is Stevenson, Edward, d. 29/03/1957. The list has 49 burials from 18th century alone, of which, 22 are dated to 1761 when the cemetery was supposedly established. 

2] The 2nd is from Julian James Cotton’s ‘List of Inscriptions on Tombs or Monuments in Madras’ [1905; 1946, Vol. 2], which has only 19 graves, the oldest is Henry Johnson, d. 17/04/1759 and the latest is Edward Stuart Stafford Thompson, d. 25/4/1887.

Important Burials in the Cemetery

Several important persons associated with British Malabar are buried here. The most famous of all is, of course, the philanthropist Edward Brennen who is behind the establishment of the current St John’s Church and the Government Brennen College of Thalasserry. The words on his epitaph says, "He was one of God's Noblest Works in India- A Sterling Upright Englishman". The planter Murdoch Brown interred in this cemetery owned an enormous Estate in Anjerakandy. According to Ward and Conner [1824], “The extent of this Estate is 53/4 square miles (i.e. 3680 acres!), one mile of which is occupied by paddy cultivation, another by gardens the remainder undulating ground overrun with wood producing pepper and Cassia”. MCM-1 lists 14 members with the surname Brown or Browne in the cemetery. The graves of 5 Browns can be seen clustered in a spot, and they are: 

1- Major George Brown [d. 1792]
2- Murdoch Brown [d. 1828]
3- George Brown [d. 1850]; son of Murdoch Brown
4- Jane Brown [d. 1906]; daughter of Francis Carnac Brown, the 2nd son of Murdoch Brown
5- Mary Brown [d. 1867]; daughter of Francis Carnac Brown, the 2nd son of Murdoch Brown 

The only other Brown unaccounted with a gravestone in MCM-1 is Ellen Browne [d. 1906]. Another Brown whose grave should have been present in the cemetery is Murdoch Brown’s 2nd son, Francis Carnac Brown [d. 1868], whose 2 daughters’ graves are identified in the cemetery. MCM-1 has Francis Carnac’s name, but no gravestone is cited, whereas Cotton [1905] does observe his grave in the cemetery.  If you look carefully at the cluster of tombs belonging to the Brown family, there are 2 graves without a gravestone, viz. ‘A1’ between Jane and Mary Brown; ‘A2’ before the grave of Murdoch Brown [see photograph below]. Well, chances are there that these could be the graves of Francis Carnac Brown and Ellen Brown. Interestingly, the large grave ‘A3’ near ‘A2’ without an epitaph could also be a Brown.

The grave of Thomas Hervey Baber [d. 1843], the famous Sub Collector and District Magistrate of Malabar could not be identified in the cemetery, but his wife Helen Somerville’s [nee Fearon] [d. 1840] grave is still intact. MCM-1 is specific that Thomas Baber was buried in this cemetery, though he died at Kannur at the age of 72 years. There is a view that the dilapidated grave beside Helen’s tomb is that of Baber’s, and the original structure might have had a proper gravestone, which is either lost with time or intentionally destroyed.

Buried here are wives of important British officers of E. I. C such as Mary [d. 1800], the wife of Lieut. Col. Arthur Disney, the E. I. C Commander of the garrison at Nugger in the province of Bednore [modern Nagara in Karnataka]; Janet [d. 1813], the wife of Hay Clephane of E. I. C. Civil Service of Bombay Establishment; and Catherine Maitland [d. 1833], daughter of John Babington, C. S. and wife of John Vaughan, Principal Collector of Malabar from 1816-1826. The gravestone of Mary Disney is damaged and broken, but her name can still be read easily.  

Another monument is the impressive white marble slab of Frances Smith [d. 1801], daughter of John and Anne Arbuthnot and wife of James Smith, Esq., in the E. I. C. and an eminent merchant of Bombay. This massive slab was very difficult to identify as the faint inscriptions on a white background was hard to read, but given the size of the gravestone and the length of the inscriptions [longest epitaph in the graveyard] I was hoping to get some clues from old records. Thanks to Cotton [1905], the full epitaph of this gravestone is available and it was the main key for me to identify this 700-character long inscription arranged in about 27 lines. Not many know that A W [Augustus William] Sullivan [d. 1868], the son of John Augustus Sullivan, the founder of the modern Hill Station of Ootty is buried in this cemetery and that his grave still exists. Here also rests the remains of Rev. J. J. Martins [d. 1830], a Wesleyan Missionary, who was formerly a Catholic Friar of the Order of St Francis. Cotton [1946] specifically mentions this tomb and comments: “One pauses for a moment to wonder what caused such a radical change of faith”.

Here also lie the large graves of Elizabeth Frances (d. 1823) and Clara Maria (d. 1824), infant daughters of J. W. and E. Schmidt. Elizabeth was 10 months and 15 days old and Clara was only 28 days at the time of their death. One of the biggest tombs in the cemetery is after John Henry [d. 1860], his gravestone is broken, but the inscriptions are more or less complete. The grave certainly had more than one burial as evident from the slots for multiple gravestones, which unfortunately is vacant now.

The tall tomb of James Stevens [d. 1827], who was a senior judge at Thalasserry for many years is still intact in the cemetery. However, it’s only a matter of time before the whole structure collapses down, because the tree next to it virtually grows from it and much damage has already been done. This appears to be a recent event when you compare the photographs below. The sad part is that the same grave that could withstand the neglect and harsh weather for around 200 years is now going down before our own eyes. 

Tomb of James Stevens [d. 1827]

Burial monuments of young children and infants are also part of the graveyard. A special mention has to be made of the remarkably well-preserved grave of Henry Harman [d. 1821], the 4th child of Rev. Frederick [founder of Thalasserry Anglican Church] and Jane Springer who died at the young age of 10 months. The youngest to be buried in the cemetery is Hugh McNaught Lockie [d. 1914], who was only 16 days old. The latest European burial I could identify in the cemetery is that of Emry C Stuedle [d. 1953] who was a Radio Operator by profession. One grave which appears European, but not mentioned in either MCM-I or Cotton (1905) is that of Jean Camille Ferne (d. 1915, aged 46). A photograph of this tomb is uploaded separately in a different blog  post.

In a previous post [see here], we discussed about the two oldest graves in the cemetery, viz. Henry Johnson [1752] and Gaspar Morritz Gleetz [d. 1768]. 

References 

Cotton, Julian James  (1905)-List of Inscriptions on Tombs or Monuments in Madras

Cotton, Julian James  (1946 ed., Vol. 2)-List of Inscriptions on Tombs or Monuments in Madras

Frank, Penny (1912, Vol. 2)-The Church in Madras

Hough, James (Vol 5, 1860)-The History of Christianity in India

Roberts, John Cantwell and Chekkutty, N P (2013)-Malabar: Christian Cemeteries and Memorials at Cannanore, Tellicherry and Mahé, 1723-1990

Ward, B S and Conner, P E (1906)-A Descriptive Memoir of Malabar