The Christmas Carol Sung in Calcutta

Charles Dickens and Calcutta? What the Dickens!

An illustration of the Christmas Carol- Cambridge University

Just a couple of days back, I happened to come across an intriguing writeup about the Dickens connection with the City of Joy and I was genuinely surprised that I had never heard about this earlier. Because I simply had to write on this, I decided to uncover a bit more information on this topic and gosh, what a story.

For any average Calcuttan, Christmas chiefly means two things- A trip to Park Street and Plum Pudding from Nahoums. And yes, for the middle-class Hindu kid, hanging a stocking is mandatory.


What North Calcutta is like during Durga Puja, Park Street is the same during Christmas. It attracts a huge crowd every year during December, with its fascinating Christmas aura with festive lights and Christmas shops.

While digging deeper into the Dickens archives, I came across this tragic incident which links the London novelist to the former British capital. Let's go back in time, say about, 160 years back.

Calcutta 1857, Sepoys Mutiny

The insurrection had sparked off in various parts of the country, extending from Punjab to Calcutta. Violent uprisings were taking place; several factors having contributed to the commencement of the native rebellion.

Walter Landor Dickens

It was around this time that the 16-year-old Walter Savage Landor Dickens, the fourth child of Charles Dickens was enlisted in the East India Company's armies, though rather hesitantly and he was sent packing to India from Southampton.
Walter became a cadet officer in the ranks of the East India Company. Though he did survive the gruesome battle, the young officer died a premature death at 22 in the Officer's Hospital at Calcutta, the cause being an arterial ailment. It was on the novelist's 52nd birthday when he received the news of his son's demise.

I looked up the web archives of Calcutta's oldest cemeteries and tried to locate the grave of Walter Dickens and- Eureka!




Originally buried at the Bhawanipore Cemetery, it was in 1987 when the students of Jadavpur University collected funds and moved the grave of Walter Dickens to the South Park Street Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries from the colonial period.

Walter lies buried deep within Kolkata's famous Park Street Cemetery, his grave largely ignored and desolate. Though the cemetery is thronged by Christmas revelers every December, Walter's grave is hardly acknowledged and it is difficult to locate the grave unless you have prior information on it.

The Grave of Charles Landor Dickens

Charles Dickens had discouraged his son from becoming a writer like himself and had sent him to India, feeling that it was probably the right thing to do. Though Dickens never saw his son's final resting place, in a peculiar coincidence, it remains connected to the festival he celebrated through his series of hugely successful books.

Hence, the next time you visit the cemetery, keep a lookout for this heritage grave, holding on to obscure memories.

Dead men do tell tales. 



A huge thanks to Anumita Sengupta for providing details from the Archives for this blog. Also, certain information has been collected from an article on Livemint and from the records of South Park Street Cemetery.