Job Charnock

Infobox Person
name = Job Charnock


birth_date = c. 1630
birth_place =
death_date = 10 January 1693
death_place =
other_names =
known_for = Founding Calcutta
occupation = Colonial Administrator

Job Charnock (c 1630-1693) was a servant and administrator of the English East India Company, traditionally regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta. [Thankappan Nair, Job Charnock: The Founder of Calcutta, Calcutta: Engineering Press, 1977] [ [http://banglapedia.org/ht/C_0140.HTM Banglapedia Article on Job Charnock] ] [ [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9022634/Job-Charnock Encyclopedia Britannica article on Charnock] ]

Early life and career

Charnock came from a Lancashire family and was the second son of Richard Charnock ("d." c. 1665), of London. The Puritan preacher Stephen Charnock (1628–1680) was probably his elder brother. He went out to India on a private trading enterprise in the employ of the merchant Maurice Thomson, some time between 1650 and 1653, but in January 1658 he joined the East India Company's service in Bengal, where he was stationed by turn at Cossimbazar, Hooghly (a Portuguese trading settlement on the river of the same name), and Balasore. He learnt the local languages, cut his hair and dressed in ‘Moores fashion’, and lived very much as an Indian among the Indians, who called him 'Channuck'. [Grant, 'Origin and Progress of the English Connexion with India', "Calcutta Review", No. XIII, Vol. VII (January-June 1847), p. 259.]

Charnock was described as a silent morose man, not popular among his contemporaries, ['Charnock, Job', "Encyclopædia Britannica", 11th ed. (1911), vol. 5, p. 947.] but as 'always a faithful man to the Company', which rated his services very highly. [3 January 1694, "Diary of William Hedges", 2.293.] In addition to his business acumen, he won the Company's esteem by stamping out smuggling among his less scrupulous colleagues. His zeal in this regard made him enemies who throughout his life spread malicious gossip to discredit him. [I. B. Watson, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5169 ‘Charnock, Job (c.1630–1693)’] , "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 29 Aug 2008.]

Patna factory

Charnock was entrusted with the duty of procuring the Company's saltpetre and appointed to the centre of the trade, Patna in Bihar, on 2 February 1659. After four years at the factory he contemplated returning to England, but the court of directors in London were keen to retain his services, and won him over by promoting him to the position of chief factor in 1664.

About 1663 Charnock took a Hindu widow as his common-law wife. A Company servant, Alexander Hamilton, later wrote that she had been a sati and that Charnock, smitten by her beauty, had rescued her from her husband's funeral pyre by the Ganges in Bihar. [Alexander Hamilton, "A New Account of the East Indies" (1727), ed. William Foster, 2 vols (London: Argonaut, 1930), Vol. II, pp. 8–9.] [Thankappan Nair, Job Charnock: The Founder of Calcutta, Calcutta: Engineering Press, 1977.] She was said to be a fifteeen-year-old Rajput princess. [Francis Jarman, 'Sati: From exotic custom to relativist controversy', "CultureScan", Vol. 2, No. 5 (December 2002), p. 8.] Charnock renamed her Maria, and soon after he was accused of converting to Hinduism. [De Almeida 228.] Though he remained a devout Christian, [I. B. Watson, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5169 ‘Charnock, Job (c.1630–1693)’] , "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 29 Aug 2008.] the story of his conversion and moral laxity was so widely believed that it became a cautionary tale in a more puritanical age. ['The Englishman in India', "The Times" (25 October 1867), pg. 4, col. E.]

Charnock was promoted to the rank of senior merchant by 1666, and became third in the Bengal hierarchy in 1676. He was now the Company's longest-serving servant in Bengal, and applied for a transfer to a more senior post. After some haggling due to difficulties with resentful colleagues who hoped to see him sent away to Madras, on 3 January 1679 the directors promoted him to the position of head at Cossimbazar, second in charge of the Company's operations in Bengal.

Rivalry with William Hedges

Cossimbazar was notorious as a smugglers' den, and when Charnock assumed his new post on Christmas day 1680 it was over the objections of Streynsham Master, president at Madras, who oversaw the Company's operations in the whole bay of Bengal. Master received a reprimand from the directors for his interference, but although they agreed to free Bengal from oversight by the Madras presidency, Charnock's hopes of promotion to the top Bengal post at Hooghly were dashed when in 1681 the directors sent out one of their own, William Hedges, as agent of the bay and governor of Bengal.

On Hedges's arrival at Hooghly Charnock found him to be an officious neophyte. The rivalry between the Company's two most senior servants in Bengal was aggravated by the intrigues of Company servants and interlopers keen to undermine Charnock's authority and resume their smuggling operations on the side. Charnock was further irritated by the fact that members of Hedges's staff from Hooghly were regularly sabotaging their colleagues' work in Cossimbazar by poaching the local commodities. In 1684 the exasperated directors restored supervisory control over Bengal to the new president at Madras, William Gyfford, and replaced Hedges in Bengal with John Beard, the elder.

Chief agent in Bengal

When Beard died on 28 August 1685 Charnock finally assumed the position of agent and chief in the bay of Bengal. ['The Imperial Gazetteer of India', "The Times" (26 May 1881), pg. 5, col. C.] By this time a crisis had arisen over restrictions on trade, and in particular the Mughal nawab's imposition of a customs duty of 3½ per cent, which the English refused to pay on the grounds that it was in breach of the original firman which exempted them from customs. ['The Early History of the English in Bengal', "The Times" (31 August 1889), pg. 11 col. D.] Relations with the nawab deteriorated into violent conflict. When Charnock received word of his promotion Cossimbazar was under siege, and he could not leave to take up his responsibilities at Hooghly until April 1686. On his arrival he continued to resist what he saw as extortion, by force or persuasion, and when these did not serve, by taking the Company's business elsewhere.

Finding himself again besieged at Hooghly, Charnock put the Company's goods and servants on board his light vessels. Pursued by the nawab's troops, on 20 December 1686 he dropped down the river convert|27|mi|km to Sutanuti, then 'a low swampy village of scattered huts', [Bhabani Bhattacharya, 'City of Cities is now callous', "The Times" (26 January 1962), xxi.] but a place well chosen for the purpose of defence. [Bhabani Roy Choudhury, "Bangiya Sabarna Katha Kalishetra Kalikatah", Manna Publication. ISBN-81-87648-36-8.] From Sutanuti he moved on to Hijili in February 1687, where he was again besieged from March to June 1687. After negotiating a truce and safe passage, he transferred the factory back to Sutanuti in November 1687.

It was probably during this interlude at Sutanuti that Charnock suffered an irreparable personal loss in the death of his wife Maria. They had been together for some twenty-five years. They had one son (who would predecease his father), and three surviving daughters who were later baptised in Madras. Although Maria was buried like a Christian, and not cremated as a Hindu, [Grant, 'Origin and Progress of English Connexion with India', "Calcutta Review", No. XIII, Vol. VII (January-June 1847), p. 260.] Charnock was said to sacrifice a cock over her grave each year on the anniversary of her death, 'after the Pagan Manner'. [Alexander Hamilton, "A New Account of the East Indies" (1727), ed. William Foster, 2 vols (London: Argonaut, 1930), Vol. II, pp. 8–9.] The ritual resembles the Sufi custom of the "panch peer" or 'five saints' which Charnock might have learnt from his years in Bihar. [Prabodh Biswas, ‘Job Charnock’, in Sukanta Chaudhuri (ed.), "Calcutta: The Living City", Vol. I: "The Past" (Calcutta: 1990), pp. 6-7.] He was also said to have built his garden house at Barrackpore so as to be near her grave. [Grant, 'Origin and Progress of English Connexion with India', "Calcutta Review", No. XIII, Vol. VII (January-June 1847), p. 260.]

Chittagong expedition

By 1686 the secret committee of the court of directors in London had decided the Company should establish a fortified settlement in Bengal, to resist what they regarded as arbitrary exactions and violent harassment by Mughal officials:

Accordingly in September 1688 the largest naval force the Company had ever assembled swept into the bay, with orders to blockade the ports and arrest the ships of the Grand Mughal, and, if this did not bring satisfaction, to take the town of Chittagong. Beard being dead, authority devolved to a reluctant Charnock as commander-in-chief. As he anticipated, Chittagong proved remote and unviable. Sutanuti had in the meantime been razed by the nawab's troops, so the squadron sailed for Madras, arriving on 7 March 1689.

Calcutta

In Madras Charnock persuaded the reluctant council, over the objections of its president, his old opponent William Hedges, that Sutanuti was the best place to establish the headquarters in Bengal, because of its defensible position and its deep-water anchorage for the fleet. The selection of the future capital of India was entirely due to his stubborn resolution. ['Charnock, Job', "Encyclopædia Britannica", 11th ed. (1911), vol. 5, p. 947.]

In March 1690 the Company received permission from the Great Mughal in Delhi to re-establish a factory in Bengal, and on 24 August 1690 Charnock returned to set up his headquarters in the place he called Calcutta; the appointment of a new nawab ensured this agreement was honoured, and on 10 February 1691 an imperial grant was issued for the English to 'contentedly continue their trade'. [C. R. Wilson, ed., "The Early Annals of the English in Bengal", 2 vols. in 3 pts (1895–1911), vol. 1: "The Diary of William Hedges" (1681–1687), ed. R. Barlow and H. Yule, 3 vols., Hakluyt Society, 74–5, 78 (1887–9).] [I. B. Watson, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5169 ‘Charnock, Job (c.1630–1693)’] , "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 29 Aug 2008.]

The directors showed their approval of Charnock's initiative by making his agency independent of Madras on 22 January 1692. Thereafter 'Calcutta grew steadily till it became India's "city of cities" and capital.' [Bhabani Bhattacharya, 'City of Cities is now callous', "The Times" (26 January 1962), xxi.]

Mausoleum

Charnock died in Calcutta on 10 January 1693, shortly after the death of his son. His three surviving daughters all remained in Calcutta: Mary ("d." 19 Feb 1697), Elizabeth ("d." August 1753), and Katherine ("d." 21 Jan 1701). All found wealthy English husbands. [Francis Jarman, 'Sati: From exotic custom to relativist controversy', "CultureScan", Vol. 2, No. 5 (December 2002), p. 8.] Mary married the first president of Bengal, Sir Charles Eyre.

A mausoleum was erected over Charnock's simple grave by Eyre, his son-in-law and successor, in 1695. It can still be seen in the graveyard of St. John's Church, the oldest building in Calcutta, one of the oldest Protestant churches in India, regarded as a national monument. ['St. John's, Calcutta,' "The Times" (20 September 1955), pg. 10, col. E.] [ [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/239181469.cms Forgotten founder lies unsung] ] His tomb is made from a kind of rock named after him as Charnockite. [ [http://www.indian-cemeteries.org/viewimage.asp?ID=4 Job Charnock's memorial in Calcutta] ] It is inscribed with the Latin epitaph:

Translation:

The inscription omits any mention of Charnock's Hindu wife Maria. Eyre may have hoped to make the public image of his predecessors and in-laws seem more respectable to the growing Anglican community in Calcutta. [H. B. Hyde, 'Notes on the Mausoleum of Job Charnock and the Bones Recently Discovered within It', "Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal", Vol. XXIX (March 1893), pp. 79–80.] Even so, the monument was built by Bengali craftsmen, and its incorporation of Indo-Islamic design reflects the intersection of two cultures their union personified. [Robert Travers, 'Death and the Nabob: Imperialism and Commemoration in Eighteenth-Century India', "Past and Present", No. 196 (August 2007), p. 92.]

Assessment

In the verdict of Sir Henry Yule:

Controversy

A Calcutta High Court ruling (May 16, 2003) [cite news| first = Subhrangshu | last = Gupta| authorlink =| author = | coauthors =| title =Job Charnock not Kolkata founder: HCSays city has no foundation day| url = http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030518/nation.htm#3| format = HTML| work = | publisher = The Tribune online edition| pages = | page = | date = May 17, 2003| accessdate = 2006-12-17| quote = ] based on a report from an academic committee, found that a 'highly civilized society' and 'an important trading centre' had existed on the site of Calcutta long before the first European settlers came down the Hooghly. They also found the place then called Kalikatah was an important religious centre due to the existence of the Kali temple in the adjacent village of Kalighat. The first literary reference to the site is found in Bipradas Pipilai's magnum opus "Manasa Mangala" which dates back to 1495. Abul Fazl's "Ain-I-Akbari" dating 1596 also mentions the place. The Sabarna Roy Choudhury family was granted the Jaigirdari of Kalikatah by Emperor Jehangir in 1608. The report added that Charnock's name was just the first of those, including Eyre, Goldsborough, Lakshmikanta Majumdar, the Sett Bysack families and Sabarna Choudhuries, that could be celebrated for developing the city. [ [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/36080070.cms Job Charnock not Kolkata's Founder: Expert committee] , "Times of India" (31 January 2003). Accessed 1 September 2008.] The court declared that Charnock ought not to be regarded as the founder of Calcutta, and ordered government authorities to purge his name from all text books and official documents containing the history of the founding story of the city. [Bangiya Sabarna Katha Kalishetra Kalikatah by Bhabani Roy Choudhury, Manna Publication. ISBN-81-87648-36-8]

Other historical authorities reject such revisionism:

Notes

References

*Da Almeida, Hermione. "Indian Renaissance: British Romantic Art And the Prospect of India"
*H.E. Busteed "Echoes from Old Calcutta" (Calcutta) 1908
*Bangiya Sabarna Katha Kalishetra Kalikatah by Bhabani Roy Choudhury, Manna Publication. ISBN-81-87648-36-8

External links

* [http://banglapedia.org/ht/C_0140.HTM Banglapedia]
* [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9022634/Job-Charnock Encyclopedia article on Charnock]
* [http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/wmward/Misc%20html/jobcharnock.html Charnock's article at the website of William Carey University]
* [http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/C_0140.htm Job Charnock: Banglapedia] ----
*1911