88 Annual Address. [Feb. 



the east gate, and to the south of this there is another cross-wall 

 which Mr. Bayne discovered in 1883, and which according to his 

 theories must have been the north wall of the prison. According to 

 Mr. Wilson this cannot have been the case ; because the space 

 south of this cross-wall is shown by the plan of the Fort to have been 

 occupied by the foot of the staircase leading to the south-east 

 bastion, but he thinks it quite possible that it is the south wall of 

 the prison. Concerning this and other points in the topography of 

 the Fort additional information may perhaps be obtained hereafter 

 by further excavations and by the examination of old records. ^^ 



The history of the Company's Ecclesiastical Establishment in 

 Bengal from its foundation in 1677 to the close of the eighteenth 

 century has been explored by another member of our Society, the 

 Rev. H. B. Hyde, and published in a series of ten short memoirs. The 

 materials for these researches previous to the sack of Calcutta in 1756 

 were found almost wholly in the Company's archives at Westminster. 

 Subsequent to that date a parallel series exists in the Yestry Records 

 of St. John's Church, in the ' Ecclesiastical ' records of the old 

 Mayor's Court of Calcutta, and in the Consultations of the Public and 

 Military Departments of the Bengal Grovernment. The first Chaplain 

 of * the Bay,' John Evans, had a remarkable career which ended in the 

 Irish Bishopric of Meath. This Mr. Evans was Chaplain of ' the Bay' 

 at tlie time of the founding of Calcutta. His successors Benjamin 

 Adams and William Anderson promoted the building of the fii-st Presi- 

 dency Church. This occupied a site now covered by the west end of 

 Writers' Buildings and, as shown by the consecration documents which 

 have been found in the Bishop of London's Registry, was dedicated on 

 the 5th of June, 1709, to St. Anne, doubtless with complimentary refer- 

 ence to the name of the reigning sovereign. Specimens of the sermons 

 of Mr.» Anderson have been found in the British Museum ; they curiously 

 illustrate the disorderly state of the factory at that period. The next 

 three Chaplains in succession filled the fifteen years previous to 1726, 

 counting four intervals of two or three years each occasioned by Chap- 

 lains' deaths. The tomb of one of these victims of the climate is in the 

 Dacca cemetery. During these fifteen years the project which resulted 

 in the foundation of the Calcutta Charity School (now united with 

 the Free School) was set afoot. The Parish Register of St. Anne's 

 has been found in duplicate at the India Office, and the whole of 

 it, from 1713 until the destruction of the Church by the Nawab's 

 army iti 1756, has been transcribed and added to the Records of St. 



80 See the Annual Address in our Proceedings for 1892. 



