There is much to recommend about the visit to one of Kolkata’s oldest churches, built in the image
of London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields — quiet grounds, with a lovely structure housing historical
artefacts like a painting by the German neoclassical artist Johann Zoffany and a viceregal chair.
There is a grave at the entrance, dedicated by a grieving widow to her beloved husband, Peter Pan.
Wife of Charles Canning, the Governor General and Viceroy of India, Lady Canning’s
memorial lies here, and Job Charnock of the British East India Company, who combined three
villages to form the city of Calcutta is entombed here as well. But, the real place of interest is
a discreet memorial, at the very back of the premises, to Frances Johnson or Begum Johnson,
who outlived four husbands and died at the ripe old age of 89. The memorial lists her many
marriages and the birth of her children and proclaims her ‘....the oldest British resident in Bengal,
universally beloved, respected and revered’ while neatly sidestepping the question of whether
the venerable Begum was poisoning her bothersome spouses.ST JOHN’S CHURCH, GOVERNMENT PLACE