Plan for the Intelligence of the Military Operations at Calcutta, when attacked and taken by Seerajah Dowlet, 1756

Circa 1760–1763

Copper engraving on paper

Print size: 10 x 16.25 in (25.1 x 41 cm)
Sheet size: 10.75 x 17.5 in (27.1 x 44.7 cm)

Attributed to Thomas Kitchin, after John Call & J Cheevers: Military Plan of Calcutta and Fort William during the 1756 Siege

The plan derives from East India Company manuscript surveys executed by John Call (Chief Engineer of Bengal) and J. Cheevers. Although no engraver is named on the plate, stylistic evidence, lettering forms, and publication context within Orme’s History support an attribution to Thomas Kitchin or his immediate professional circle. Precise plate state and engraving authorship would benefit from direct institutional comparison with holdings at the British Library and Library of Congress.

A rare and historically significant engraved plan of Calcutta, documenting the city’s defensive and urban layout in the aftermath of the 1756 capture of Fort William by Siraj-ud-Daulah. Based on East India Company field surveys undertaken by John Call and J. Cheevers, the map provides a precise military-topographical record of British positions in Bengal at a formative moment in Company rule.

The engraving is attributed to Thomas Kitchin, whose disciplined lettering, architectural clarity, and balanced composition align with mid-eighteenth-century London cartographic practice. The course of the River Hugli is prominently delineated, emphasising Calcutta’s maritime and logistical importance within imperial trade networks.

A detailed numbered reference inset at upper left identifies key strategic and civic locations, including Fort William, the Adjoining Warehouse, the Governor’s House, Mr Cruttenden’s, Mr Eyre’s, the Church, the Park, and artillery positions (North, East, and South Batteries), as well as palisades, English houses, and ditch and slight works (made in 1742), private residences, artillery batteries, palisades, and defensive earthworks — notably recording ditch and slight works constructed in 1742. This legend transforms the map from a purely geographic document into a structured operational intelligence tool.

Issued in connection with Robert Orme’s History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan, the sheet represents one of the earliest printed visual records of Calcutta’s colonial urban form and military infrastructure. Surviving examples are uncommon, and the present map constitutes a highly desirable convergence of early Indian urban cartography, East India Company military history, and British eighteenth-century engraving.

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