On the night of October 11-12, 1737, Calcutta found itself at the mercy of a storm unlike any it had ever experienced. Contemporary observers later called it “a furious hurricane, earthquake and storm‑wave,” and their reports read more like accounts of a coastal disaster than a monsoon squall .
The first signs of trouble arrived as a sudden gale from the southwest. Windows rattled in their frames, and the wind’s force made it difficult to stand upright. Those living near the newly built Fort William reported hearing the creak of wooden beams under pressure, as if the fort itself were protesting the assault.
By midnight, the tempest had reached full fury. Torrents of rain lashed the streets, turning them into rivers of mud. Thunder shook the sky, and lightning revealed the city’s silhouette—a jumble of low houses punctuated by the proud spire of the first Calcutta Church, erected in 1715 just outside the fort’s northern bastion. This church steeple, a local landmark, was a beacon of colonial presence on the Hooghly’s east bank.
When dawn broke on October 12, the extent of the devastation became horrifyingly clear. According to The Gentleman’s Magazine for 1738-39, in Calcutta—then often called “Galgota”—some two hundred houses had collapsed in the storm, victims of both the hurricane’s wind and a sudden surge of floodwater . Amid the wreckage, the church steeple drew particular attention. Eyewitnesses claimed that the “high magnificent steeple of the English church sunk into the ground without breaking,” as though the tower had been planted so firmly that, rather than splinter, it simply tipped bodily into the earth .
Yet not all who remembered that night agreed on the steeple’s fate. Mr. C. Weston, who was a young man at the time, insisted on a different account. In his recollections—shared decades later with a hint of wonder—he maintained that the steeple “fell prostrate,” crashing to the ground in a thunderous roar and shattering into fragments. Weston’s memory, perhaps sharpened by youth’s drama, grounded the story in the more familiar image of a monument toppling rather than vanishing intact .
Why do these two versions both persist in our records? Part of the answer likely lies in the limitations of communication and documentation in mid‑eighteenth‑century Bengal. The initial report—printed in London—may have relied on sketches and secondhand notes sent by hurried messengers. The editor of The Gentleman’s Magazine may have favored the more extraordinary claim: that such a tall structure went down without a crack. Conversely, local memories like Weston’s, preserved through oral tradition, reflected the raw experience of facing collapsing masonry and the chaos of rescue efforts.
Despite these discrepancies, both accounts agree on the broader point: the 1737 hurricane left Calcutta’s riverfront—and its early colonial architecture—profoundly altered. The church steeple had been not merely a religious symbol but also a navigational aid for trading vessels sailing up the Hooghly. Its sudden loss disoriented mariners and underscored how the city’s built environment was vulnerable to Bengal’s unpredictable climate.
In the aftermath, colonial officials and merchants scrambled to adapt. Temporary markers were placed near the ruined church site to guide boats. Engineers surveyed the remaining walls of Fort William for signs of structural weakening, while bricklayers and carpenters scoured the wreckage for salvageable materials. Some of the fallen steeple’s timbers found new life as beams in rebuilt warehouses; its bricks were reused in fortifications along Garden Reach Road.
The dual narratives of the steeple’s end—“sunk into the ground without breaking” versus “fallen prostrate”—offer more than a footnote in Calcutta’s architectural history. They illustrate how early residents constructed their city’s identity through a mix of scholarly report and lived experience. The physical landscape shaped their memories, even as those memories, in turn, shaped the landscape’s reconstruction.
The 1737 hurricane remains a defining episode in old Calcutta’s story. Its legacy endures not only in the sturdy bastions that survived the storm but also in the richly textured anecdotes that weave together fact and memory—an enduring reminder that history often lies as much in how we recall events as in the events themselves.
Source
Busteed, H.E. (1908). Echoes From Old Calcutta: Being Chiefly Reminiscences of the Days of Warren Hastings, Francis and Impey. Calcutta: W. Thacker.
Arup K. Chatterjee 