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St Stephen’s Cemetery, Ootacamund

St Stephen’s Cemetery, Ootacamund

Phillida Purvis, the BACSA Area Representative for Seringapatam and Nilgiris, regularly visits St Stephen’s Cemetery at Udhagamandalam (formerly known as ‘Ootacamund’, and still generally referred to as ‘Ooty’) – and reports on its condition, most recently at the BACSA AGM on 21 March 2024.

‘Ooty’
Founded in the 1820s by John Sullivan (1788-1855), Collector of Coimbatore, Ootacamund’s ‘unusually temperate and healthy’ climate led to the settlement being selected as the ideal location for a military sanatorium, then shortly afterwards as the summer capital of the Madras Presidency, and the headquarters of the Nilgiris District.

St Stephens Church, Ootacamund
St Stephen’s Church, Ootacamund
(Photo: victorianweb.org/history/empire/india/42.jpg)

St Stephen’s Church was built by Captain John James Underwood, of the Madras Regiment, in 1830. The graveyard, which lies on the sloping land behind the church, is maintained by St Stephens and St Thomas’ Churches Cemeteries Committee.

The burial register, which dates from 1840, is kept at the office of the Presbyter of St Stephen’s Church.

The many notable graves in the cemetery include the tomb of Henrietta Cecilia and Harriet Anne Sullivan (John Sullivan’s wife and eldest daughter), who died within a few days of each other, in 1838. Following their deaths, ‘a grieving Sullivan left the hillstation which he dearly loved… and returned to England with his eight surviving children’. He died in 1855, and was buried in St Laurence Churchyard, Upton-cum-Chalvey, Berkshire.

Mrs Sullivan's tomb, St Stephens Church, Ooty
Tomb of Henrietta Cecilia Sullivan (1803-1838; wife of John Sullivan, founder of Ootacamund), and their daughter Harriet Anne Sullivan (1822-1838)
(Photo: Phillida Purvis, 2023)

Also buried at St Stephen’s Cemetery is William Graham McIvor, the botanist about whom short articles were published in the Autumn 2016 and Spring 2017 issues of Chowkidar (Vol 14, No 4, p78 and No 5, p107).

Engraving from Illustrated London News, 6 Dec 1862
‘Peruvian Bark Tree Plantations in the Neilgherry Hills, India: Sir William Denison, Governor of Madras, planting the first tree in a new plantation’
Holding a spade, McIvor is shown in the foreground of this engraving, which depicts Sir William Denison, Governor of Madras, planting the first tree in a cinchona plantation. In addition to the Governor’s personal staff, we also see Mr Sims, Chief Secretary to the Madras Government, and Mr Patrick Grant, Collector of Coimbatore. In the background there is another thriving cinchona plantation up the side of a mountain, surrounded by uncleared jungle; to the right is a nursery of young cinchona plants.
(Illustrated London News, 6 Dec 1862)

Born in Dollar, Clackmannanshire, in 1825, McIvor trained in the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, and was appointed to the Ootacamund Horticultural Gardens in the Nilgiri Hills in 1848. As Superintendent in Cinchona Plantations he became responsible for selecting suitable sites for planting Cinchona (quinine) trees, the bark of which was proving invaluable in combatting malaria.

The Illustrated London News paid tribute to McIvor’s ‘scientific and practical knowledge, unwearied zeal and skilful management’, pointing out that ‘thanks to his unrivalled skill in propagating’, by October 1862 he had increased the stock from 2,114 cinchona plants in Government glass houses to 80,456 plants within a year; soon there would be around 700 acres covered with cinchona trees.

McIvor died in 1876, and was buried in St Stephen’s Churchyard. Delicate carvings of cinchona flowers and leaves are incorporated in his ‘beautifully sculpted’ tomb (which, as the inscription makes clear, was erected and paid for by his ‘little wife’ Anne, née Edwards). Anne also supplied the funds for construction of the church chancel as a memorial to her husband.

Tomb of William Graham McIvor (1825-1876)
Tomb of William Graham McIvor (1825-1876)
(Photo: Phillida Purvis, 2016)

A recent request by members of the congregation (and the many other people who attend St Stephen’s Church for marriages and burials) for a toilet block to be built behind the church was accepted by the Church Presbyter and officials. The foundations had been dug, and vertical steels installed, when, in response to objections raised by some members of the community, the work was stopped by order of the Collector.

St Stephen's Church, Nilgiris
(Photos and text, Phillida Purvis, 2024)

As Phillida comments: ‘There is nowhere else for the building which would not obstruct the view, from any angle, of the pretty church… The key thing would seem to be that the graveyard should be shored up, that the washroom height does not rise above Mrs Sullivan’s tomb behind it and that the exterior should be sympathetic and designed in keeping with the church.
A year on, the stalemate continues; there is neither any sign of progress with the work, nor of restoration of the excavated area. We wait to see what transpires!’

Phillida Purvis and Rachel Magowan

(Suggestions for BACSA website news items are always welcome – please send them to ‘comms@bacsa.org.uk’)