ABSTRACT
This chapter is a case study of a natural calamity that swept through the English settlement of Calcutta on 11 October 1737 with reference to the broader questions of climate and settlement. A group of English merchants formed the East India Company in 1599. On 31 December 1600 the East India Company was granted a royal charter and the exclusive right to trade in the East by Queen Elizabeth. English explorers had been visiting India since 1591. The East India Company made its first voyage to Indonesia in 1601. The catalogue of historically devastating earthquakes published in 1992 includes an earthquake in Calcutta in 1737 that is held responsible for the loss of 300,000 lives. It also features in Oldham's catalogue of Indian earthquakes. The unusual calamity, in all probability, resulted from a rare combination of a cyclonic depression and earthquake induced tsunami.
