Construction of the building, modelled on St Martin-in-the-Fields of London,[2] started in 1784, with Rs 30,000 raised through a public lottery,[3] and was completed in 1787.

[5] The land for the St. John's Church was donated by the Maharaja Nabo Kishen Bahadur, the founder of the Shovabazar Raj Family.

To the left of the altar hangs a painting of The Last Supper by the British artist of German origin, Johann Zoffany.

The walls of the church contain memorial tablets, statues and plaques, mostly of British army officers and civil servants.

[7] The memorial of James Pattle, the great-great-grandfather of William Dalrymple is also located on the south walls of St. John's Church.

But the casks reeked of alcohol and the sailors bored holes through the sides of the coffins and drank the rum… and, of course, got drunk and the ship hit a sandbank and the whole thing exploded, cremating Pattle and his wife in the middle of the Hooghly!

The most unusual feature of Zoffany's Last Supper lies in the selection of models used to represent Jesus and his twelve disciples.

Zoffany's Last Supper has been restored as the result of a co-operation between the INTACH Art Conservation Centre and the Goethe Institut, both of Calcutta.

On 24 August 1690 an ambitious trader, Job Charnock, of the British East India Company landed in the village of Sutanuti (present day North Calcutta) never to return.

Although Charnock died two years later, but he combined the three villages of Sutanuti, Govindopur & Kolikata to form the city of Calcutta.

By his side lies Mary, first-born daughter of Job, and dearest wife of Charles Eyre, the English prefect in these parts.

John Holwell later became the Governor of Bengal and went on to build a memorial at the site of the Black Hole (present day GPO).

However, some historians have objected to Holwell's account, claiming that the British escaped through a secret tunnel to the banks of the Hooghly, from where they were carried to Madras by an awaiting ship.

One such historian, R. C. Majumdar, claims without evidence to support his assertion that the "Holwell story is completely baseless and can not be considered reliable historical information."

In this regard, although it is possible that Holwell exaggerated the number of persons who were confined and died, his account was an eye-witness version of the events that befell the hapless victims and therefore represents direct evidence of the atrocity itself.

Holwell erected a monument at the site of the Black Hole tragedy but it disappeared in 1822 to be rebuilt by Curzon in 1901 at the SouthWest corner of the Writers' Building.

During the height of the Indian independence movement in 1940, the British removed the monument to its present location at the compound of St. John's Church.

With their power somewhat restricted the Rohillas continued to live in their territory of Rohilkhand, which still exists in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Frances Johnson was also the grandmother of Robert Jenkinson, the second Earl of Liverpool, the latter who was the British prime minister for fifteen years from 1812 to 1827.