Eloquent foreign field

The story of the British cemetery begins from the lonely first grave of a young officer.

Very few people would have imagined that after a tumultuous war between two "expansionary powers", Nepal and the East India Company, in 1814-16, the history of diplomatic relations between the two had started from an obscure corner of Kathmandu or "Catmandhoo". The Treaty of Sugauli signed after the war made a provision for the exchange of "accredited ministers to each other's court". The first British Residency was opened at a space where the British Embassy exists today. Edward Gardner and his deputy Robert Stuart were the two persons who were doing the pioneering work at the Residency. But Stuart suddenly died of "an inflammation of the lungs" on the evening of 1820. The superior Edward Gardner informed the "government in Calcutta" of this sudden death of his young talented deputy. But the point of importance here is the burial of the 27-year-old Stuart in a "hastily dug" grave "on the edge of a farmer's field just outside the boundaries of the Residency".