Belvedere Estate

The Belvedere Estate consists of Belvedere House and the 30-acre (12 ha) grounds surrounding it, in which the National Library of India is housed, since 1948. It is located in Alipore, near the zoo, in Calcutta. Belvedere House was the former palace for the Viceroy of India and later the Governor of Bengal.

The Governor-General resided in Belvedere House, Calcutta until the early nineteenth century, when Government House (present Raj Bhavan) was constructed. In 1854, after the Governor-General moved out, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal took up residence in Belvedere House. When the capital moved from Calcutta to Delhi in 1912, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, who had hitherto resided in Belvedere House, was upgraded to a full Governor and transferred to Government House.

It is believed that the roots of Belvedere House lie in the late 1760s from approximately the time when Mir Jafar Ali Khan, the Nawab of the province of Bengal was compelled by the British East India Company to abdicate his throne at Murshidabad to Qasim Khan in 1760. Mir Jafar moved to Calcutta where he is thought to have owned a large court house, and settled within the safety of English East India Company fortifications at Alipore. It is believed that while he was in Calcutta, he built many buildings in the area and gifted Belvedere House to Warren Hastings.

After the Battle of Buxar in 1764 Hastings left for England. Two governors, Verelst and Cartier occupied the Belvedere during the period when Hastings was away in England. Hastings returned to Calcutta as Governor in 1772 and to his garden house, the Belvedere with a certain Baroness Inhoff by his side.

The grounds of Belvedere Estate were witness to a duel between Warren Hastings and his legal officer, Philip Francis. The duel may have been over the Baroness Inhoff who was staying with Hastings in Belvedere House, although an Australian historian, Arthur Staples, is inclined to conclude that the duel was the outcome of political conflict between the two.

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Wikipedia