Colonel John William Hessing (5 November 1739 – 21 July 1803) was a Dutch military officer who served in the armies of the

Maratha Empire The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern India, early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent List of Maratha dynasties and states, Ma ...

in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Biography

Hessing commanded 3,000

Maratha The Marathi people (; Marathi: , ''Marāṭhī lōk'') or Marathis (Marathi: मराठी, ''Marāṭhī'') are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are native to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-A ...

regular troops in the

Battle of Kharda The Battle of Kharda also called the Battle of Khurla, took place in 1795 between the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maratha Empire, in which the Nizam was defeated. During the Battle Governor General John Shore followed the policy of non-intervent ...

, where the Maratha armies defeated the

Nizam of Hyderabad Nizam of Hyderabad was the title of the ruler of Hyderabad State ( part of the Indian state of Telangana, and the Kalyana-Karnataka region of Karnataka). ''Nizam'' is a shortened form of (; ), and was the title bestowed upon Asaf Jah I wh ...

on 12 March 1795. Due to ill health, he resigned his command of four battalions in 1800, being succeeded by his son, George Hessing, who was then 18. John Hessing took instead a position as Commandant of

Agra Fort The Agra Fort (''Qila Agra'') is a historical Mughal fort in the city of Agra, also known as Agra's Red Fort. Mughal emperor Humayun was crowned at this fort in 1530. It was later renovated by the Mughal emperor Akbar from 1565 and the presen ...

, and died in

Agra Agra ( ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...

on 21 July 1803 while in command of the Maratha forces there. In June 1801 George Hessing commanded four battalions outside

Ujjain Ujjain (, , old name Avantika, ) or Ujjayinī is a city in Ujjain district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the fifth-largest city in Madhya Pradesh by population and is the administrative as well as religious centre of Ujjain ...

, which were attacked and defeated by

Yashwantrao Holkar Yashwant Rao Holkar (1776–1811) also known as Jaswantrao Holkar was an Indian ruler, statesman and commander belonging to the House of Holkar, Holkar clan of the Maratha Empire. He was the Raja of Indore State as part of the Maratha Empire. A ...

, the

ruler of

Indore Indore (; ISO 15919, ISO: , ) is the largest and most populous Cities in India, city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The commercial capital of the state, it has been declared as the List of cleanest cities in India, cleanest city of In ...

Tomb

John Hessing's tomb is located in the Padretola, or Padresanto, a Roman Catholic cemetery in

. The tomb was commissioned by Hessing's wife, Anne Derridon. The tomb is a scale replica of the

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...

in red sandstone. The tomb, which was completed in or about the year of the British conquest, bears an inscription in English stating that Hessing was a Dutchman, who died Commandant of Agra, in his 63rd year, 21 July 1803, just before

Lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

's successful siege of the place.

References

* Keene, H. G. (1887) ''The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan.''

External links

''Red Taj: Tomb of Col John Hessing''
1803 deaths People from the Maratha Empire People from Agra People from Utrecht (province) 1739 births Europeans in India Dutch mercenaries Mercenaries in India {{India-mil-bio-stub