The Neblett Name

I have always been interested in names. My father tells a funny story about how I came to be called Aidan, and though our surname is Swedish, it is now extinct in that part of the world. The year before I was born, two of my father’s uncles died, and I inherited their names – […]

The Sunday Statesman Magazine – Sunday December 11, 1955.

The fourth Sunday of Advent marks the anniversary of Kiernander’s Old Mission Church at Calcutta, and almost every year at Christmastime such a write-up as that below was to be found in  what was then Calcutta’s leading broadsheet, The Statesman.  This article appeared over fifty years ago in the Sunday magazine of that newspaper and, though there […]

"What’s in a name?" – Part 1

The Kiernander surname is a rare one, and it has always been so.  Seldom recognised in everyday encounters, it usually elicits an exasperated, “How do you spell that?”, or “Where’s that from?”.  The apparent simplicity of these two questions belies their thorny nature; for although Kiernander is not an ancient name it does have a tangled […]

Daphne and The Kiernander Dancers

I couldn’t quite believe it when I found this image for sale in an on line auction, and so I bid for it immediately.  I had never heard of a Daphne Kiernander, as a dancer or otherwise, but I could see that she had been well known to some, including her fan “Peggy”, for whom she autographed the photo, […]

In Memoriam

“The dinner parties given by the Kiernanders were famous for their profusion of dishes and their brilliance.”  Biren Roy, Calcutta, 1481-1981: Marshes to Metropolis. (1982) The above quote was written in reference to Rev. Johann Zachariah Kiernander (1711-99) and his third wife Ann, whose elaborate “banquets and wine were famous in England” in the latter […]

Kiernander’s Church

A couple of years ago I came across this page from The Gentleman’s Magazine (Feb. 1824) for sale online.  It is a reproduction of an engraving made by G. Hall in 1774, and is the earliest known illustration of Kiernander’s Church at Calcutta.  An original print from 1774 can be found at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.   […]

Beginnings

“An extraordinary family saga, the Kiernander contribution to South Asia”. D.W. Martin, The Changing Face of Calcutta. In 1965, my grandfather, George Albert Kiernander (1926-2006), then a lieutenant colonel in the Pakistan Army, wrote to the University of Uppsala in Sweden to research the history of the Kiernander family.  This foray into the archives inspired […]

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