On this day, Justice Hyde, judge at the Supreme Court of Judicature in Calcutta, made an entry in his notebooks about the measurement units used for area in the city. The Supreme Court was the highest court from 1774 to 1862 in British India. Justice Hyde’s notebooks are a major source of information about the early years of the court.

The notes on this day talk about the “Town of Calcutta”. In Calcutta, he says, “a Begah (bigha) means Fourteen Thousand Four Hundred Square Feet”, and “a Cottah is the Twentieth Part of a Begah, that is Seven Hundred and Twenty Square Feet”. Outside Calcutta, he is informed, the measure of a “Begah” is not quite so precise. But “natives” use the measurement of a “Haut”(haat or hand).

For suggestions on dates/events mail us at: yesterdate@abp.in