John Hessing

John Hessing (c. 1740 – July 21, 1803) was a military officer who served in the armies of the Maratha Confederacy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He commanded 3000 Maratha regular troops in the Battle of Kardla, where the Maratha armies defeated the Nizam of Hyderabad on March 12, 1795. In June 1801 Hessing commanded four battalions outside Ujjain, which were attacked and defeated by Yashwantrao Holkar, the Maratha ruler of Indore. Hessing fought with the Maratha armies against the British in the Second Anglo-Maratha War. He died in Agra on 21 July 1803 while in command of the Maratha forces there.

Hessing's tomb is located in the Padretola, or Padresanto, a Christian cemetery in Agra:


 * The tomb of John Hessing, hard by, is a still more splendid edifice, being a copy, in red sandstone, of the famous Taj Mahal, and on a pretty extensive scale too, though far smaller than the original. The tomb, which was completed in or about the year of the British conquest, bears an inscription in good English, setting forth that the deceased colonel was a Dutchman, who died Commandant of Agra, in his 63rd year, 21 July 1803, just before Lake's successful siege of the place.*

Red Taj :Tomb of Col John Hessing

The Tomb was built by John Hessing's wife, Alice. This mausoleum does not compare with the real Taj Mahal in beauty and size but consider the emotion of Alice she was not an Empress. She had very little money, around one lac Rupees at that time, out of which she managed to build this structure. She could not afford four Minarets in four corners. One can see the base for Minarets which could not be erected because money was used up. I salute the feelings of that great lady. Picture of the Tomb is also added on wikimedia - Red Taj Tomb of John Hessing