John Hessing

Hessing commanded 3000 Maratha regular troops in the Battle of Kardla, where the Maratha armies defeated the Nizam of Hyderabad on 12 March 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.

The "Red Taj Mahal", tomb of John Hessing

Hessing's tomb is located in the Padretola, or Padresanto, a Christian cemetery in Agra. The tomb was commissioned by John Hessing's wife, Alice:

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.*

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

• Red Taj: Tomb of Col John Hessing