DUMDUM, or Damdamâ, a town and cantonment in British India, at the head of an administrative subdivision in the district of the Twenty-four Pergunnahs, in the presidency of Bengal, w ith a station on the Eastern Bengal railway, 4⅜ miles N.E. of Calcutta, in 22° 37' 53'' N. lat. and 88° 28' 1" E. long. It was the head-quarters of the Bengal artillery from 1783 to 1853, when they were transferred to Meerut as a more central station; and its possession of a cannon foundry and a percussion-cap factory procured for it the half jocular name of the Woolwich of India. The barracks—still occupied by small detachments—are brick-built and commodious; and among the other buildings are St Stephen’s Protestant church, a Roman Catholic chapel, a European and native hospital, a large bazaar, and an English school. The population in 1872 amounted to 5179, of whom 1201 were Mahometans, 1053 Christians, and 2586 Hindus. The males numbered 3414, the females 1765. It was at Dumdum that the treaty of 1757 was signed, by which the nawab of Bengal ratified the privileges of the English, allowed Calcutta to be fortified, and bestowed freedom of trade; and in 1857 it was the scene of the first open resistance of the sepoys to the use of greased cartridges.