A Highlight · History
European Colonial Rule in India
From Vasco da Gama's landfall to the last Viceroy — the Company's conquest and every Governor-General who ruled after it. 58 entries.
Overview
- East India CompanyThe East India Company (EIC) was an English joint-stock trading corporation, chartered in 1600, that expanded from a monopoly on Asian trade into the paramount political and military power on the Indian subcontinent before its dissolution in 1858.
- British RajThe British Raj was the period of direct Crown rule over India from 1858 to 1947, following the East India Company's dissolution after the rebellion of 1857.
- Charles CornwallisCharles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis (1738–1805), was a British army officer and colonial administrator who served as Governor-General of India from 1786 to 1793 and again briefly in 1805.
- Shimla under the BritishShimla was the summer capital of British India from 1864 to 1947, a hill station in the Himalayan foothills of present-day Himachal Pradesh from which the Government of India administered the subcontinent for roughly seven months of each year.
Arrival, conquest & policy
Arrival & rivalry
- Portuguese IndiaPortuguese India was the first and the last European territorial presence in the subcontinent, from Vasco da Gama's arrival in 1498 until the Indian annexation of Goa in 1961.
- Vasco da GamaVasco da Gama was a Portuguese navigator who in 1498 became the first European to reach India by sea, opening a direct maritime route that led to Portuguese trade and, eventually, colonial presence on the subcontinent.
- Afonso de AlbuquerqueAfonso de Albuquerque was a Portuguese admiral and the second governor of Portuguese India, whose conquests of Goa and Malacca in the early sixteenth century established the strategic foundations of Portugal's maritime empire in Asia.
- Dutch IndiaDutch India was the network of Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie factories on the Indian coasts, held from 1605 until they were traded to Britain in 1824.
- French IndiaFrench India was the set of five coastal enclaves held by France from the seventeenth century until 1954, and the base from which France contested the subcontinent with Britain in the eighteenth.
- Joseph Francois DupleixJoseph-Francois Dupleix was a French colonial administrator and Governor-General of French India who pioneered intervention in local succession disputes to extend European political and military influence in south India, chiefly in rivalry with the British East India Company.
- Carnatic WarsA series of three conflicts fought between 1746 and 1763 in which the British and French East India Companies, each backing rival claimants to local thrones, competed for control of southeastern India.
Conquest
- Robert CliveRobert Clive was a British East India Company military officer and administrator whose victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 established Company control over Bengal.
- Battle of PlasseyThe Battle of Plassey, fought on 23 June 1757 at the village of Palashi in Bengal, was the decisive engagement in which the British East India Company under Robert Clive defeated Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, opening the way to British political dominance in India.
- Battle of BuxarThe Battle of Buxar, fought in 1764 on the Ganges in present-day Bihar, was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the combined forces of the Nawab of Bengal, the Nawab of Awadh and the Mughal emperor, and led directly to the Company's acquisition of revenue-collecting rights over Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.
- Anglo-Mysore WarsThe Anglo-Mysore Wars were four conflicts fought between 1767 and 1799 between the Kingdom of Mysore, under Hyder Ali and then Tipu Sultan, and the English East India Company, ending in Mysore's defeat and the death of Tipu Sultan.
- Anglo-Maratha WarsThe Anglo-Maratha Wars were three conflicts fought between the British East India Company and the Maratha Confederacy between 1775 and 1818, ending in the confederacy's dissolution and the establishment of British paramountcy over most of the Indian subcontinent.
- Anglo-Sikh WarsThe Anglo-Sikh Wars were two conflicts between the East India Company and the Sikh Empire, fought in 1845-46 and 1848-49, which ended in the annexation of the Punjab.
- Vellore MutinyThe Vellore Mutiny of 1806 was an uprising by Indian sepoys of the Madras Army against the British East India Company garrison at Vellore Fort, triggered chiefly by new uniform regulations perceived as an attack on religious custom, and is regarded by historians as an early precursor to the far larger revolt of 1857.
Policy & law
- Permanent SettlementThe Permanent Settlement was a land revenue system introduced in 1793 by Governor-General Lord Cornwallis that fixed the tax owed by Bengal's zamindars in perpetuity and converted them into hereditary landowners.
- Charter ActsThe Charter Acts were a series of British parliamentary statutes, passed roughly every twenty years between 1793 and 1853, that periodically renewed the East India Company's royal charter while progressively stripping its commercial privileges and expanding parliamentary and crown oversight of its Indian territories.
- Doctrine of LapseThe Doctrine of Lapse was a policy applied by the East India Company under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie to annex princely states whose rulers died without a natural male heir, refusing to recognise adopted successors.
- Government of India Act 1858The Government of India Act 1858 was a British parliamentary statute that transferred rule of India from the East India Company to the British Crown following the 1857 rebellion, establishing direct Crown government administered through a Secretary of State for India.
- Vernacular Press ActThe Vernacular Press Act of 1878 was a colonial law empowering British Indian magistrates to censor and restrict Indian-language newspapers suspected of publishing seditious material, repealed in 1881 amid strong nationalist opposition.
- Ilbert Bill controversyA political controversy of 1883–84 sparked by a proposed law that would have allowed Indian judges to try British subjects in criminal cases, provoking fierce opposition from the British community in India and revealing the racial assumptions underlying colonial administration.
- Great Famine of 1876-78A severe famine that struck large parts of British India between 1876 and 1878, following drought conditions, with mortality worsened by the colonial government's export and relief policies.
Governors-General & Viceroys
Governors-General of Bengal / India, 1774–1858
- Warren HastingsWarren Hastings was a British East India Company administrator who served as the first Governor-General of Bengal from 1774 to 1785 and was later tried, and acquitted, on charges of corruption and abuse of power.
- John ShoreJohn Shore, later 1st Baron Teignmouth, was Governor-General of Bengal from 1793 to 1798, remembered chiefly for continuing his predecessor Lord Cornwallis's policy of non-intervention in the affairs of Indian states.
- Richard WellesleyRichard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, was Governor-General of British India from 1798 to 1805 whose subsidiary alliance system and wars against Mysore and the Marathas greatly expanded Company territory and power.
- Gilbert Elliot-Murray-KynynmoundGilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto, was Governor-General of India from 1807 to 1813, known for consolidating British frontiers through diplomacy and for annexing French and Dutch colonial possessions in the Indian Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars.
- Francis Rawdon-HastingsFrancis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, was a British soldier and colonial administrator who served as Governor-General of India from 1813 to 1823, during which the East India Company defeated the Gurkha kingdom of Nepal and the Maratha Confederacy and emerged as the paramount power on the subcontinent.
- William AmherstWilliam Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst, was Governor-General of India from 1823 to 1828, whose tenure was dominated by the First Anglo-Burmese War and the capture of Bharatpur.
- William BentinckLord William Bentinck was Governor-General of India from 1828 to 1835, remembered chiefly for abolishing the practice of sati and for redirecting British Indian education policy toward English-medium instruction in Western subjects.
- George Eden, Lord AucklandBritish Governor-General of India from 1836 to 1842, chiefly remembered for launching the First Anglo-Afghan War, which ended in one of the most severe military disasters suffered by British forces in Asia.
- Edward Law, Lord EllenboroughBritish statesman who served as Governor-General of India from 1842 to 1844, known for ending the First Anglo-Afghan War and annexing Sindh.
- Henry HardingeHenry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge (1785-1856), was a British soldier and statesman who served as Governor-General of India from 1844 to 1848, a term dominated by the First Anglo-Sikh War against the Sikh Empire in Punjab.
- James Broun-Ramsay, Lord DalhousieLord Dalhousie was a Scottish nobleman who served as Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856, overseeing rapid infrastructural modernisation alongside an aggressive policy of annexation that included the Doctrine of Lapse.
- Charles Canning, Earl CanningCharles Canning, 1st Earl Canning, was the last Governor-General of India under East India Company rule and, following the transfer of authority to the Crown, the first Viceroy of India, presiding over the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and its aftermath.
Viceroys of India, 1858–1947
- John LawrenceJohn Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence, was a British administrator who governed Punjab after its annexation and served as Viceroy of India from 1864 to 1869.
- Richard Bourke, Lord MayoRichard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, was Viceroy of India from 1869 to 1872, remembered for administrative and financial reforms and for being assassinated while in office.
- Thomas Baring, Lord NorthbrookThomas Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook, was a British Liberal politician who served as Viceroy of India from 1872 to 1876, a term marked by an effective famine-relief effort in Bihar and his eventual resignation over a policy dispute with London on Afghanistan.
- Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, Lord LyttonEdward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, was Viceroy of India from 1876 to 1880, whose term combined the imperial spectacle of the 1877 Delhi Durbar with a severe famine, restrictive press and arms legislation, and a war with Afghanistan.
- George Robinson, Lord RiponGeorge Robinson, first Marquess of Ripon, was Viceroy of India from 1880 to 1884, remembered for liberal reforms including repeal of the Vernacular Press Act, expansion of local self-government, and his sponsorship of the Ilbert Bill, which provoked fierce opposition from India's European community.
- Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, Lord DufferinBritish Viceroy of India from 1884 to 1888, whose tenure saw the annexation of Upper Burma and the founding of the Indian National Congress.
- Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Lord LansdowneBritish statesman who served as Viceroy of India from 1888 to 1894, overseeing modest legislative reform and the demarcation of the Durand Line with Afghanistan.
- Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of ElginVictor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin (1849-1917), served as Viceroy of India from 1894 to 1899, a tenure marked by severe famine, the outbreak of bubonic plague, and frontier warfare on the North-West Frontier.
- George Curzon, Lord CurzonLord Curzon was a British statesman who served as Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, remembered for administrative reforms, the 1905 partition of Bengal, and his resignation over a dispute with Commander-in-Chief Lord Kitchener.
- Gilbert Elliot, 4th Earl of MintoGilbert Elliot, 4th Earl of Minto, was Viceroy of India from 1905 to 1910, a tenure marked by the agitation following the partition of Bengal, the founding of the All India Muslim League, and the constitutional reforms enacted jointly with Secretary of State John Morley.
- Charles Hardinge, Lord Hardinge of PenshurstCharles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, was Viceroy of India from 1910 to 1916, during whose tenure the imperial capital moved from Calcutta to Delhi and he survived an assassination attempt in 1912.
- Frederic Thesiger, Lord ChelmsfordFrederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford, was Viceroy of India from 1916 to 1921, a term spanning both the constitutional concessions of the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms and the repression of the Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
- Rufus Isaacs, Lord ReadingRufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, was a British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician who served as Viceroy of India from 1921 to 1926, presiding over the suppression of the Non-Cooperation Movement and the trial and imprisonment of Mohandas Gandhi.
- Edward Wood, Lord IrwinEdward Wood, 1st Baron Irwin, was Viceroy of India from 1926 to 1931, whose tenure spanned the Simon Commission boycott, the Salt March and Civil Disobedience Movement, and negotiation of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.
- Freeman Freeman-Thomas, Lord WillingdonFreeman Freeman-Thomas, Marquess of Willingdon, was Viceroy of India from 1931 to 1936, whose tenure was dominated by the suppression of the second phase of the Civil Disobedience Movement and the passage of the Government of India Act 1935.
- Victor Hope, Lord LinlithgowBritish Viceroy of India from 1936 to 1943, the longest-serving Viceroy, whose tenure spanned the outbreak of the Second World War, the Quit India Movement and the onset of the Bengal famine of 1943.
- Archibald Wavell, Lord WavellBritish field marshal who served as Viceroy of India from 1943 to 1947, presiding over the final phase of colonial rule amid famine, failed constitutional talks and rising communal violence, before being replaced by Lord Mountbatten.
- Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of BurmaLouis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900-1979), was the last Viceroy of British India, who oversaw the negotiated transfer of power and the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, and then served briefly as independent India's first Governor-General.
Administrators & critics
- Thomas Babington MacaulayThomas Babington Macaulay was a British historian, essayist and Whig politician who served as the first Law Member of the Governor-General's Council in India, where he authored the 1835 Minute on Indian Education and chaired the commission that drafted the Indian Penal Code.
- Reginald DyerReginald Dyer was the British Indian Army officer who ordered troops to fire on an unarmed crowd at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in 1919, an act that became a defining atrocity of colonial rule in India.
- Michael O'DwyerMichael O'Dwyer was Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab from 1913 to 1919, whose administration approved and publicly defended the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 1919, and who was assassinated in London in 1940 by Udham Singh in retaliation.