Military career and appointment
Before his appointment to India, Hardinge had a long British Army career, serving in the Peninsular War and losing his left hand at the Battle of Ligny in 1815, two days before Waterloo. He later held political office in Britain, including as Secretary at War, before being appointed Governor-General of India in 1844, succeeding Lord Ellenborough.
Governor-generalship and the Sikh war
Hardinge's tenure coincided with escalating tension on the Company's northwestern frontier with the Sikh Empire, which had grown unstable following the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1839 and a subsequent period of factional and military disorder within the Khalsa army. War broke out in December 1845 when Sikh forces crossed the Sutlej river, and Company forces under Hardinge and Commander-in-Chief Sir Hugh Gough fought a series of hard-contested battles, including Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal and Sobraon, through the winter of 1845-46. The war ended with the Treaty of Lahore in March 1846, under which the Sikh state ceded territory including the Jullundur Doab and paid a large indemnity; unable to pay the full sum, it ceded Kashmir and adjoining hill territories instead, which the Company then sold to the Dogra ruler Gulab Singh, establishing the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hardinge returned to Britain in 1848, shortly before the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Sikh War under his successor, Lord Dalhousie, which ended in the full annexation of Punjab.
Further reading
- Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company. Bloomsbury, 2019
- Bayly, C. A. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1988
- Metcalf, Barbara D. A Concise History of Modern India. Cambridge University Press, 2012
- Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India. Oxford University Press, 2009
See also
This entry was last revised on 31 August 2026.