Lesson 4/55 min
The viceroys (1858–1947)
The Crown takes over
- The Government of India Act (passed 2 August 1858) ended Company rule; Queen Victoria took over
- The Board of Control was replaced by the Secretary of State for India with a council of 15
- The post of governor-general was made that of Viceroy (the Crown's representative) in 1858
- Local histories say the proclamation was also read at Dhaka's Antaghar ground (now Bahadur Shah Park)
- The Viceroy was called ‘borolat’ and the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal ‘chhotolat’
- India House: the office of India's High Commissioner in England
Viceroys and what they did
| Viceroy | Term | Noted for |
|---|---|---|
| Lord Canning | 1858–1862 | First Viceroy; the acts of 1861 |
| Lord Lawrence | 1864–1869 | ‘Masterly inactivity’ towards Afghanistan |
| Lord Mayo | 1869–1872 | The first census in India, 1872 |
| Lord Lytton | 1876–1880 | 1 January 1877: Victoria proclaimed ‘Kaiser-i-Hind’; Vernacular Press Act curbed vernacular papers; the Amrita Bazar Patrika criticised him hard |
| Lord Ripon | 1880–1884 | Local self-government; Hunter Commission 1882; Ilbert Bill 1883; Factory Act 1881; Mysore restored 1881 |
| Lord Curzon | 1899–1905 | Partition of Bengal, 16 October 1905; the Imperial Library in Calcutta; Universities Act 1904 |
| Lord Minto | 1905–1910 | Morley–Minto Act 1909: separate electorates for Muslims |
| Lord Hardinge (the younger) | 1910–1916 | Partition annulled 1911; capital moved from Calcutta to Delhi |
| Lord Chelmsford | 1916–1921 | Montagu–Chelmsford reforms, Government of India Act 1919 |
| Lord Willingdon | 1931–1936 | Government of India Act 1935 (Zubair) |
| Lord Mountbatten | 1947 | The last Viceroy; the Indian Independence Act; birth of India and Pakistan |
Watch out: Khandokar's calls Mountbatten ‘the last governor-general of the subcontinent’ in its Clive section. He was the last Viceroy (and the first governor-general of independent India). The last governor-general of India was C. Rajagopalachari.
Watch out: Many books credit the first census to Lord Ripon; Zubair's itself corrects this: Lord Mayo held the first census in 1872. Khandokar's prints 1865 for the factory act; the real year is 1881 (Ripon).
Ripon and Lytton: more
- Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli played the main part in giving Victoria the title ‘Empress of India’
- Ripon: banned child labour in factories; set up local boards in districts and municipalities and corporations in towns
- The Hunter Commission stressed primary and secondary education
- Before becoming Viceroy Ripon had been an MP, Secretary of State for India and a cabinet member
- The Ilbert Bill was introduced on 2 February 1883
At a glance: Bengal's firsts
| Post | Name |
|---|---|
| First Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal (1854) | Sir Frederick James Halliday |
| First Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam (1905) | Sir Joseph Bampfylde Fuller |
| First Governor of Bengal (1912) | Lord Carmichael (‘David Gibson Carmichael’ in Khandokar's) |
Watch out: Zubair's calls Clive ‘the first British governor of Bengal’; the ‘first Governor’ in this table is Carmichael (1912, Banglapedia). Clive was governor of Fort William. Read the exam question's wording before you choose.
Check yourself
Who was the last Viceroy of British India? Which Viceroy annulled the partition of Bengal?
At a glance
- 1
Government of India Act 2 August 1858; governor-general became Viceroy in 1858; Canning the first Viceroy.
- 2
Mayo 1872: first census; Ripon: local self-government, Hunter Commission 1882.
- 3
Curzon: partition 16 October 1905; Hardinge: annulled 1911, capital to Delhi.
- 4
Minto: Morley–Minto Act 1909 (separate electorates); Chelmsford: Government of India Act 1919.
- 5
Mountbatten the last Viceroy; Carmichael the first Governor of Bengal; Fuller the first Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam.