Sir Charles Eyre | |
|---|---|
| Born | England |
| Died | 1729 |
| Resting place | St. Anne Churchyard, Kew, England |
| Occupation | Colonial Administrator |
| Known for | President of Fort William |
| Spouse | Mary Charnock |
Sir Charles Eyre (died 1729) was an administrator of the British East India Company and founder of Fort William, Calcutta. He was a President of Fort William. [1] [ self-published source? ]
While in office, Eyre started work on Fort William, Calcutta in 1696. [2] On 10 November 1698, Eyre signed the document legalizing the British occupation of three small villages that formed the basis of the Fort William settlement; his signature, and not that of his father-in-law Job Charnock (who died in 1692) appears on the document signed with the original landlords, the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family.[ citation needed ] In December 1699, Eyre was appointed president and governor of Fort William in Bengal, and Bengal was at the same time constituted a presidency. He was the first governor appointed by the Company to Bengal since William Hedges (agent and governor) in 1681 and William Gyfford (president and governor) in December 1683 (after which the title of governor had been temporarily dropped in favour of agent and chief of the bay of Bengal, Bengal having again been subordinated to Madras). [3]
As a merchant, Eyre amassed a fortune of 23,000 Pagodas, which through the ingenuity of Thomas Pitt he converted into diamonds to take back with him to England in 1702, having first been ensured a sum of £13,800 through a bill of exchange. [4] His will was proved on 23 October 1729.
Eyre was from Kew, Richmond, Surrey. Eyre was married to Mary, eldest daughter of Job Charnock. Eyre was a sometime resident of Kew, where he leased a house within the Kew Palace grounds from Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London who owned the palace as well as the house he leased to Eyre and the estate surrounding them. Levett was a powerful early London merchant who was a merchant adventurer in the Honourable East India Company and one of the first governors of the new Bank of England. [5] He was a knight. Eyre was also one of the contributors to the founding of St Anne's Church in Kew in 1714.
Elihu Yale was a British-American colonial administrator and philanthropist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Yale only lived in America as a child, spending the rest of his life in England, Wales, and India. He became a clerk for the East India Company at Fort St. George, and eventually rose to the Presidency of the settlement. He was later removed from the post under charges of corruption for self-dealing and required to pay a fine. In 1699 he returned to Britain with a considerable fortune, around £200,000, mostly made by selling diamonds, and spent his time and wealth in philanthropy and art collecting. He is best remembered as the primary benefactor of Yale College, which was named in his honor, following a donation of books, portrait, and textiles under the request of Rev. Cotton Mather, a Harvard graduate. He had no male heir, and no descendants of his have survived past his grandchildren.
Warren Hastings was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first Governor-General of Bengal in 1772–1785. He and Robert Clive are credited with laying the foundation of the British Empire in India. He was an energetic organizer and reformer. In 1779–1784 he led forces of the East India Company against a coalition of native states and the French. In the end, the well-organized British side held its own, while France lost influence in India. In 1787, he was accused of corruption and impeached, but he was eventually acquitted in 1795 after a long trial. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.
Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive,, also known as Clive of India, was the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency. Clive has been widely credited for laying the foundation of the British East India Company (EIC) rule in Bengal. He began as a writer for the EIC in 1744 and established Company rule in Bengal by winning the Battle of Plassey in 1757. In return for supporting the Nawab Mir Jafar as ruler of Bengal, Clive was guaranteed a jagir of £30,000 per year which was the rent the EIC would otherwise pay to the Nawab for their tax-farming concession. When Clive left India in January 1767 he had a fortune of £180,000 which he remitted through the Dutch East India Company.
The Governor-General of India was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom in their capacity as the Emperor/Empress of India and after Indian independence in 1947, the representative of the Monarch of India. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William. The officer had direct control only over his presidency but supervised other East India Company officials in India. Complete authority over all of British territory in the Indian subcontinent was granted in 1833, and the official came to be known as the "Governor-General of India".
Company rule in India was the rule of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal Siraj ud-Daulah was defeated and replaced with Mir Jafar, who had the support of the East India Company; or in 1765, when the Company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar; or in 1773, when the Company abolished local rule (Nizamat) in Bengal and established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first Governor-General of Fort William, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved in governance. The East India Company significantly expanded its influence throughout the Indian subcontinent after the Anglo-Mysore Wars, Anglo-Maratha Wars, and Anglo-Sikh Wars. Lord William Bentinck became the first Governor General of India in 1834 under the Government of India Act 1833. The Company India ruled until 1858, when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Government of India Act 1858, the India Office of the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj.
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Job Charnock was an English administrator with the East India Company. He is commonly regarded as the founder of the city of Calcutta ; however, this view is challenged, and in 2003 the Calcutta High Court declared that he ought not to be regarded as the founder. There may have been inhabitants in the area since the first century CE. The High Court was right in claiming that villages that constituted colonial Calcutta were not established by Charnock or the British Raj itself, but Charnock's ambition-driven doggedness toward setting up an East Indian Company frontier along the Eastern border of India that he could control on his own terms played a huge role in the creation of the present-day city of Calcutta.
Prinsep may mean any of several notable members of the British Prinsep family.
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Kalikata was one of the three villages which were merged to form the city of Kolkata in India. The other two villages were Gobindapur and Sutanuti. Job Charnock, an administrator with the British East India Company is traditionally credited with the honour of founding the city. He settled in the village of Sutanuti.
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Sir Richard Levett (1629–1711) was an English merchant and politician who was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1699. Born in Ashwell, Rutland, he moved to London and established a pioneering mercantile career, becoming involved with the Bank of England and the East India Company.
Sir John Goldsborough was a sea-captain and administrator of the British East India Company. He was the founder of Fort William in Calcutta, India.
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