Major-General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive,, also known as Clive of India, Commander-in-Chief of British India, was a British officer and privateer who established the military and political supremacy of the East India Company in Bengal. He is credited with securing a large swath of South Asia and the wealth that followed, for the British East India Company. In the process, he also turned himself into a multi-millionaire. Together with Warren Hastings he was one of the key early figures setting in motion what would later become British India. Blocking impending French mastery of India, and eventual British expulsion from the continent, Clive improvised a military expedition that ultimately enabled the East India Company to adopt the French strategy of indirect rule via puppet government. Hired by the company to return a second time to India, Clive conspired to secure the Company's trade interests by overthrowing the locally unpopular heir to the throne of Bengal, the richest state in India, richer than Britain, at the time. Back in England, he used his success to secure an Irish barony, from the then Whig PM, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and again a seat for himself in Parliament, via Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Powis, representing the Whigs in Shrewsbury, Shropshire (1761–1774), as he had previously in Mitchell, Cornwall (1754–1755).
The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The battle consolidated the Company's presence in Bengal, which later expanded to cover much of India over the next hundred years.
Fort St George is the first English fortress in India, founded in 1644 at the coastal city of Madras, the modern city of Chennai. The construction of the fort provided the impetus for further settlements and trading activity, in what was originally an uninhabited land. Thus, it is a feasible contention to say that the city evolved around the fortress. The fort currently houses the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly and other official buildings.
Pulicat or Pazhaverkadu is a historic seashore town in Thiruvallur District, of Tamil Nadu state, India. It is about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Chennai and 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from Elavur, on the southern periphery of the Pulicat Lake. Pulicat lake is a shallow salt water lagoon which stretches about 60 kilometres (37 mi) along the coast. With lakeside and seashore development as well as several Special Economic Zones (SEZs) including a US $1 billion Medical SEZ, coming up in nearby Elavur, land prices in the area are rising.
The Northern Circars was a division of British India's Madras Presidency. It consisted of a narrow slip of territory lying along the western side of the Bay of Bengal from 15° 40′ to 20° 17′ north latitude, in the present-day Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu and is India's fourth largest city. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. With an estimated population of 8.9 million (2014), the 400-year-old city is the 31st largest metropolitan area in the world.
The Bank of Madras was one of the three Presidency Banks of British India, along with the Bank of Bengal and the Bank of Bombay. It was established on 1 July 1843 through the amalgamation of a number of existing regional banks and headquartered in Madras. It was merged with the other Presidency banks in 1921 to form the Imperial Bank of India, which later became the State Bank of India.
Fort St David, now in ruins, was a British fort near the town of Cuddalore, a hundred miles south of Chennai on the Coromandel Coast of India. It is located near silver beach without any maintenance. It was named for the patron saint of Wales because the governor of Madras at the time, Elihu Yale, was Welsh.
The Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India and still earlier, Presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in India. Collectively, they were called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:
Bankipur was an ancient village on the Hugli river located in what is now West Bengal, north of Barrackpore, a little north of Ishapore. It is now a suburb of Barrackpore and is not to be confused with Bankipur city located on the coast.
Andrew Cogan was the first agent of the English East India Company to rule Madras. He was the chief of the Masulipatnam factory when Madras was purchased from the last king from the Aravidu dynasty of King of Vijaynagara, Peda Venkata Raya then headquartered at Chandragiri and the chief negotiator in that venture.
Francis Day (1605–1673) was an English colonial administrator, associated with the East India Company. He served as a factor of the Company's factory at Masulipatnam from 1632 to 1639. In 1639, he negotiated the purchase of a strip of land south of the Dutch factory at Pulicat from the Raja of Chandragiri, where the town of Madras was built. He served as the second Agent of Madras from 1643 to 1644. Along with Andrew Cogan, he is regarded as the founder of Madras.
Sir Charles Eyre was an administrator of the British East India Company and founder of Fort William, Calcutta. He was a President of Fort william.
The English overseas possessions, also known as the English colonial empire, comprised a variety of overseas territories that were colonised, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the former Kingdom of England during the centuries before the Acts of Union of 1707 between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland created the Kingdom of Great Britain. The many English possessions then became the foundation of the British Empire and its fast-growing naval and mercantile power, which until then had yet to overtake those of the Dutch Republic, the Kingdom of Portugal, and the Kingdom of Spain.
Supreme Council of Bengal was the highest executive authority under Company rule in India from 1774 till 1833 when Charter Act of 1833 established Council of India. The Council was established in 1773 by the Regulating Act of 1773. It was designed to consist of five members, including the Governor General, and was appointed by the Court of directors. At times it also included the Commander-in-Chief of India, who was also at times the Governor General. The council was also known as Governor-General-in-Council and was subordinate only to the East India Company's Court of Directors and to the British Crown.
Bantam Presidency was a presidency established by the British East India Company and based at the Company factory at Bantam in Java. Founded in 1617, the Presidency exercised its authority over all the Company factories in India, including the agencies of Madras, Masulipatnam and Surat. The factors at Bantam were instrumental in founding the colony of Madraspatnam in 1639 with the Fort St. George, which later grew into the modern city of Madras. The Presidency of Bantam was twice downgraded, first in 1630 before being restored in 1634 and for the second time in 1653, when owing to the hostility of Dutch traders, the Presidency was shifted to Madras. Bantam remained an agency under the suzerainty of Madras and then Surat till the 1680s, when trade was moved to Bencoolen in Sumatra. The factory at Bantam survived until the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 when all the British colonies in the East Indies were handed over to the Dutch in return for recognition of British primacy over the Malay Peninsula.
