Warren Hastings
Warren Hastings (December 6, 1732 in Churchill, Oxfordshire, † August 22 1818 in Daylesford ) was Governor-General of British East India.
He was educated in Westminster and Oxford, received in 1750 a clerk job with the East India Company in Bengal and was after he had in 1756 served in the army of Colonel Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, and proved thereby, 1761-1764 Member of the Council in Calcutta.
Returned to England in 1764, he lost his fortune, so re-entered the service of the East India Company and in 1769 a member of the government in Madras. He was appointed as Governor of Bengal in 1772 and 1773 for the first Governor General of the East Indies. During this time he built up the power of the Company from, reformed the administration and let the income that generated the company for the crown, rise from 3 million to 5 million pounds sterling. Hastings turned away from the system of his predecessor Robert Clive, who had left the local rulers in their offices. Under the Hastings company took immediate control of India, Kolkata was expanded to the management center. Hastings was, however, also in conflict with the British government, which restrict the East India Company to their purely commercial function and wanted to take over administrative and military domination of India itself. Militarily, he had to prevail against the kingdom of the Marathas, as against the attempts of France to gain a foothold in India.
When his patron, Lord North, was divorced from the government, Hastings inordinate sums of money was dismissed in 1785 and accused by Edmund Burke in the House, traded in the East Indies with tyrannical despotism, extortion and to have caused the downfall of several Indian princes. The charge was referred to the House of Lords and the state trial began February 13, 1788 at the Palace of Westminster. Hastings was acquitted in April 1795 and lost by the process costs but his fortune, however, was compensated by a company approved by the board of 4000 pounds sterling.
Since then, he lived in seclusion, was appointed by the Prince Regent as a member of the Privy Council in May 1814 and died on 22 August 1818 in Daylesford.
Warren Hastings wrote the following headings:
- Revle W of the state of Bengal. Calcutta 1786.
- The present state of the East Indies. Calcutta 1786.
- Speech in the high court of justice In Westminster Hall. London 1791.
His correspondence with Stephen Lushington was published in 1795. See Gleig, Memoirs of the life of WH (London 1841, 3 vols ); Macaulay in the "Essays "; Bond, Speeches of the managers and counsel in the trial of WH (London 1859-61, 4 vols ); Trotter, W. H., abiography (ibid. 1879).
The town of Hastings in New Zealand was named after him.
Warren Hastings appears as a character in Sarnath Banerjee's graphic novel The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers (2007).