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British conquest of India

Company rule in India
Joint-stock colony established by the East India Company and regulated by the British Parliament.
1757–1858
Flag Coat of arms
Motto
Auspicio Regis et Senatus Angliae
"By command of the King and Parliament of England"
Capital Calcutta (1757–1858)
Languages English, and others
Government
Governor-General
 •  1774–75 Warren Hastings (first)
 •  1857–58 Charles Canning (last)
History
 •  Battle of Plassey 23 June 1757
 •  Treaty of Allahabad 16 August 1765
 •  Treaty of Seringapatam 18 March 1792
 •  Treaty of Bassein 31 December 1802
 •  Treaty of Yandabo 24 February 1826
 •  Treaty of Lahore 9 March 1846
 •  Government of India Act 2 August 1858
Area
 •  1858 1,942,481 km² (749,996 sq mi)
Currency Rupee
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Maratha Empire
Mughal Empire
Kingdom of Mysore
Sikh Empire
British Raj
Straits Settlements
Today part of  Bahrain
 Bangladesh
 China
 Christmas Island
 Cocos (Keeling) Islands
 India
 Malaysia
 Myanmar
 Oman
 Pakistan
 Qatar
 Saudi Arabia (nominal)
 Singapore
 Somalia
 Sri Lanka
 United Arab Emirates
 Kuwait
 Yemen
Colonial India
British Indian Empire
Imperial entities of India
Dutch India 1605–1825
Danish India 1620–1869
French India 1769–1954

Portuguese India
(1505–1961)
Casa da Índia 1434–1833
Portuguese East India Company 1628–1633

British India
(1612–1947)
East India Company 1612–1757
Company rule in India 1757–1858
British Raj 1858–1947
British rule in Burma 1824–1948
Princely states 1721–1949
Partition of India
1947


Company rule in India (sometimes, Company Raj, "raj," lit. "rule" in Hindi) refers to the rule or dominion of the British East India Company over parts of the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal Sirajuddaulah surrendered his dominions to the Company, 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 established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved in governance. The Company's rule lasted until 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857, it was abolished. With the Government of India Act 1858, the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj.

The English East India Company ("the Company") was founded in 1600, as The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies. It gained a foothold in India with the establishment of a factory in Masulipatnam on the Eastern coast of India in 1611 and the grant of the rights to establish a factory in Surat in 1612 by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. In 1640, after receiving similar permission from the Vijayanagara ruler farther south, a second factory was established in Madras on the southeastern coast. Bombay island, not far from Surat, a former Portuguese outpost gifted to England as dowry in the marriage of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II, was leased by the Company in 1668. Two decades later, the Company established a presence on the eastern coast as well; far up that coast, in the Ganges river delta, a factory was set up in Calcutta. Since, during this time other companies—established by the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Danish—were similarly expanding in the region, the English Company's unremarkable beginnings on coastal India offered no clues to what would become a lengthy presence on the Indian subcontinent.


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