East India Company

Before the East India Company established trade in India, John Mildenhall, a merchant adventurer, was the first Englishman who arrived in India in 1599 by the over land route, ostensibly for the purpose of trade with Indian merchants.
CHRONOLOGY OF ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY IN INDIA
1600 - Establishment of the English East India Company.
1608 - Captain William Hawkins visited the Mughal Court of Jehangir.
1609 - Emperor Jehangir issuedfarman permitting the English to establish a factory at Surat.
1613 - The English East India Company’s factory was set up at Surat.
1615 - Sir Thomas Roe was successful in obtaining two farmans from the Mughal Court confirming free trade with exemption from inland toll.
1616 - The East India Company established its branch factory at Masulipatanam.
1632 - The English obtained the Golden Farman with the right to trade in the kingdom of Golkunda for a fixed customs duty, from the Sultan of Golkunda.
1633 - The eastern branch factory of East India Company was established in Hariharpur, Balasore.
1639 - The local king of Madras granted the Company a lease.
1651 - Nawab Shuja-ud-din of Bengal granted the English, the right to carry on their trade on payment of a fixed duty.
1662 - King Charles II of England was given Bombay as dowry after marrying the Portuguese princess.
1667 - The English obtained the royal farman to trade in Bengal from the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.
1687 - The English East India Company replaced its headquarters from Surat to Bombay.
1691 - The Governor of Bengal gave the English Company Dastaks (Free trade passes) on the payment of a fixed duty.
1717 - English obtained a number of trade concessions from the Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar after the Emperor was cured of a painful disease by the English Surgeon William Hamilton.

India under prominent governor-generals
Warren Hastings (1772-1785): End of the Dual System; shifting of treasury from Murshidabad to Calcutta; saving the people from thieves and robbers; collection of revenue was taken over by the Company; appointment of the Board of Revenue; giving land to the highest bidder.
Lord Cornwallis (1786-1793): He is famous for the Permanent Settlement of Bengal by which the land was given on permanent basis to the zamindar in 1793, instead of giving it to the highest bidder each year. Reorganisation of the Revenue Courts; reorganisation of the Criminal Courts; depriving the Collectors of the judicial functions; compilation of the Cornwallis code were other highlights of his period.
Lord Wellesley (1798-1805): He is famous for introducing Subsidiary Alliance System-a scheme envisaged with a view to keeping the Indian rulers under control and to make the English Company into a sovereign political power. Lord Wellesley opened a college to train the Company’s servants in Calcutta. That is why he is also called the Father of the Civil Services in India.
Lord Minto I (1807-1813): Lord Minto sent Sir Charles Metcalfe to the court of Ranjit Singh. A treaty was signed at Amritsar in the year 1809.

Lord Curzon (1899-1905): Lord Curzon set up a Famine Commission and accepted most of the commission’s recommen-dations and established numerous co-operative societies and adopted several measures for the improvement of agriculture. The Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900, prohibited the sale of agricultural lands or its attachment in execution of a decree. Agricultural banks were established. In 1904, the Co-operative Credit Societies Act was passed. The Department of Agriculture was established in 1901. He founded an Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa, in Bengal. A Commission was appointed in 1901, to consider the problem of irrigation. In 1902, a resolution was adopted that in the event of a famine or a lean year, the demand for revenue would be lowered.
Partition of Bengal (1905), constitution of Thomas Raleigh Commission on university education, Police Commission under Frazer (1902) were other highlights.
Lord Minto II (1905-1910): Lord Minto in consultation with Lord Morley, the Secretary of State for India, recommended some reforms, which are popularly known as the Minto-Morley Reforms.
Lord Hardinge II (1910-1916): In honour of King George V and Queen Mary of England, a Coronation Darbar was held at Delhi. In 1911, the capital of the country was announced to be shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. In 1912, Delhi became the new capital. When Lord Hardinge was heading a procession through the Chandni Chowk in his new capital, some extremist revolutionaries threw a bomb on him.
Lord Chelmsford (1916-1921): The Rowlatt Act was passed in 1919. Under this Act, Government armed itself with unlimited rights, even to detain a person and arrest him without producing him before a court’. This Act flared up a sense of anger throughout the country. The Jallianwala Bagh Tragedy took place on Aprii 13, 1919.

Marquess of Hastings (1813-1823): He was the first to appoint Indians to the high jobs of responsibility.
Lord William Bentinck (1828-1835): Highlights of his administration were: Abolition of provincial courts of appeal and circuit; powers of the Magistrates increased; appointment of Indians as judges; replacement of Persian by vernaculars as court language; introduction of the jury system; Sadar Diwani Adalat and Sadar Nizamat Adalat at Allahabad; codification of laws; Abolition of sati in 1829; suppression of thuggee in Central India; banning of female infanticide; banning of human sacrifice; reform in the Hindu Law of Inheritance.
Sir Charles Metcalfe (1835-36): He held the post temporarily. He removed the restrictions on the vernacular press.
Lord Auckland (1836-42): A Tripartite Treaty was signed on June 26, 1838, among the English, Ranjit Singh and the ex-ruler of Afghanistan Shah Shuja, who was at that time living at Ludhiana on a British pension.
Lord Ellenborough (1843-1844): His period is known for the end of the First Afghan War, annexation of Sindh to the British Empire (1843) and the British intervention in Gwalior.
William Bird (1844): He held the post temporarily.
Lord Dalhousie (1848-1856): He was the youngest to hold the office of the Governor-General. He is famous for the Doctrine of Lapse; annexing the dependent states whose ruler died without a natural heir to succeed him. First Railway line was laid from Bombay to Thana, 1853: Reforming the defects of the Postal System and linking all the important towns telegraphically.
Lord Canning (1856-1858): Avadh was annexed to the British Empire on grounds of mismanagement by the Nawab. A law was passed to enable Hindu widow remarriage. In 1857, the first universities in India were established at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. On May 10, 1857, the Revolt began.
India under prominent viceroys
Lord Canning, 1856-1862. Lord Dalhousie was succeeded by Lord Canning as the Governor-General of the British Empire in India in 1856. He faced the Revolt with ability and was consequently appointed the first Viceroy of India under the Crown under Queen’s Proclamation of 1858. The power was transferred from Company to Crown. Penal Code was prepared by incorporating the suggestions earlier made by the First Law Commission headed by Lord Macau lay. High Courts were set up at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras.
Lord Mayo (1869-1872): For the first time in the Indian history a census was held in 1871. A college was set up at Ajmer to impart suitable education to the sons of the Indian prince^. Subsequently, this college came to be known as the ‘Mayo College’. An Agricultural Department was set-up in 1872.
Lord Lytton (1876-1880): Famine of 1876-1878; Famine Commission was appointed in 1878 headed by General Richard Strachey. The Delhi Durbar, January 1, 1877, was held to decorate Queen Victoria with the title Kaiser-i-Hind at a time when the country was groaning under a severe famine. The Vernacular Press Act, 1878 was passed Indian Arms Act, 1878, forbade the Indian people from keeping or dealing in arms without the permission of the Government.
Lord Ripon (1880-1884): He was the only British Viceroy who became immensely popular with the Indian people. He put an end to the Afghan War. The Vernacular Press Act was repealed in 1882. The most important measure of Lord Ripon was to encourage the institution of Local Self-Government in India. The Illbert Bill was introduced. The bill authoirsed the Indian judges to her cases against the Europeans.
Lord Dufferin (1884-1888): The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885. Initially.

Lord Reading (1926-1931): The Simon Commission, 1929; Demand for Complete Independence, 1929; Civil Disobedience Movement, 1930.
Lord Irwin (1926-1931): The Moplah Revolt, 1921 on the South-Western Coast of India; the First Round Table Conference; Gandhi-Irwin Pact, 1931.
Lord Wellingdon (1931-1936): The Second Round Table Conference 1931; restarting of the Disobedience Movement, 1931; the Communal Award, 1932; the Poona Pact, 1932; the Third Round Table Conference; 1932, the Government of India Act of 1935; demand for Pakistan, 1940; the Cripps Mission, 1942; Quit India Movement, 1942; Famine in Bengal, 1943.
Lord Wavell (1943-1947): The Simla Conference. 1945: arrival of the Cabinet Mission 1946; the Constituent Assembly boycotted by the Muslim League which launched the heinous ‘Direct Action Day’ on August 16, 1946. The Interim Government under Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru’s leadership was constituted in September 1946.
Lord Mountbatten (March 1947-June 1948): Declaration of 3rd June, 1947; Indian Independence Act; Partition of the country between two independent states of India and Pakistan with Lord Mountbatten and Mr. M.A. Jinnah as their respective Governor-Generals.