Henry Vansittart
Henry Vansittart | |
---|---|
Governor of the Presidency of Fort William | |
In office 1762–1764 | |
Preceded by | Robert Clive |
Succeeded by | Robert Clive |
Personal details | |
Born | Bloomsbury, Middlesex, England | 3 June 1732
Died | 1770 (aged 37) Presumed to have died at sea in the Mozambique Channel |
Alma mater | Reading School Winchester College |
Henry Vansittart (3 June 1732 – 1770) was an English colonial administrator, who was the
Life
Vansittart was born in
Educated at
In 1745, at the age of thirteen, he entered service of the East India Company as a writer and sailed for
He returned to India in 1754 and became a member of the Council of Madras in 1757. He helped to defend the city against the French in 1759,[2] and was appointed to replace Clive, on Clive's recommendation, as President of the Council and Governor of Fort William in Bengal in November 1760.[3]
He arrived in Bengal in July 1760, finding himself in a difficult political position, including a serious lack of funds. He deposed the
To defend his conduct in Bengal, Vansittart published three volumes of papers as A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal from 1760 to 1764 (London, 1766). His conduct was attacked before the board of directors in London, but events seemed to prove that he was in the right, and in 1769 he became a director of the company.[2] In 1768 he had been elected to a seat in Parliament for Reading.[3]
Clive had returned to India and exposed the rampant corruption. Vansittart,
Family
Vansittart married Emilia Morse (died 1819), daughter of Nicholas Morse, Governor of Madras, in 1754. They had five sons (Henry, Arthur, Robert, George, and Nicholas), and two daughters, (Emilia and Sophie).[1] They resided in England at Foxley's Manor in Bray, Berkshire.
Of the sons:
- Henry, the eldest (1756–1787), married Catherine Maria Powney.[4]
- Robert Vansittart, scored the first recorded cricket century in India, 102 for Old Etonians v. Rest of Calcutta in 1804.[6]
- The youngest, Nicholas Vansittart, 1st Baron Bexley, was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 12 May 1812 to 31 January 1823.
See also
- List of people who disappeared
References
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28103. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b c d e f g public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vansittart, Henry". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 896. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ ISBN 81-7167-361-9.
- ^ a b Burke, Bernard (1866). A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire. Harrison. p. 546. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
- ISBN 0-19-861399-7. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Some dates in Indian cricket history, Wisden, 1967.