1600
Elizabeth I grants a royal charter to the East India Company.
1617
The Mughal Emperor grants trading rights to the East India Company permitting them to establish ‘factories’ or trading posts in parts of India.
1624
The Company reach an agreement with Mughal authorities which provided that they could retain their factory at Surat.
1626
The Company first arrives at the Bombay islands, attacking the Portuguese settlement there.
1626
The East India Company is frustrated by the costs of defence being provided to the Dutch at Pulicat. It relocates its factory to Armagon, and for the first time constructs military defences on Indian soil.
1634
Firman (royal decree) obtained from the Emperor Shah Jahan, permitting the East India Company to establish a factory in Bengal and allowed company agents to reside at Pipili, Odisha.
1639
Fort St. George is built by the British in Madras.
1661
Bombay is given to Charles II following his marriage to Catherine of Portugal.
1664
The Marathas defeat the Mughals at the battle of Surat and plunder the port city. Only the English factory holds out.
1668
Bombay is granted to the East India Company by Charles II. This is enacted in September.
16860000 - 16900000
Child's War between the Mughals and the East India Company.
1693
King William III renews the East India Company's charter despite petitions from the House of Commons.
1696
Fort William is established in Calcutta by the British.
1698
A new “parallel” East India Company is formed (officially titled the English Company Trading to the East Indies). From this point a 'new' and 'old' company operate.
1717
The Company receives a license to trade for a fixed fee from the Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar. The 'Farman' would remain a key document for the company until the 1750s.
1727
The city of Jaipur is established.
17440000 - 17630000
War in Europe sparks Anglo-French wars in South India, in an attempt by both sides to gain political dominance in the South.
17480800 - 17481027
The Siege of Pondicherry by English East India Company forces. The siege ends unsuccessfully as the monsoon season starts.
1756
Fearing the growing military strength of the British in Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, captures Fort William from the British.
1757
The British send troops from Madras, led by Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Charles Watson, to recapture Fort William. Clive and Watson are successful.
1757
The East India Company army, led by Robert Clive (and aided by Mir Jafar, who had recently been deposed as army chief by Siraj-ud-Daulah and had signed a secret treaty with the English) defeat Siraj-ud-Daulah in the Battle of Plassey. Although Mir Jafar succeeds Siraj-ud-Daulah as the new Nawab of Bengal, he is very much regarded as a puppet ruler with the East India Company effectively in control of Bengal.
1761
Battle of Panipat. A combined army of Maratha Princes and the Mughal emperor is devastated whilst defending Delhi and the plains of north India against an invading Afghan army led by Ahmed Shah Durrani. Maratha hopes of replacing the Mughals as the pre-eminent power in the north of India are ended.
1764
Battle of Buxar. Mir Jafar’s replacement Mir Kasim turns against the East India Company, and the Company’s army, led by the Scots Major Hector Munro, defeats the combined armies of Jafar, the Nawab of Awadh Shuja-ud-Daula, and the militarily enfeebled Mughal Emperor Shah Alam. The Nawab of Awadh is forced to pay reparations. The Company wins control of Bihar and neighbouring Orissa and Shah Alam is captured, released, and becomes a pensioner of the Company.
1765
The Diwani of Bengal is granted to the East India Company, enabling them to collect taxes in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa on behalf of the Mughal Emperor. East India Company rule in Bengal is further strengthened.
17670000 - 17690000
First Mysore War.
17690000 - 17730000
After several years of rapacious Company rule, Bengal suffers a devastating famine which kills approximately a quarter of its population.
1773
By 1773, the desperate financial situation of the East India Company and rumours in Britain of ‘nabobs’ growing rich on the spoils of exploitation and corruption results in Lord North’s Regulating Act. A provision of the act was the appointment of a Governor-General of Bengal and four others who would make up a supreme council. The Governor-General would be based in Calcutta, but would also have some authority over the other presidencies. Warren Hastings was named in the act as the first Governor-General of Bengal (1773-85). All subsequent Governor-Generals were to be appointed by the East India Company’s Court of Directors. The act also created a Supreme Court in Calcutta with English jurists as Judges.
1774
Britain supports the Kingdom of Awadh (aka Oudh) in the Rohilla War.
17750000 - 17820000
First Maratha War: Haidar Ali inflicts crushing defeats on the combined armies of the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the British. Mysore acquires additional lands.
1776
After restoring the Raja of Tanjore, Lord George Pigot, the Governor of Madras, is deposed by his Council and imprisoned.
17800000 - 17840000
Second Mysore War. Joint Maratha-Hyderabad army defeated by Tipu Sultan, along with British armies to the east.
1784
Sir William Jones founds the Asiatic Society of Bengal, a centre for Asian studies.
1784
The British Government passes the India Act, which places the administration of the East India Company’s territories under a form of joint government with the Crown. A Board of Control, whose President is answerable to Parliament, is appointed to enable the British Government to oversee affairs relating to the Company’s Indian administration, income, military and diplomatic relations. Two members of Parliament are appointed to the board to report back to Parliament. The Court of Directors of the East India Company are to retain governance of all matters relating to trade.
1785
Sir John Macpherson is appointed acting Governor-General of Bengal (1785-86).
1786
Former Governor-General Warren Hastings is impeached by the British Parliament on the grounds of misconduct (embezzlement of funds) and mismanagement (following the Bengal famine). After a trial lasting seven years Hastings is finally acquitted.
1786
Charles Cornwallis, first Marquess of Cornwallis, is appointed Governor-General of Bengal (1786-1793).
17900000 - 17920000
Third Mysore War. Tipu Sultan defeated in attempted invasion of Travancore. Large territories ceded to the English East India Company.
1793
Cornwallis introduces a permanent settlement of the land tax system in Bengal, which gives zamindars (Mughal tax collectors) complete control over their estates, including responsibility for the collection and payment of taxes. This system has far reaching consequences as peasants lose rights to the land they farm and zamindars face losing their land if payments are not kept up.
1793
Scotsman Henry Dundas is appointed president of the Board of Control.
1793
Sir John Shore is appointed Governor-General of Bengal (1793-98).
1798
Richard Wellesley, 2nd Earl of Mornington, is appointed Governor-General of Bengal (1798-1805).
1799
Fourth Mysore war; Battle of Srirangapatnam (Seringapatam). Tipu Sultan is defeated and killed.
1802
The College of Fort William is founded in Calcutta to provide training for Indian Civil Servants.
18030000 - 18050000
Second Maratha War. Company armies led by Arthur Wellesley (brother of Richard and later Duke of Wellington) and Lord Lake impose final defeat upon the Maratha Princes of Western and Central India. Scindia cedes the Ganges-Jumna Doab, the Delhi-Agra region, parts of Bundelkhand, and some of Gujarat to the British. Raghuji Bhonsale (II) of Nagpur cedes the province of Cuttack
1807
Sir Gilbert Elliot, 1st Earl of Minto, is appointed Governor-General of Bengal (1807-13).
1813
The East India Company’s charter is renewed at the expense of its monopoly on trade in India. Christian missions are now allowed to proselytise in India.
1813
Francis Rawdon Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings and second earl of Moira, is appointed Govenor-General of Bengal (1813-23).
18170000 - 18180000
Third Maratha War; Remnants of Marathas resistance (including the Pindari mercenaries) are finally defeated and suppressed by the British.
1823
John Adam is appointed acting Governor-General of Bengal (Jan-Aug, 1823).
1823
William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst of Arracan, is appointed Governor-General of Bengal (1823-28).
18230000 - 18260000
First Anglo-Burmese war.
1828
Lord William Bentinck is appointed Governor-General of Bengal (1828-35).
1829
Bentinck introduces a number of administrative and legal reforms including the abolition of sati (the self-immolation of Hindu widows: initially tolerated by Company regulations) and measures to suppress a form of bandity in central India described as thuggee.
1833
The Charter Act is passed which substitutes the title of the Governor-General and Council of Fort William with the Governor-General and Council of India. The East India Company’s Court of Directors retains the power to elect the Governor General but the ultimate decision rests with the monarch. The renewal of the East India Company’s charter finally ends their trading operations but enables them to continue for a further twenty years their administrative and political governance in India albeit now subordinate to the Board of Control.
1835
William Bentinck is appointed Governor-General of India.
1835
Government schools are introduced in India with English as the language of instruction.
1836
George Eden, first earl of Auckland is appointed Governor-General of India (1836-42).
18390000 - 18420000
First Anglo-Afghan war: the first of several disastrous British defeats on the north-west frontier of India.
1843
Annexation of Sind by the British.
1844
Henry Hardinge, first Viscount Hardinge of Lahore, is appointed Governor-General of India (1844-48).
18450000 - 18460000
First Sikh War: Jullundur Doab ceded to the East India Company
1848
James Andrew Broun Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie is appointed Governor-General of India (1848-56).
18480000 - 18490000
Second Sikh War and annexation of Punjab by the British.