British East India Company

Colonial power Level 2 ★ Major power

1600 – 1858

A trading company that became the dominant territorial power in India.

🗺 See on map in 1850

Also known as: EIC, Company Bahadur
Capital: Surat, then Madras / Bombay / Calcutta
Region: Pan-Indian
Duration: 258 years
Main period: East India Company Rule

Changing extent

1600 — ~1 km radius: Chartered in London; no Indian territory yet
1613 — ~25 km radius: Surat factory
1690 — ~40 km radius: Calcutta founded
1757 — ~180 km radius: After Plassey
1765 — ≈ 420,000 km²: Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa (Midnapore)
1805 — ≈ 1,090,000 km²: Wellesley: Bengal to the doab and Delhi; Orissa; the Madras Presidency
1818 — ≈ 1,380,000 km²: After the Third Anglo-Maratha War: the paramount power
1849 — ≈ 1,970,000 km²: Punjab annexed: British India up to the Khyber (princely states excluded)

Approximate extent over time (solid = latest, dashed = earlier).

At a glance

Move along the chart to read any year; click a ruler or event to open the map there.

Rulers

Robert Clive Robert Clive Warren Hastings Lord Cornwallis Lord Wellesley Lord Hastings Lord William Bentinck Lord Dalhousie Lord Canning

Events

Extent

1600170018001858

Rulers

Robert Clive Governor of Bengal
Victor at Plassey.
1758 – 1760
Robert Clive Governor of Bengal
Obtained the Diwani; dual government.
1765 – 1767
Warren Hastings Governor-General
First Governor-General of Bengal.
1773 – 1785
Lord Cornwallis Governor-General
Permanent Settlement.
1786 – 1793
Lord Wellesley Governor-General
Subsidiary alliance.
1798 – 1805
Lord Hastings Governor-General
Third Anglo-Maratha War.
1813 – 1823
Lord William Bentinck Governor-General
Abolition of sati.
1828 – 1835
Lord Dalhousie Governor-General
Doctrine of Lapse; railways.
1848 – 1856
Lord Canning Governor-General
1856 – 1858

Selected rulers; gaps in the list are not gaps in the dynasty.

Constituent & related polities

Fort St George, Madras

1639 – 1858

Bombay (English East India Company)

1668 – 1858

Key events

Year	Event	Place
1600	East India Company chartered Royal charter granted in London on 31 December 1600.
1611	English factory at Masulipatnam The Company's first factory on the east coast.	Machilipatnam
1612	Battle of Swally English defeat the Portuguese; Surat factory follows. The English defeated the Portuguese and won trading rights at Surat.	Suvali near Surat
1639	Fort St George founded at Madras Madras, with Surat, Bombay and Calcutta, was among the English East India Company’s first trading posts (1612–1690). A Company charter of 1687 made the town of Fort St George a corporation; the Madras Corporation, set up in 1688, is India’s oldest municipal institution.	Chennai
1690	Job Charnock founds Calcutta The East India Company settled here, began building a fort in 1696, and two years later obtained zamindari rights over three villages — one of them Kalikata, which grew into Calcutta (Kolkata). Calcutta grew into the capital of British India.	Sutanuti
1757	Battle of Plassey Clive defeats Siraj ud-Daulah; Company rule begins in Bengal. Siraj ud-Daulah was defeated and Mir Jafar became a Company-backed nawab.	Palashi
1760	Battle of Wandiwash British defeat the French. French power in India was broken.	Vandavasi
1764	Battle of Buxar Company defeats Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula and Shah Alam II. The Company defeated Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula and Shah Alam II together.	Buxar
1765	Diwani of Bengal granted Treaty of Allahabad gives the Company revenue rights over Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The Company won the right to collect revenue in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.	Allahabad
1770	Great Bengal Famine Perhaps a third of Bengal's population died.	Bengal
1773	Regulating Act; Warren Hastings Governor-General The British Parliament passed the Regulating Act of 1773 to regulate the East India Company; it set up a Supreme Court at Calcutta. Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General (1773–1785), reorganised justice with civil and criminal courts in each district, and was later impeached in Parliament.	Kolkata
1784	Asiatic Society founded William Jones, a judge and linguist who arrived in Calcutta in 1783, studied Sanskrit with pandits and, with Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed, set up the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the journal Asiatick Researches.	Kolkata
1793	Permanent Settlement of Bengal Under Governor-General Cornwallis the Company introduced the Permanent Settlement in 1793: rajas and taluqdars were recognised as zamindars and the revenue they paid was fixed for ever. The demand was so high that many could not pay — over 75 per cent of zamindaris changed hands afterwards.	Kolkata
1803	British capture Delhi The Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–05) was fought on several fronts and left the British in possession of Orissa and the territories north of the Yamuna, including Agra and Delhi. The Mughal emperor came under British protection.	Delhi
1803	Battle of Assaye Second Anglo-Maratha War. Arthur Wellesley defeated the combined Scindia and Bhonsle armies.	Assaye
1806	Vellore mutiny New uniform rules forbade sepoys to wear religious marks on their foreheads and required them to shave their beards. In 1806 sepoys seized the Vellore fort and killed many British officers and troops; the revolt was crushed and hundreds of sepoys were killed or executed.	Vellore
1828	Brahmo Samaj founded Raja Rammohun Roy founded the Brahmo Sabha (later the Brahmo Samaj) in Calcutta in 1828. It opposed child marriage and caste discrimination, supported widows’ rights and girls’ education, and promoted a monotheistic reading of Hinduism.	Kolkata
1829	Sati abolished Rammohun Roy campaigned against sati, arguing from Sanskrit texts that widow burning had no sanction in ancient scripture; British officials, already critical of the custom, listened, and in 1829 sati was banned.	Kolkata
1835	English Education Act Following Thomas Macaulay’s minute, which claimed that ‘a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia’, the English Education Act of 1835 made English the medium of higher education and stopped the promotion of Oriental institutions such as the Calcutta Madrasa and Benaras Sanskrit College.	Kolkata
1843	Annexation of Sindh After the Afghan war, the Company moved to secure the north-west: Sind was taken over in 1843, and Punjab was next in line. Sindh was annexed after the Battle of Miani.	Hyderabad (Sindh)
1848	Doctrine of Lapse applied to Satara Under Lord Dalhousie (Governor-General 1848–1856), the Doctrine of Lapse declared that a kingdom whose ruler died without a male heir would ‘lapse’ to the Company, disregarding the tradition of adoption. Satara (1848) was the first; Sambalpur, Udaipur, Nagpur and Jhansi followed. Satara was annexed because its ruler died without a natural heir.	Satara
1849	Punjab annexed After the Second Anglo-Sikh War. The Sikh Empire ended and Maharaja Duleep Singh was pensioned off.	Lahore
1853	First passenger railway: Bombay to Thane India’s first train ran from Mumbai to Thane in 1853, covering 34 km. NCERT notes the colonial network was built mainly to carry raw materials to the ports and British goods inland, and was largely paid for by Indian tax revenue.	Mumbai
1855	Santhal Hul (rebellion) Led by Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu. Suppressed in 1856; the Santhal Parganas district was created.	Santhal Pargana
1856	Awadh annexed Bound by a subsidiary alliance since 1801, Awadh was one of the last territories the Company annexed; Governor-General Dalhousie claimed it was being misgoverned. Wajid Ali Shah was deposed on the charge of misgovernance.	Lucknow
1856	Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar used the ancient texts to argue that widows could remarry; British officials adopted his suggestion and a law permitting widow remarriage was passed in 1856. Those opposed boycotted him, and few widows actually remarried. Remarriage of Hindu widows was legalised.	Kolkata
1857	Mangal Pandey's attack at Barrackpore Mangal Pandey, a young sepoy, attacked his British officers at Barrackpore. His execution spread discontent among the sepoys, and soon after, sepoys at Meerut refused the new cartridges. Mangal Pandey was hanged; his regiment was disbanded.	Barrackpore