1. Background
2. Reforms under Lord Cornwallis
2.1. Administrative Reforms
2.2. Judicial Reforms
2.3. Police Reforms
2.4. Other Reforms
3. Significant Events under Lord Cornwallis
4. Legacy of Lord Cornwallis
5. Permanent Settlement
5.1. Background of Permanent Settlement
5.2. Features of Permanent Settlement
5.3. Drawbacks of Permanent Settlement
5.4. Impact of Permanent Settlement
6. Judicial Reforms Brought by Lord Cornwallis
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Judicial Plan of 1787
6.3. Judicial Plan of 1790
6.4. Defects of the Judicial Plan of 1790
6.5. Judicial Plan of 1793
6.6. Defects of the Judicial Plan of 1790
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Topic – Lord Cornwallis (1786 – 1793) (Notes)
Subject – History
(Modern Indian History)
Table of Contents
Charles Cornwallis (31 December 1738 – 5 October 1805) was a British Army general and official, known as Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792. Lord Cornwallis was the first Governor-General appointed under the new Act. Between 1786 and 1793, he represented the British government and was accountable to the Board of Control. When the East India Company’s mercenary interests clashed with state policy, he was able to defy them. He enacted numerous significant reforms within the East India Company and its territories, including the Cornwallis Code, which included the Permanent Settlement, which implemented important land taxation reforms.
Background
- Cornwallis, who was born into an aristocratic family and educated at Eton and Cambridge, joined the army in 1757 and saw action in the Seven Years’ War.
- When his father died in 1762, he became Earl Cornwallis and was elected to the House of Lords.
- He led British forces to the Pyrrhic victory at Guilford Court House in March 1781.
- He is best remembered in the United States and the United Kingdom as one of the leading British generals in the American War of Independence.
- At the siege of Yorktown in 1781, he surrendered to a combined American and French force, bringing an end to significant hostilities in North America.
- Later, he served as a civil and military governor in Ireland, where he was instrumental in bringing about the Act of Union, and in India, where he was instrumental in enacting the Cornwallis Code and the Permanent Settlement.
- In 1786, he was knighted and appointed Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of India.
- From 1789 to 1792, he led British and Company forces to defeat the Mysorean ruler Tipu Sultan in the Third Anglo-Mysore War.
- When Cornwallis returned to Britain in 1794, he was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance.
- In 1798, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-Chief of Ireland, where he oversaw the response to the 1798 Irish Rebellion, including a French invasion of Ireland, and was instrumental in bringing the United Kingdom and Ireland together.
- Following his service in Ireland, Cornwallis was the principal British signatory to the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 and was reappointed to India in 1805.
- He died not long after arriving in India.
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