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Fort William, Kolkata
Fort William is a fort in Hastings, Calcutta (Kolkata). It was built during the early years of the Bengal Presidency of British India. It sits on the eastern banks of the Hooghly River, the major distributary of the River Ganges. One of Kolkata's most enduring Raj-era edifices, it extends over an area of 70.9 hectares. The fort was named after King William III. In front of the Fort is the Maidan, the largest park in the country. An internal guard room became the Black Hole of Calcutta. Today it is the Headquarters of Eastern Command of the Indian Army. History There are two Fort Williams. The original fort was built in the year 1696 by the British East India Company under the orders of Sir John Goldsborough which took a decade to complete. The permission was granted by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. Sir Charles Eyre started construction near the bank of the Hooghly River with the South-East Bastion and the adjacent walls. It was named after King William III in 1700. John Beard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commercial, and financial hub of Eastern India and the main port of communication for North-East India. According to the 2011 Indian census, Kolkata is the seventh-most populous city in India, with a population of 45 lakh (4.5 million) residents within the city limits, and a population of over 1.41 crore (14.1 million) residents in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area. It is the third-most populous metropolitan area in India. In 2021, the Kolkata metropolitan area crossed 1.5 crore (15 million) registered voters. The Port of Kolkata is India's oldest operating port and its sole major riverine port. Kolkata is regarded as the cultural capital of India. Kolkata is the second largest Bengali-speaking city after Dhaka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maidan (Kolkata)
The Maidan (; bn, ময়দান), also referred to as the Brigade Parade Ground, is a large public park and urban green space in the center of Kolkata, India. With a total area of , it is the largest urban park in the world. It is a vast stretch of field that includes numerous sporting grounds, including the famous cricketing venue Eden Gardens, several football stadiums and the Kolkata Race Course. The Maidan is also dotted with many statues and architectural works, the most notable being the Victoria Memorial. Due to the freshness and greenery it provides to the metropolis, it has been referred to as the "lungs of Kolkata". The property of the Indian Army, the Maidan hosts the army's Eastern zone high command in historic Fort William. The Maidan stretches from the Raj Bhavan building on the Esplanade in the north to the National Library on Belvedere Road in Alipore in the south. The wide field stretches from the Hooghly River in the west to the Victoria Memorial in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Clive
Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, (29 September 1725 – 22 November 1774), also known as Clive of India, was the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency. Clive has been widely credited for laying the foundation of the British East India Company rule in Bengal. He began as a writer (the term used then in India for an office clerk) for the East India Company (EIC) in 1744 and established Company rule in Bengal by winning the Battle of Plassey in 1757. In return for supporting the Nawab Mir Jafar as ruler of Bengal, Clive was granted a jagir of £30,000 () per year which was the rent the EIC would otherwise pay to the Nawab for their tax-farming concession. When Clive left India he had a fortune of £180,000 () which he remitted through the Dutch East India Company. Blocking impending French mastery of India, Clive improvised a 1751 military expedition that ultimately enabled the EIC to adopt the French strategy of indirect rule via puppet government. Hired ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siraj Ud Daulah
Mirza Muhammad Siraj-ud-Daulah ( fa, ; 1733 – 2 July 1757), commonly known as Siraj-ud-Daulah or Siraj ud-Daula, was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The end of his reign marked the start of the rule of the East India Company over Bengal and later almost all of the Indian subcontinent. Siraj succeeded his maternal grandfather, Alivardi Khan as the Nawab of Bengal in April 1756 at the age of 23. Betrayed by Mir Jafar, the commander of Nawab's army, Siraj lost the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757. The forces of the East India Company under Robert Clive invaded and the administration of Bengal fell into the hands of the company. Early life and background Siraj was born to the family of Mirza Muhammad Hashim and Amina Begum in 1733. Soon after his birth, Alivardi Khan, Siraj's maternal grandfather, was appointed the Deputy Governor of Bihar. Amina Begum was the youngest daughter of Alivardi Khan and Princess Sharfunnisa, the paternal aunt of Mir Jafar. His father, Mirza ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nawab Of Bengal
The Nawab of Bengal ( bn, বাংলার নবাব) was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the ''de facto'' independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa which constitute the modern-day sovereign country of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. They are often referred to as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa ( bn, বাংলা, বিহার ও উড়িষ্যার নবাব). The Nawabs were based in Murshidabad which was centrally located within Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. Their chief, a former prime minister, became the first Nawab. The Nawabs continued to issue coins in the name of the Mughal Emperor, but for all practical purposes, the Nawabs governed as independent monarchs. Bengal continued to contribute the largest share of funds to the imperial treasury in Delhi. The Nawabs, backed by bankers such as the Jagat Seth, became th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Factory (trading Post)
Factory was the common name during the medieval and early modern eras for an entrepôt – which was essentially an early form of free-trade zone or transshipment point. At a factory, local inhabitants could interact with foreign merchants, often known as factors. First established in Europe, factories eventually spread to many other parts of the world. The origin of the word ''factory'' is ( pt, feitoria; nl, factorij; french: factorerie, ). The factories established by European states in Africa, Asia and the Americas from the 15th century onward also tended to be official political dependencies of those states. These have been seen, in retrospect, as the precursors of colonial expansion. A factory could serve simultaneously as market, warehouse, customs, defense and support to navigation exploration, headquarters or ''de facto'' government of local communities. In North America, Europeans began to trade with the natives during the 16th century. Colonists created fact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Beard (colonial Administrator)
Sir John Beard (died 1685) was an administrator of the English East India Company. He served as the Chief Agent and President of Bengal in the late seventeenth century. Beard wrote one of the earliest accounts of the legend of Gabriel Boughton Gabriel Boughton was an East India Company (EIC) ship surgeon who travelled to India in the first half of the seventeenth century and became highly regarded by Mughal royalty. He became the centre of a legend surrounding the acquisition by the .... He died in Hooghly in 1685. References Presidents of Bengal 18th-century British people 17th-century English businesspeople Year of birth missing 1685 deaths {{UK-gov-bio-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King William III
William III (William Henry; ; 4 November 16508 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is sometimes informally known as "King Billy" in Ireland and Scotland. His victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is commemorated by Unionists, who display orange colours in his honour. He ruled Britain alongside his wife and cousin, Queen Mary II, and popular histories usually refer to their reign as that of "William and Mary". William was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, Princess Royal, the daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His father died a week before his birth, making William III the prince of Orange from birth. In 1677, he married his cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Eyre
Sir Charles Eyre (died 1729) was an administrator of the British East India Company and founder of Fort William, Calcutta. He was a President of Fort William. Career While in office, Eyre started work on Fort William, Calcutta in 1696. On 10 November 1698, Eyre signed the document legalizing the British occupation of three small villages that formed the basis of the Fort William settlement; his signature, and not that of his father-in-law Job Charnock (who died in 1692) appears on the document signed with the original landlords, the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family. In December 1699, Eyre was appointed President and Governor of Fort William in Bengal, and Bengal was at the same time constituted a Presidency. He was the first governor appointed by the Company to Bengal since William Hedges (agent and governor) in 1681 and William Gyfford (president and governor) in December 1683 (after which the title of governor had been temporarily dropped in favour of agent and chief of the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aurangzeb
Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling from July 1658 until his death in 1707. Under his emperorship, the Mughals reached their greatest extent with their territory spanning nearly the entirety of South Asia. Widely considered to be the last effective Mughal ruler, Aurangzeb compiled the Fatawa 'Alamgiri and was amongst the few monarchs to have fully established Sharia and Islamic economics throughout South Asia.Catherine Blanshard Asher, (1992"Architecture of Mughal India – Part 1" Cambridge university Press, Volume 1, Page 252. Belonging to the aristocratic Timurid dynasty, Aurangzeb's early life was occupied with pious pursuits. He held administrative and military posts under his father Shah Jahan () and gained recognition as an accomplished military commander. Aurang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mughal Emperor
The Mughal emperors ( fa, , Pādishāhān) were the supreme heads of state of the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent, mainly corresponding to the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The Mughal rulers styled themselves as "padishah", a title usually translated from Persian as "emperor". They began to rule parts of India from 1526, and by 1707 ruled most of the sub-continent. After that they declined rapidly, but nominally ruled territories until the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The Mughals were a branch of the Timurid dynasty of Turco-Mongol origin from Central Asia. Their founder Babur, a Timurid prince from the Fergana Valley (modern-day Uzbekistan), was a direct descendant of Timur (generally known in western nations as Tamerlane) and also affiliated with Genghis Khan through Timur's marriage to a Genghisid princess. Many of the later Mughal emperors had significant Indian Rajput and Persian ancestry through marriage alliances as emperors w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Goldsborough
Sir John Goldsborough (died November 1693) was a sea-captain and administrator of the British East India Company. Biography Early life He was a native of Suffolk, in which county he possessed an estate. He was in command of the East Indiaman ''Antelope'' when that ship was taken by a Dutch fleet, between Masulipatam and Madras on 22 August 1673. His account of the engagement is in the Bodleian Library. He later commanded the ''Falcon'' in 1673–4, and ''Bengal Merchant'' in 1676–7, 1683, and 1686. India The death of Sir John Child in February 1690 created a vacuum in power within the company's hierarchy in India, and no officer initially succeeded Child. In January 1691, the Company directors resolved to appoint Gainsborough to act as the first member of council at the different settlements in India. In February, he was knighted, and given the official title of ‘supervisor-commissary-general and chief governor' and set sail for India in March. The following year he was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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