Edward Harrison (3 December 1674 – 28 November 1732) was a naval officer and official of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

and British politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

from 1717 to 1726. He served as the President of Madras from 11 July 1711 to 8 January 1717.

Early life

Edward Harrison was born in England to Richard Harrison and Audrey Villiers daughter of

George Villiers, 4th Viscount Grandison George Villiers, 4th Viscount Grandison was an Anglo-Irish peer from the Villiers family. He is known for being the maternal grandfather of Pitt the elder, prime minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. He was also the uncle of two royal mis ...

. He went to India as a purser, and became a captain of ships trading with China. He was Captain of the East Indiaman Gosfright in 1701, and of the Kent in 1709. Sometime before 1708 he married Frances Bray, daughter of Reginald Bray of Great Barrington, Gloucestershire. Her brothers Edmund and William Bray were Members of Parliament.

Tenure as President of Madras

Harrison was appointed Governor and Commander in Chief of the Madras Presidency in 1711. During his time in office he undertook a major rebuilding of the settlement. He dealt with several incidents, including the putting down of a minor revolt. The

presented him with a sword of honour.

War with Gingee

Since its occupation by the

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

in 1698,

Gingee Gingee, also known as Senji or Jinji and originally called Singapuri, is a panchayat town in Viluppuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Gingee is located between three hills covering a perimeter of 3 km, and lies west of th ...

had been ruled by

Swaroop Singh Sarup Singh (also Swaroop Singh) (9 January 1917 – 4 August 2003) was an Indian academic turned politician. He remained a faculty member at Kirori Mal College, Delhi, and later became the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi (1971–74) ...

, who was actually the

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

Governor of the Mughal province who had declared his independence and assumed the title of ''

Raja ''Raja'' (; from , IAST ') is a royal title used for South Asian monarchs. The title is equivalent to king or princely ruler in South Asia and Southeast Asia. The title has a long history in South Asia and Southeast Asia, being attested ...

''. The English at

Fort St David Fort St David, now in ruins, was a British fort near the town of Cuddalore, a hundred miles south of Chennai on the Coromandel Coast of India. It is located near silver beach without any maintenance. It was named for the patron saint of Wales ...

frequently failed to pay their rents to the Raja. On one such occasion when Swaroops Singh did not receive any rent for the villages, he responded by capturing two English officers from Fort St David and imprisoning them. Matters came to standstill in February 1711, when open hostilities broke out between the kingdom of Gingee and the British settlement at

. Three Muslim officers in the service of Gingee and one officer of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

were killed in the ensuing hostilities. Harrison sent Richard Raworth, a member of the Council of Fort St George along with three ships to the scene of action to settle the matter. Raworth arrived in Fort St David with three ships as Fort St David was blockaded by Swaroop Singh from land. Raworth's troops ran into a contingent of 400 cavalry and 1,000-foot commanded by Mahobat Khan on 11 August 1711 and barely managed to hold their ground. However, two top officers in the army, Captain Coventry and Ensign Somerville both lost their lives along with around 140 to 150 men of the Company's army. With matters reaching a standstill, Edward Harrison tried to enthuse the

Nawab of Carnatic The Carnatic Sultanate was a kingdom in South India between about 1690 and 1855, and was under the legal purview of the Nizam of Hyderabad, until their demise. They initially had their capital at Arcot in the present-day Indian state of Tamil N ...

to come to the Company's aid but failed miserably. In the meantime, Richard Raworth was made the deputy Governor at Fort St David. Immediately on assumption of office, Raworth negotiated terms of peace with the Raja of Gingee. The Raja demanded a war indemnity of 16,000 pagodas in return for which he promised to cede three villages whose names have been mentioned as Trevandrun, Padre Copang and Coronuttum. However, even as the matter was under consideration, hostilities broke out once more when the Company troops attacked the forces of Gingee at Crimambakkam on 25 January 1712. The war was, however, brought to a conclusion in April 1712 through the mediation of M.Hebert, the French Governor of Pondicherry. Swaroop Singh agreed to a settlement on payment of a war indemnity of 12,000 pagodas. On 15 November 1714, Gingee fell to the forces of the Carnatic bringing Rajput rule to an end.

Postal service

It was during Edward Harrison's time that a

postal service The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal syst ...

was established between the factories at

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

and

Calcutta 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, commer ...

. This was the first postal system established by the British East India Company in India. Mail was carried by runners or ''Tappy peons'' who travelled all the way to

Ganjam Ganjam is a town and a notified area council in Ganjam district in the state of Odisha, India. Brahmapur, one of the major city of Odisha is situated in this district. Geography Ganjam is located at in the Ganjam district of Odisha with an ...

where they exchanged mails with runners from Calcutta.

Armenian Church

The

Armenian church Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

was constructed in Armenian Street in 1712 to cater to the religious needs of the powerful Armenian community of Madras.

Richard Raworth's Rebellion

In October 1713, Richard Raworth, Deputy Governor of Fort St David broke into rebellion and shook off his allegiance to Fort St George. Harrison immediately deputed a small force commanded by Henry Davenport to invade Fort St David and remove Raworth. Henry Davenport was commissioned as the provisional Deputy Governor of Fort St David on 10 October 1713. The force reached Fort St David on 18 October 1713 after passing through

Mangadu Mangadu is a western neighborhood of Chennai, India. Literally meaning a mango forest, Mangadu Municipality is about 18 km from Chennai Central railway station, 14 km from Chennai International Airport and 13 km from CMBT. Dem ...

Pondicherry Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry ʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi(listen), on-dicherry, is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the sout ...

and

Cuddalore Cuddalore, also spelt as Kadalur (), is the city and headquarters of the Cuddalore District in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Situated south of Chennai, Cuddalore was an important port during the British Raj. While the early history of Cudd ...

. Condapah Choultry was taken and a strong ultimatum was issued to Raworth. Besieged and starved for the want of provisions, Raworth finally agreed to a settlement on 10 December 1713 and with the mediation of the French of

, Raworth was finally pardoned and allowed to seek asylum in France.

Caste disturbances in Madras

In late 1716,

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultur ...

disturbances broke out in Madras city which affected life and commerce in the city to a great extent. These disturbances started when a man belonging to the ''Komati'' caste which is regarded as a right-hand caste reportedly worshipped the idol of a God worshipped by the '' Chetties'' who formed a left-handed caste. The problem was solved in a few days; but tensions persisted and hostilities resumed at the slightest excuse. The continuous caste-wars forced the painters of

Triplicane Triplicane, known in the vernacular as Thiruvallikeni, is one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Chennai, India. It is situated on the Bay of Bengal coast and about from Fort St George. The average elevation of the neighbourhood is 14 metres ...

to leave the area. With the dispute remaining unresolved and continuing to threaten the functioning of Madras city, Harrison's was recalled and replaced with Joseph Collett.

Later life

On his return to England, Harrison was returned as Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis at a by-election on 2 March 1717.He became a Director of the East India Company in 1718 and remained until 1731. At the 1722 general election, he switched seats to his home area of Hertford and was elected top of the poll for

Hertford Hertford ( ) is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. The parish had a population of 26,783 at the 2011 census. The town grew around a ford on the River Lea, n ...

. He was deputy chairman of the East India Company in 1723. In 1726, his father died and he inherited Balls Park. He vacated his seat at Hertford in favour of his brother George on 10 August 1726, when he was appointed

Postmaster-General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. The practice of having a government official responsible ...

. He was deputy chairman of the EIC in 1728, chairman in 1729 and deputy again in 1731. Harrison died on 28 November 1732. Through his marriage with Frances Bray, he had one son and three daughters, one of whom, Audrey "Etheldreda" Harrison, married Charles Townshend, 3rd Viscount Townshend in 1723.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Edward 1674 births 1732 deaths Presidents of Madras British East India Company people United Kingdom Postmasters General 18th-century English people Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1715–1722 British MPs 1722–1727