Thomas Greenhill (1611/12 – 4 January 1658
/ref>) was an English colonial administrator, one of the early pioneers 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 Southea ...

and the Agent of

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 ...

for two terms from 1648 to 1652 and 1655 to 1658.

Early life

Greenhill arrived in India in 1632 to serve in the company's

Masulipatnam Machilipatnam (), also known as Masulipatnam and Bandar, is a city in Krishna district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is a municipal corporation and the administrative headquarters of Krishna district. It is also the mandal headquar ...

factory. During the agency of

Thomas Ivie Thomas Ivie was an English colonial administrator, the third agent of Madras after Andrew Cogan and Francis Day. He served in his post from 1644 to 1648. During Ivie's period, the English got a confirmation of the grant of Madras from Damarla ...

, Greenhill was sent on a mission to the Raja of Chandragiri which resulted in the issue of a new grant in October/November 1645. By this grant, the Raja confirmed an older grant and ceded the village of Narikamedu to the company.

Tenure as Agent of Madras

Madras was in the grips of a

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

(the first famine since the start of British rule in Madras) when Greenhill became Agent in 1648.''Madras Tercenternary Celebration Committee Commemoration Volume''By Tercentenary Madras Staff, Madras Tercentenary Celebration Committee, Madras Tercentenary Celebration Committee, Published 1994, Asian Educational Services In September 1648, Greenhill arranged for rice to shipped aboard the ship ''Blessing'' from

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. These fears were, however, short-lived as Madras had completely recovered from the famine by April 1649. Greenhill's tenure as Agent of Madras was marked by a scandal. A certain Mr. Thomas and Elizabeth Bland laid a charge against Greenhill, that the Agent had fathered an illegitimate child on Elizabeth, whom he had compelled to undergo an abortion in the fifth month of her pregnancy. The charge caused damage to Greenhill's reputation. Later, however, during the course of a trial, Elizabeth admitted that the accusation was false, and made in order to profit by the criminal case against Greenhill.

Death

Greenhill died in Madras of excessive drinking on 4 January 1658. His is the oldest English tombstone yet discovered in Madras city.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenhill, Thomas 1612 births 1658 deaths British East India Company people Governors of Madras