William Watts ( – 4 August 1764) was a British official with 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 ...
. He was involved in the overthrow of the last independent ruler of Bengal, leading directly to the consolidation of
Company rule in India
Company rule in India (sometimes, Company ''Raj'', from hi, rāj, lit=rule) refers to the rule of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when ...
and his own personal enrichment. Through his wife
Begum Johnson, he had notable descendants, including a
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern pr ...
.
Early life and marriage
Watts was born about 1722, a son of William Watts of London, an academy master (teacher), and his first wife Mary Hills.
On 24 March 1749 in Calcutta, William married Frances Altham, née Croke (10 April
725
Year 725 ( DCCXXV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 725 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the ...
1728 – 3 February 1812), a well-connected widow. She is known to history as
Begum Johnson and lived most of her remarkably long life in Calcutta, which in 1772 became the ''de facto'' capital of
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
. This connected William Watts to the Governors of
Fort St. David
Fort St David, now in ruins, was a British fort near the town of Cuddalore, a hundred miles south of Chennai
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost In ...
and of Calcutta.
Career
Watts was chief of the
Kasimbazar
Cossimbazar is a sub-urban area of Berhampore City in the Berhampore CD block in the Berhampore subdivision in Murshidabad district in the Indian state of West Bengal."Cossimbazar" in ''Imperial Gazetteer of India'', Oxford, Clarendon Press, ...
(or Cossimbazar)
factory
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...
(trading post) of the East India Company.
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 ...
made Watts the company's representative to the
Nawab
Nawab (Balochi language, Balochi: نواب; ar, نواب;
bn, নবাব/নওয়াব;
hi, नवाब;
Punjabi language, Punjabi : ਨਵਾਬ;
Persian language, Persian,
Punjabi language, Punjabi ,
Sindhi language, Sindhi,
Urd ...
's court at
Murshidabad
Murshidabad fa, مرشد آباد (, or ) is a historical city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi River, a distributary of the Ganges. It forms part of the Murshidabad district.
During ...
. Clive engaged Watts to work out a secret plan for the final overthrow of
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 Beng ...
and to install a favourable ruler instead. Watts thus set up contact with the dissident ''
emir
Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cerem ...
s'' (nobles, commanders) of the Murshidabad ''
durbar
Durbar can refer to:
* Conference of Rulers, a council of Malay monarchs
* Durbar festival, a yearly festival in several towns of Nigeria
* Durbar floor plate, a hot-rolled structural steel that has been designed to give excellent slip resistance o ...
'' (court), including
Mir Jafar
Sayyid Mīr Jaʿfar ʿAlī Khān Bahādur ( – 5 February 1765) was a military general who became the first dependent Nawab of Bengal of the British East India Company. His reign has been considered by many historians as the start of the expan ...
,
Rai Durlabh and
Yar Lutuf Khan
Yar, Yare or Yars may refer to:
Geography
* Yar, Russia, name of several inhabited localities in Russia
* Babi Yar, a ravine in Kyiv where mass murders took place during World War II
* Eastern Yar, a river on the Isle of Wight, England
* Western ...
. Watts played a role in forging the grand conspiracy against Siraj Ud Daulah which led to the
Battle of Plassey
The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar, ...
. On 5 June 1757, he visited Mir Jafar and obtained his oath of allegiance.
In recognition of his services, Watts was given £114,000 from the Nawab's treasury and made the governor of
Fort William on 22 June 1758, in place of
Roger Drake, who had deserted the fort when it was attacked and captured earlier that month. This had been the location of the
Black Hole of Calcutta
The Black Hole of Calcutta was a dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta, measuring , in which troops of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war on the night of 20 June 1756. John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British p ...
on 20 June 1756. Four days later Watts resigned in favour of Robert Clive to return to England.
Later life and death
On his return to England he built the
South Hill Park
South Hill Park is a English country house and its grounds, now run as an arts centre. It lies in the Birch Hill estate to the south of Bracknell town centre, in Berkshire.
History
Construction by Watts
The original South Hill Park mansi ...
mansion, which lies to the south of
Bracknell
Bracknell () is a large town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, the westernmost area within the Greater London Built-up Area, Greater London Urban Area and the administrative centre of the Bracknell Forest, Borough of Bracknell Forest. It l ...
, Berkshire; the building is now an
arts centre.
In 1759 he was offered government backing to fight
Ipswich but he refused what was likely to be a competitive election saying that he was "quite unfit for a bustle" but ready to pay for a seat "where no kind of opposition can be.
In June 1764, he was in the process of buying
Hanslope Park
Hanslope Park is located about half a mile south-east of the village of Hanslope in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Once the manorial estate of the village, it is now owned by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Of ...
, in Buckinghamshire, but died that August. The sale was completed for his son Edward, who became
Lord of the Manor.
Watts died in August 1764 and is buried in the Watts vault in Hanslope
parish church. His ''Memoirs of the Revolution in Bengal'' was published in the year of his death.
Family
He had three surviving children (one child, William, died in infancy). These were also the only surviving children of Frances. All had notable descendants in politics and empire-building.
Their daughter Amelia married
George III's close adviser
Charles Jenkinson, later the first
Earl of Liverpool
Earl of Liverpool is a title that has been created twice in British history. The first time was in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1796 for Charles Jenkinson, 1st Baron Hawkesbury, a favourite of King George III (see Jenkinson baronets for e ...
. An early portrait by
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depend ...
is thought to have been of her. She died aged 19, shortly after giving birth to
Robert, who grew up to be
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
[D. Leonard 2008 Nineteenth-Century British Premiers: Pitt to Rosebery. Palgrave Macmillan: p. 82.]
Their daughter Sophia married
George Poyntz Ricketts George Poyntz Ricketts (1749 – 8 April 1800) was a Jamaican-born English plantation owner who became Governor of Tobago and Governor of Barbados.
He was born the son of Jacob Ricketts and Hannah Poyntz on the Midgham plantation, Jamaica (named af ...
of Midgham, Jamaica (named after
Midgham, Berkshire, the
family seat of the Poyntz) and
Grove Place
Grove Place is a Grade I listed building in Nursling, Hampshire. The building was originally a country house and was converted into a lunatic asylum in the 19th century, subsequently used as a farmhouse, and then converted back into a private ...
in
Nursling, Hampshire. He became
governor of Tobago
This article lists governors of Tobago. Governors of Tobago have been referred to by the formal titles of "Governor" and "Lieutenant-Governor". For governors of the united Trinidad and Tobago after 1889 see List of Governors of Trinidad and Tobago ...
in 1793 and
of Barbados the following year, a post he held till his death in 1800. Their son
Charles Milner Ricketts
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...
(1776–1867) (presumed to be named after
Sir William Milner, 2nd Baronet) spent most of his working life in India as a respected administrator, married a sister of
Michael Prendergast (MP)
Michael George Prendergast (died 1834) was an Irish politician. He was a Member of Parliament from 19 April 1809 to 2 May 1831, representing at various times the constituencies of Westbury, Gatton, Galway Borough and Saltash
Saltash (Co ...
, and on his retirement became an MP himself.
Their son Edward stayed in Hanslope Park. On 26 March 1778 he married Florentia, daughter of
Alexander Wynch
Alexander Wynch (1721 – 1781) was an English merchant, a career civil servant of the East India Company who became Governor of Madras.
Life
He travelled to India at a young age and began to work, unpaid, for the East India Company at 13.
Wyn ...
, sometime
Governor of Madras
This is a list of the governors, agents, and presidents of colonial Madras, initially of the English East India Company, up to the end of British colonial rule in 1947.
English Agents
In 1639, the grant of Madras to the English was finalized be ...
, who had retired to
Harley Street
Harley Street is a street in Marylebone, Central London, which has, since the 19th century housed a large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery. It was named after Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer.< ...
, London.
References
External links
Hanslope and District Historical Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watts, William
History of Bengal
1722 births
1764 deaths
British people in colonial India
18th-century British businesspeople