Person · Governor-General · United Kingdom
James Broun-Ramsay, Marquess of Dalhousie
Also known as Dalhousie, Lord Dalhousie, doctrine of lapse
Governor-General from 1848 to 1856, who annexed the Punjab, Lower Burma, Nagpur, Jhansi, Satara and finally Oudh, using the doctrine of lapse to absorb states whose rulers had no natural heir. He also laid the first railway, the telegraph and the postal system, and the two things are the same policy.
- Date
- 1812–1860
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 28.656, 77.241
Worth knowing
Every one of his annexations supplied a grievance to the rebellion that broke out the year after he left: Jhansi gave it Lakshmibai, Oudh gave it most of the Bengal army's recruits, and the Mughal succession he had declined to recognise gave it Bahadur Shah Zafar.
About the place
Placed at Delhi, the seat of the paramount power whose annexations he directed; he governed from Calcutta and died in Scotland.
Connections (4)
- CampaignChillianwala
Dalhousie arrived in 1848 committed to annexation and got his first war within months. Chillianwala was close enough to a defeat that questions were asked in Parliament, but Gujrat followed in February 1849 and the Punjab was annexed in March, with the Koh-i-Noor surrendered under the treaty by Ranjit Singh's eleven-year-old son. The last large independent Indian state was gone.
- PatronageChhatrapati Shivaji Terminus
Dalhousie's railway minute of 1853 laid down trunk routes, gauge and the guaranteed-interest system that built them, and the first train ran from Bori Bunder to Thane that April. The terminus that replaced the platform thirty years later is the monument to the policy: a Gothic cathedral for a network built to move cotton, troops and revenue, which then moved everyone.
- CampaignBahādur Shāh Zafar
Dalhousie decided that the Mughal title would lapse with Zafar, that his heir would leave the Red Fort, and that the pension would be reduced — the same doctrine he used on Satara, Jhansi and Nagpur. Three years after he sailed home, the Meerut sepoys rode to the fort he had planned to empty and proclaimed its occupant emperor of Hindustan.
- Power passed toKoh-i-Noor
Governor-General James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie received the Koh-i-Noor from Dr John Spencer Login on 7 December 1849 under the Last Treaty of Lahore. Dalhousie believed the stone was a spoil of war rather than a Company gift, and ensured it was officially surrendered to Queen Victoria by Duleep Singh personally. Legend in the Lawrence family has it that before the voyage, John Lawrence left the jewel in his waistcoat pocket when it was sent to be laundered, and was most grateful when it was returned promptly by the valet who found it. The 1 February 1850 shipment arrangements under Dalhousie's seal made the diamond's transfer to England the most anxious operation of his career.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie”. Dalhousie's Minute on the Annexation of Oudh (1856); the Parliamentary Papers on the annexation of Oudh.
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