other · South Asia

Bengal Presidency

1765 CE – 1947 CE · capital Calcutta

Britain's largest province in India, governed from Fort William at Calcutta, which was the capital of British India until 1911.

Origins

The English East India Company built Fort William at Calcutta around 1700 and made it the seat of a presidency. After Plassey in 1757 and the grant of the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha in 1765, the Bengal Presidency became a territorial government; from 1773 its governor was also Governor-General over the other presidencies.

Rule and society

The presidency once stretched from Assam to the Punjab and governed vast populations through district collectors. The Permanent Settlement of 1793 fixed land revenue with zamindars. Calcutta became the commercial and intellectual capital of British India, the centre of the Bengal Renaissance associated with Ram Mohan Roy and Rabindranath Tagore. The famine of 1770 and that of 1943 killed millions.

Decline and legacy

Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal in 1905; protests forced reunion in 1911, when the capital moved to Delhi. In 1947 Bengal was partitioned again, West Bengal joining the Dominion of India and East Bengal the Dominion of Pakistan, later becoming Bangladesh.

Connections (2)

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Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Bengal Presidency. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/bengal-presidency
MLA
“Bengal Presidency.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/bengal-presidency. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Bengal Presidency.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/bengal-presidency.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Bengal Presidency’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/bengal-presidency (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻