Charles Grant (British East India Company)
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
politician influential in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n and domestic affairs who, motivated by his evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, championed the causes of social reform and Christian mission
Mission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
, particularly in India. He served as Chairman of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, and as a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP), and was deeply associated with the 'Clapham Sect
Clapham Sect
The Clapham Sect or Clapham Saints were a group of influential like-minded Church of England social reformers based in Clapham, London at the beginning of the 19th century...
'.
Life
Grant was born at AldourieAldourie
Aldourie is a small crofting village, on the east shore of Loch Ness and is within the council of Highland, Scotland. Aldourie Castle, seat of the Laird on Dunbar, is close to the village of Aldourie....
, Inverness-shire
Inverness-shire
The County of Inverness or Inverness-shire was a general purpose county of Scotland, with the burgh of Inverness as the county town, until 1975, when, under the Local Government Act 1973, the county area was divided between the two-tier Highland region and the unitary Western Isles. The Highland...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
on the same day that his father Alexander Grant was killed fighting for the Jacobites
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
, against the British Crown, at Culloden
Battle of Culloden
The Battle of Culloden was the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Taking place on 16 April 1746, the battle pitted the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart against an army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British government...
. However, Charles Grant himself was one of the growing number of Scots who prospered in the service of the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
. In 1767 Grant travelled to India to take up a military position. Over subsequent years, he rose in the ranks of the British East India Company. Initially he became superintendent over its trade in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
. Then, in 1787, having first acquired a personal fortune through silk manufacturing in Malda, Lord Cornwallis
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis
Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG , styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator...
the Governor-General appointed Grant as a member of the East India Company's board of trade. Grant lived a profligate lifestyle as he climbed through the ranks, but after losing two children to smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
he underwent a religious conversion
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
. Viewing his life, including his efforts in India, from his new evangelical Christian perspective, molded his career for the rest of his life.
Grant returned to Britain in 1790 and was elected to Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
in 1802 for Inverness-shire
Inverness-shire (UK Parliament constituency)
Inverness-shire was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1708 to 1801 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 until 1918....
. He served as an MP until failing health forced him to retire in 1818. However, his relationship with the East India Company did not end. In 1804 he joined the Company's Court of Directors, and in 1805 he became its chairman. He died in Russell Square
Russell Square
Russell Square is a large garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is near the University of London's main buildings and the British Museum. To the north is Woburn Place and to the south-east is Southampton Row...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
at age 77.
His eldest son, Charles
Charles Grant, 1st Baron Glenelg
Charles Grant, 1st Baron Glenelg PC FRS was a Scottish politician and colonial administrator.-Background and education:...
, was born in India and later followed his father into politics, eventually becoming a British peer
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
as Baron Glenelg. His other son Robert
Robert Grant (MP)
Sir Robert Grant GCH was a British lawyer and politician.He was born in India, the son of Charles Grant, chairman of the Directors of the Honourable East India Company, and younger brother of Charles Grant, later Lord Glenelg. Returning home with their father in 1790, the two brothers were entered...
followed his father into the Indian service and became Governor of Bombay, as well as being a Christian hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
writer.
Indian affairs
Grant opposed the Governor-GeneralGovernor-General
A Governor-General, is a vice-regal person of a monarch in an independent realm or a major colonial circonscription. Depending on the political arrangement of the territory, a Governor General can be a governor of high rank, or a principal governor ranking above "ordinary" governors.- Current uses...
Richard Wellesley
Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley
Richard Colley Wesley, later Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, KG, PC, PC , styled Viscount Wellesley from birth until 1781, was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator....
's combative and expansionist policies in India, and later supported the unsuccessful parliamentary move to impeach Wellesley. Grant saw Indian society as not only heathen, but also as corrupt and uncivilised. He was appalled by such native customs as exposing the sick, burning lepers
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
, and sati
Sati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
. He believe that Britain's duty was not simply to expand its rule in India and exploit the subcontinent for its commercial interests, but to civilise and Christianise
Christianization
The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...
.
In 1792, Grant wrote the tract "Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain." This famous essay pled for education and Christian mission to be tolerated in India alongside the East India Company's traditional commercial activity. It argued that India could be advanced socially and morally by compelling the Company to permit Christian missionaries into India, a view diametrically opposed to the long-held position of the East India Company that Christian missionary work in India conflicted with its commercial interests and should be prohibited. In 1797, Grant presented his essay to the Company's directors, and then later in 1813, along with the reformer William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
, successfully to the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
. The Commons ordered its re-printing during the important debates on the renewal of the company's charter.
He was largely responsible for the foundation of East India Company College
East India Company College
The East India College was a college in Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire, England. It was founded in February 1806 as the training establishment for the British East India Company . At that time, the BEIC provided general and vocational education for young gentlemen of sixteen to eighteen years old,...
, which was later erected at Haileybury
Haileybury and Imperial Service College
Haileybury and Imperial Service College, , is a prestigious British independent school founded in 1862. The school is located at Hertford Heath, near Hertford, from central London, on of parkland occupied until 1858 by the East India College...
.
As Chairman of the Company, Grant used his position to sponsor many chaplains to India, among them Claudius Buchanan
Claudius Buchanan
Claudius Buchanan was a Scottish theologian, an ordained minister of the Church of England, and an extremely 'low church' missionary for the Church Missionary Society....
and Henry Martyn.
Christian humanitarianism
Grant was part of an evangelical AnglicanAnglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
movement of close friends which included such luminaries as the abolitionist Wilberforce, Zachary Macaulay
Zachary Macaulay
Zachary Macaulay was a slavery abolitionist and campaigner.-Early life:Macaulay was born in Inveraray, Scotland, the son of the Rev. John Macaulay Zachary Macaulay (2 May 1768 – 13 May 1838) was a slavery abolitionist and campaigner.-Early life:Macaulay was born in Inveraray, Scotland, the son of...
, John Venn
John Venn
Donald A. Venn FRS , was a British logician and philosopher. He is famous for introducing the Venn diagram, which is used in many fields, including set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science....
, Henry Thornton, and John Shore
John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth
John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth was a British politician who served as Governor-General of India from 1793 to 1797.He married Charlotte Cornish, daughter of James Cornish of Teignmouth, on 14 February 1786...
, who lived in close proximity round Clapham Common south west of London. For some years from 1796 Grant himself lived in a large villa called Glenelg in proximity to Wilberforce and Thornton. This 'Clapham sect' welded evangelical theology with the cause of social reform. Both in India and in the Parliament, Grant campaigned for the furtherance of causes of education, social reform, and Christian mission. In 1791, He was heavily involved in the establishment of the Sierra Leone Company
Sierra Leone Company
The Sierra Leone Company was the corporate body involved in founding the second British colony in Africa in 1792 through the resettlement of black American ex-slaves who had initially been settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War...
, which gave refuge to freed slaves. He served as a vice-president of the British and Foreign Bible Society
British and Foreign Bible Society
The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply as Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world....
from its establishment in 1804, and also supported the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.He was one of the most efficient social reformer.