Hastings, Warren 1732-1818
English colonial administrator

Born in Churchill, Oxfordshire, he was educated at Westminster School. In 1750 he went to Calcutta as a writer in the service of the East India Company, was British Resident at Murshidabad (1758-61), and then a member of council at Calcutta. He returned to England in 1764, and in 1769 went back to India as second in council at Madras. In 1772 he became Governor of Bengal and President of the Council. A year later he was created Governor-General. Hastings extended the power of the East India Company in India, improving the administration of justice, organizing the opium revenue, and waging vigorous war with the Marathas. He experienced continual conflict with his council, appointed from England and led by Sir Philip Francis, whom he later wounded in a duel (1780). In 1777 an attempt was made to depose Hastings, which was only frustrated by the action of the Supreme Court. He resigned office in 1784 and sailed for England, where he was charged with cruelty and corruption, and impeached at the Bar of the House of Lords. The trial began on 13 February 1788, at Westminster Hall, among the managers for the Commons being Edmund Burke, Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Charles Grey. The trial occupied more than seven years and 145 sittings. Finally, in April 1795, Hastings was acquitted on all the charges, but he left the court a ruined man, since most of the �80,000 that he had brought from India went in expenses. The East India Company made generous provision for his declining years, which he spent as a country gentleman at Daylesford, Worcestershire.

Bibliography: Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings (1954)