Indian History Quiz: Acts of Company Rule: Regulating Act 1773 to Charter Act 1853

The Regulating Act of 1773 changed the designation of the Governor of Bengal to Governor-General of Bengal and created an Executive Council of four members to assist him, and Warren Hastings, who had been Governor of Bengal since 1772, became the first holder of the new office.

It was the first attempt by the British Parliament to regulate the affairs of the East India Company: it redesignated the Governor of Bengal as the Governor-General of Bengal, gave him a Council of four, made Bombay and Madras subordinate to him and provided for a Supreme Court at Calcutta.

The Act separated the commercial and the political functions of the East India Company, leaving trade to the Court of Directors and placing civil, military and revenue administration under a newly created Board of Control answerable to Parliament.

Pressed by British manufacturers who wanted a free market in India, Parliament threw Indian trade open to all British subjects and allowed the Company to keep only the tea trade and the trade with China.

This Act was the final step in centralising British administration in India: it vested all civil and military powers in the Governor-General of India, took away the legislative powers of the Bombay and Madras governments, and made the East India Company a purely administrative agency holding its territories in trust…

The Charter Act of 1833 added a fourth, law member to the Governor-General's Council for legislative work, and Thomas Babington Macaulay took up the post in 1834.

It added six new members to the Governor-General's Council for legislative purposes, so that law-making was carried on by a separate body which began to behave like a small parliament, with its own rules of business, and which is therefore regarded as the beginning of the Indian Legislative Council.

The Act provided for the establishment of a Supreme Court at Calcutta, and the court was set up in 1774 with a Chief Justice and three other judges, Sir Elijah Impey being its first Chief Justice.

The Act directed that a sum of not less than one lakh rupees be set apart every year for the revival and improvement of literature, the encouragement of the learned natives of India and the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences.

It ended the patronage of the Court of Directors over appointments and laid down that recruitment to the covenanted civil service would be by open competition, which was thrown open to Indians as well; the committee under Macaulay that framed the scheme reported in 1854.