Lord William (Henry Cavendish) Bentinck - Early career, Governor-General of India

British statesman and Governor-General of India (1828–35), born in Bulstrode, Buckinghamshire, SC England, UK. He became Governor of Madras (1803–7), but was recalled when his prohibition of sepoy beards and turbans caused the massacre at Vellore (1806). He served in the Peninsular War (1808–14), in 1827 became Governor-General of Bengal, and in 1828 first Governor-General of India. His administration resulted in better internal communications, brought about many educational reforms with the help of Thomas Macaulay, and prohibited suttee.

The Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, known as Lord William Bentinck (14 September 1774 - 17 June 1839) was a British statesman who served as Governor-General of India from 1828 to 1835.

Early career

Bentinck, the second son of the 3rd Duke of Portland joined the Coldstream Guards in 1791, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Although his tenure was moderately successful, it was brought to an end by a mutiny at Vellore in 1806, prompted by Bentinck's order that the native troops be forbidden to wear their traditional attire.

After service in the Peninsular War, Bentinck was appointed commander of British troops in Sicily. A Whig, Bentinck used this position to meddle in internal Sicilian affairs, effecting the King's withdrawal from government in favor of his son, the Crown Prince, the reactionary queen's disgrace, and an attempt to devise a constitutional government for the troubled island, all of which ultimately ended in failure. In 1814, Bentinck landed with British and Sicilian troops at Genoa, and commenced to make liberal proclamations of a new order in Italy which embarrassed the British government (which intended to give much of Italy to Austria), and led, once again, to his recall in 1815.

Governor-General of India

On his return to England, Bentinck served in the House of Commons for some years before being appointed Governor-General of India in 1827.

Bentinck engaged in an extensive range of cost-cutting measures, earning the lasting enmity of many military men whose wages were cut.

Bentinck also took steps to suppress suttee, the death of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre, and other Indian customs which the British viewed as barbaric. According to Bentinck's biographer John Rosselli, the story arose from Bentinck's fund-raising sale of discarded marble from Agra Fort and of the metal from a famous but obsolete Agra cannon.

Bentinck returned to the UK in 1835, refusing a peerage, and again entered the House of Commons as a member for the Glasgow constituency, in Scotland.