Major-General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, also known as Clive of India, was the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency. He is credited along with Warren Hastings for laying the foundation of the British Empire in India. He began as a writer for the East India Company (EIC) who established the military and political supremacy of the EIC by securing a decisive victory in Bengal and looting its treasury of an estimated £2.325 billion in modern terms. In return for supporting the Nawab of Bengal Mir Jafar on the throne, Clive was granted a jaghire of £30,000 per year which was the rent the EIC would otherwise pay to the Nawab for their tax farming concession, when he left India he had a fortune of £180,000 which he remitted through the Dutch East India Company.
Blocking impending French mastery of India, and eventual British expulsion from the continent, Clive improvised a military expedition that ultimately enabled the EIC to adopt the French strategy of indirect rule via puppet government. Hired by the EIC to return a second time to India, Clive conspired to secure the Company’s trade interests by overthrowing the ruler of Bengal, the richest state in India. Back in England, he used his treasure from India to secure an Irish barony from the then Whig PM, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and a seat for himself in Parliament, via Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Powis, representing the Whigs in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, as he had previously in Mitchell, Cornwall.
Robert Clive was born in Britain on 26th September 1725. Robert Clive’s father used his influence, got his son the position of clerk for the English East India company.
The East India Company (EIC) set up its trading post in Madras (modern-day Chennai) and was looking for a potential employee. Travel to India from Britain was a dangerous trip infested with storms, disease, etc.
Even after the travel, the hot sun and tropical disease will test anyone’s patience. It was said one out of every three British citizens who came to India died.
Once someone took the job with the East India Company, they can return to Britain only after the end of the contract, which way typically after four years. The position of clerk in EIC Madras was a one-way ticket with a 33 percent death rate. Still, Robert Clive took the road less traveled.
In 1744 Clive’s father acquired for him a position as a “factor” or company agent in the service of the East India Company, and Clive set sail for India. After running aground on the coast of Brazil, his ship was detained for nine months while repairs were completed. This enabled him to learn some Portuguese, one of the several languages then in use in south India because of the Portuguese centre at Goa. Clive arrived at Fort St. George in June 1744, and spent the next two years working as little more than a glorified assistant shopkeeper, tallying books and arguing with suppliers of the East India Company over the quality and quantity of their wares. He was given access to the governor’s library, where he became a prolific reader.
In the first Carnatic war, Clive’s bravery came to the attention of Major Stringer Lawrence, who arrived in 1748 to take command of the British troops at Fort St. David. The siege was lifted in October 1748 with the arrival of the monsoons, but the war came to a conclusion with the arrival in December of news of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Madras was returned to the British as part of the peace agreement in early 1749. During the second and third wars as well as many other events, Clive was not present for many of them due to his nervous disorder.
In July 1755, Clive returned to India to act as deputy governor of Fort St. David at Cuddalore. He arrived after having lost a considerable fortune en route, as the Doddington, the lead ship of his convoy, was wrecked near Port Elizabeth, losing a chest of gold coins belonging to Clive worth £33,000. Nearly 250 years later in 1998, illegally salvaged coins from Clive’s treasure chest were offered for sale, and in 2002 a portion of the coins were given to the South African government after protracted legal wrangling.
Clive, now promoted to lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, took part in the capture of the fortress of Gheriah, a stronghold of the Maratha Admiral Tuloji Angre. The action was led by Admiral James Watson and the British had several ships available, some Royal troops and some Maratha allies. The overwhelming strength of the joint British and Maratha forces ensured that the battle was won with few losses. A fleet surgeon, Edward Ives, noted that Clive refused to take any part of the treasure divided among the victorious forces as was custom at the time.
In 1760, the 35-year-old Clive returned to Great Britain with a fortune of at least £300,000 and the quit-rent of £27,000 a year. He financially supported his parents and sisters, while also providing Major Lawrence, the commanding officer who had early encouraged his military genius, with a stipend of £500 a year. During the three years that Clive remained in Great Britain, he sought a political position, chiefly that he might influence the course of events in India, which he had left full of promise. He had been well received at court, had been made Baron Clive of Plassey, County Clare, had bought estates, and had a few friends as well as himself returned to the House of Commons. Clive was MP for Shrewsbury from 1761 until his death. He was allowed to sit in the Commons because his peerage was Irish. He was also elected Mayor of Shrewsbury for 1762–63.
On 22 November 1774 Clive died, aged forty-nine, at his Berkeley Square home in London. There was no inquest on his death and he cut his throat with a paper knife penknife, while a few newspapers reported his death as due to an apoplectic fit or stroke. Though Clive’s demise has been linked to his history of depression and to opium addiction, the likely immediate impetus was excruciating pain resulting from illness which he had been attempting to abate with opium. Shortly beforehand, he had been offered command of British forces in North America which he had turned down. He was buried in St Margaret’s Parish Church at Moreton Say, near his birthplace in Shropshire.
Clive was awarded an Irish peerage in 1762, being created Baron Clive of Plassey, County Clare; he bought lands in County Limerick and County Clare, Ireland, naming part of his lands near Limerick City, Plassey. Following Irish independence, these lands became state property. In the 1970s a technical college, which later became the University of Limerick, was built at Plassey.
