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Person1725 – 1774

Robert Clive

Also called: Clive of India, 1st Baron Clive

Soldier and governor of Bengal for the British East India Company, whose victory at Plassey opened British rule in India

Born into a landed family in Shropshire, England, he went out to Madras at eighteen as a clerk of the East India Company. He made his name in the Carnatic wars against the French by holding Arcot in 1751. After Plassey he amassed a great fortune and, as governor of Bengal twice, set up the “dual government” in which the Company collected revenue while the Nawab nominally ruled. Back home he was investigated by Parliament for corruption but escaped censure, and he died in London in 1774.

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1 related event

  1. 1
    1757Battle of Plasseycommander

    Robert Clive of the British East India Company defeated Siraj ud-Daulah, the French-backed Nawab of Bengal, at Plassey — the starting point of British rule over Bengal and then India.

People who appear alongside

  • Siraj ud-Daulah1733 – 1757

    Last independent Nawab of Bengal (r. 1756–1757), defeated at the Battle of Plassey and then killed

Themes this person appears in

  • Islamic Empires and the Atlantic World1500 – 1800

    Three centuries in which the Ottomans of Suleiman I, the Mughals of Akbar and the Safavids of Abbas I flourished and then faltered, while across the Atlantic the slave trade and colonies transformed the Americas, leading to American independence