Bengal Presidency

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The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal until 1937, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule and later a province of British Raj. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal (present-day Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura). Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the governor of Bengal was concurrently the governor-general of India and Calcutta was the capital of India until 1911. The Bengal Presidency emerged from trading posts established in the Bengal Subah of Mughal Empire, during the reign of Emperor Jahangir in 1612. The East India Company (EIC), a British Indian monopoly with a royal charter, competed with other European companies to gain influence in Bengal....

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