Charles John Canning, Earl Canning

Charles John Canning, Earl Canning (born December 14, 1812, London, England—died June 17, 1862, London) was a statesman and governor-general of India during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. He became the first viceroy of India in 1858 and played an important part in the work of reconstruction in that colony.

The youngest son of George Canning, he was a member of Parliament from 1836 and inherited a viscounty from his mother in 1837. He joined the cabinet of Sir Robert Peel in 1841 as undersecretary of state for foreign affairs and from 1846 served as commissioner of woods and forests. He was postmaster general under Lord Aberdeen (1853–55) and was appointed governor-general of India by Lord Palmerston’s government in 1856. Canning immediately dispatched a military expedition to the Persian Gulf against the shah of Persia, who had seized the British protectorate of Herāt in Afghanistan. The expedition drove the shah’s forces out of Herāt and won the friendship of Dōst Moḥammad Khān, ruler of Afghanistan, consolidated by a treaty in 1857.

The same year saw the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny—an uprising of Bengali soldiers that developed into a widespread revolt against British rule in northern India. Canning promptly gathered reinforcements, including British troops on their way to China, and reoccupied the rebel strongholds. Canning presided over the reorganization of the Indian government after its transfer from the British East India Company to the crown. He was given an earldom in 1859. By the Indian Councils Act of 1861, he reorganized his executive council, instituting departmental distribution of responsibilities. He enlarged the council to make room for Indian nonofficial members and remodeled the Indian army, infusing its ranks with Europeans. He encouraged railway development, took measures for famine relief, and helped found the Universities of Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bombay (now Mumbai), and Madras (now Chennai). On the one hand he created opportunities for suitably westernized Indians, while on the other he tightened the grip of the British on Indian society.

Although he endeavoured to protect Indian tenants against eviction or undue rent increases and intervened to prevent their exploitation by European indigo planters, Canning introduced a land-revenue settlement in Oudh that was unduly favourable to landlord interests. He resigned his post in 1862 after the death (November 1861) of his wife. He left no issue, and his title lapsed.