Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge

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Viscount Hardinge, engraving by F. Holl after a portrait by Eden Upton Eddis

Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge

governor general of India

Also known as: Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge of Lahore and Kings Newton

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 26, 2025 • Article History

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Born:: March 30, 1785, Wrotham, Kent, England

Died:: September 24, 1856, South Park, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent (aged 71)

Title / Office:: governor-general (1844-1848), India; House of Commons (1820-1844), United Kingdom

Role In:: Crimean War; Sikh Wars

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Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge (born March 30, 1785, Wrotham, Kent, England—died September 24, 1856, South Park, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent) was a British soldier and statesman who was governor-general of India in 1844–48.

Hardinge entered the army in 1799 and, during the Napoleonic Wars, served with distinction as a staff officer in the Peninsular War (1808–14). In the Hundred Days (1815), he was a brigadier general with the Prussian army at the Battle of Ligny and had his wounded left arm amputated two days before the Battle of Waterloo. In 1820–44 he was a member of Parliament, serving as secretary of war twice and as chief secretary for Ireland twice.

In 1844 he succeeded his brother-in-law, Lord Ellenborough, as governor-general of India. There he encouraged education by offering government employment to college-educated locals and sought to suppress human sacrifice. He also discouraged suttee and infanticide. He began construction of the Ganges canal and developed plans for an Indian railway system. He served in the First Sikh War and by the Treaty of Lahore (March 1846) sought to establish a friendly, if much-reduced, Sikh state. For his part in the war, Hardinge was awarded a viscountcy (May 1846).

In 1852 Hardinge succeeded the Duke of Wellington as commander in chief of the British army. Though responsible for the establishment of the first training camp at Chobham, for the purchase of the Aldershot military training camp, and for the introduction of the improved Enfield rifle, his lax administration and unwise choice of commanders were partly responsible for the disasters suffered by the British in the Crimean War (1853–56). Hardinge was nevertheless promoted to field marshal in 1855.

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Sikh Wars

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Sikh Wars

Indian history

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 5, 2025 • Article History

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Date:: 1845 - 1846; April 1848 - March 12, 1849

Location:: India; Multan; Pakistan; Punjab; Punjab Plain

Participants:: United Kingdom

Major Events:: Battle of Firoz Shah; Battle of Gujrat; Second Sikh War; Battle of Sobraon

Key People:: Dalip Singh; Sir Hugh Gough; Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge; Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier; Sir Harry Smith, Baronet

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Sikh Wars, (1845–46; 1848–49), two campaigns fought between the Sikhs and the British. They resulted in the conquest and annexation by the British of the Punjab in northwestern India.

The first war was precipitated by mutual suspicions and the turbulence of the Sikh army. The Sikh state in the Punjab had been built into a formidable power by the maharaja Ranjit Singh, who ruled from 1801 to 1839. Within six years of his death, however, the government had broken down in a series of palace revolutions and assassinations. By 1843 the ruler was a boy—the youngest son of Ranjit Singh—whose mother was proclaimed queen regent. Actual power, however, resided with the army, which was itself in the hands of panchs, or military committees. Relations with the British had already been strained by the refusal of the Sikhs to allow the passage of British troops through their territory during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42). Having determined to invade British India under the pretext of forestalling a British attack, the Sikhs crossed the Sutlej River in December 1845. They were defeated in the four bloody and hard-fought battles of Mudki, Firozpur, Aliwal, and Sobraon. The British annexed Sikh lands east of the Sutlej and between it and the Beas River; Kashmir and Jammu were detached, and the Sikh army was limited to 20,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry. A British resident was stationed in Lahore with British troops.

The Second Sikh War began with the revolt of Mulraj, governor of Multan, in April 1848 and became a national revolt when the Sikh army joined the rebels on September 14. Indecisive battles characterized by great ferocity and bad generalship were fought at Ramnagar (November 22) and at Chilianwala (Jan. 13, 1849) before the final British victory at Gujrat (February 21). The Sikh army surrendered on March 12, and the Punjab was then annexed.

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