Government of India Acts

Government of India Acts, succession of measures passed by the British Parliament between 1773 and 1935 to regulate the government of India. The first several acts—passed in 1773, 1780, 1784, 1786, 1793, and 1830—were generally known as East India Company Acts. Subsequent measures—chiefly in 1833, 1853, 1858, 1919, and 1935—were entitled Government of India Acts.

The act of 1773, also known as the Regulating Act, set up a governor-general of Fort William in Bengal with supervisory powers over Madras (now Chennai) and Bombay (now Mumbai). Pitt’s India Act (1784), named for the British prime minister William Pitt the Younger, established the dual system of control by the British government and the East India Company, by which the company retained control of commerce and day-to-day administration but important political matters were reserved to a secret committee of three directors in direct touch with the British government; this system lasted until 1858. The act of 1813 broke the company’s trade monopoly and allowed missionaries to enter British India. The act of 1833 ended the company’s trade, and that of 1853 ended the company’s patronage. The act of 1858 transferred most of the company’s powers to the crown. The acts of 1919 and 1935 were comprehensive enactments, the former giving legal expression to the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and the latter to the results of constitutional discussions in 1930–33.