Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings was born in Churchill, Oxfordshire in 1732 to Reverend Penyston Hastings and his wife Hester (née Warren), who died soon after he was born. Within nine months of Warren's birth, his father remarried and moved to Barbados, leaving behind Warren and his elder sister Anne. Young Warren was raised by his grandfather (also called Penyston) and attended a charity school in Daylesford, Gloucestershire. Eventually, he was taken in by his uncle, Howard Hastings, and moved with him to London in 1740.

Hastings attended Westminster School, where he coincided with the future prime ministers Lord Shelburne and the Duke of Portland and with the poet William Cowper. He quickly excelled as a top scholar but was forced to leave at sixteen, when his uncle died. He joined the British East India Company in 1750 as a writer (clerk) and sailed out to India, reaching Calcutta in August 1750. There he built up a reputation for diligence and spent his free time learning about India and mastering Urdu and Persian. His work won him promotion in 1752 when he was sent to Kasimbazar, a major trading post in Bengal, where he worked for William Watts. While there he gained further experience in the politics of East India.

British traders still relied on the whims of local rulers, so the political turmoil in Bengal was unsettling. The elderly moderate Nawab Alivardi Khan was likely to be succeeded by his grandson Siraj ud-Daulah, but there were several other claimants. This made British trading posts throughout Bengal increasingly insecure, as Siraj ud-Daulah was known to harbour anti-European views and to be likely to launch an attack once he took power. When Alivardi Khan died in April 1756, the British traders and a small garrison at Kasimbazar were left vulnerable. On 3 June, after being surrounded by a much larger force, the British were persuaded to surrender to prevent a massacre. Hastings was imprisoned with others in the Bengali capital, Murshidabad, while the Nawab's forces marched on Calcutta and captured it. The garrison and civilians were then locked up under appalling conditions in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

For a while, Hastings remained in Murshidabad and was even used by the Nawab as an intermediary; but, fearing for his life, he escaped to the island of Fulta, where several refugees from Calcutta had taken shelter. While there, he met, fell in love with, and married Mary Buchanan, the widow of Captain John Buchanan (one of the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta). Shortly afterwards a British expedition from Madras under Robert Clive arrived to rescue them. Hastings served as a volunteer in Clive's forces as they retook Calcutta in January 1757. After this swift defeat, the Nawab urgently sought peace, and the war came to an end. Clive was impressed with Hastings when he met him and arranged for his return to Kasimbazar to resume his pre-war activities. Later in 1757, fighting resumed, leading to the Battle of Plassey, where Clive won a decisive victory over the Nawab. Siraj ud-Daulah was overthrown and replaced by his commander-in-chief Mir Jafar, who initiated policies favourable to the East India Company traders, before falling out with them and being overthrown.