Robert Clive (1725-74) was the founder of Britain’s Indian Empire. Yet at school he was idle, unruly and turbulent and became the ringleader of a gang of youths who terrorized his native town of Market Drayton, shropshire.
Both Market, Drayton and the Clive family must have been relieved when, at the age of 18, he left England to become a clerk with the British East India Company in Madras. At first he was so depressed by his new environment that he twice tried to shoot himself, but his opportunity for greatness came with the outbreak of war between the French and the British for supremacy in India. In 1751, when the tide was running against the British, Clive led a few hundred English and Indian troops to seize the great fort at Arcot the capital of one of France’s Indian allies. For 53 days his small force held the fort against repeated assaults until the besiegers were forced to retreat, leaving the district to be ruled by an Indian who favoured the British. Clive followed up this success with further victories which led to settlement in south India in Britain’s favour in 1752.
He returned to England in 1753 with a large fortune, but soon spent it and went back to India as Governor of Fort David. He was sent north to re-establish British power and defeated the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula, at the great Battle of Plassey in 1757, replacing him with Mirjaffir, who was sympathetic to the British. Clive accepted a gift of £200,000 from the new ruler and when Mir Jaffir died was left lands with annual revenue of £30,000.
He sailed for England in 1760 but five years later returned as Governor of Bengal and tried to curb the corruption which was rife in India and to which he himself had contributed in earlier days. In 1767 he left India for the last time.
At home he was cross-examined about his great wealth by a strongly critical parliamentary committee which found him guilty of fraud and greed. Because of his services he was not prosecuted. But the pitter attacks on him, together with the strain of his life in India, so affected his mind and health that he committed suicide in 1774.
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