William Hedges (colonial administrator)
Encyclopedia
Sir William Hedges was a British merchant and the first governor of the East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

.

Life and career

He was born in Coole in County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...

, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, the eldest son of Robert and Catharine Hedges. The Hedges had their roots in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

, and had originally gone by the surname of Lacy.

Details of Hedges' early career are unclear, but it is known that he went to Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 as a trader for the Levant Company
Levant Company
The Levant Company, or Turkey Company, was an English chartered company formed in 1581, to regulate English trade with Turkey and the Levant...

. In his diaries, he refers to his knowledge of colloquial Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

 and Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

. Initially posted to the trading station (or factory) in Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

, by 1668 he had risen to the position of company treasurer in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

. It is alleged, however, that the demands of this position became too much for him. Having arranged for a replacement from Smyrna, he quit Turkey and returned to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 around 1670–71.

In London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Hedges involved himself in a variety of ventures. He joined the Mercers' Company
Worshipful Company of Mercers
The Worshipful Company of Mercers is the premier Livery Company of the City of London and ranks first in order of precedence. It is the first of the so-called "Great Twelve City Livery Companies". It was incorporated under a Royal Charter in 1394...

, supreme among the City
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

's Livery Companies. He invested £500 in the recently-reformed Royal African Company
Royal African Company
The Royal African Company was a slaving company set up by the Stuart family and London merchants once the former retook the English throne in the English Restoration of 1660...

. He served two stints as a Levant Company assistant. From 1677 to 1680, he was even a councilman for his local ward of Bassishaw
Bassishaw
Bassishaw is a ward in the City of London. This small ward is bounded on the east by Coleman Street ward, to the south by Cheap ward, to the north by Cripplegate ward, and on the west by Aldersgate ward...

.

Through his first marriage, Hedges had also aligned himself with London's dissenting Protestant movement. His brother-in-law and fellow merchant Jeremy Sambrooke was to become a leading dissenter. Hedges took part in the campaign against the Conventicle Act
Conventicle Act 1664
The Conventicle Act of 1664 was an Act of the Parliament of England that forbade conventicles...

 that forbade religious assemblies of more than five people outside the auspices of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. In the end, however, Hedges returned to the Anglican church.

Nearly a decade later, Hedges got his East India Company posting. At the time, the Company's commercial interests in Bengal were managed from Fort St George
Fort St George
Fort St George is the name of the first English fortress in India, founded in 1639 at the coastal city of Madras, the modern city of Chennai. The construction of the Fort provided the impetus for further settlements and trading activity, in what was originally a no man's land...

 in Madras, more than 800 miles down the coast. However, for a number of reasons, this arrangement was proving inadequate. Business in Bengal was expanding steadily, but at the same time the Company's interests were increasingly under threat from native rulers as well as from commercial parties keen on breaking its trade monopoly in that part of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. Further, there were rumblings against the management in Madras and accusations of dishonesty against the Company's own officials.

The Court of Directors therefore decided that the Bengal station needed more autonomy to cope with its various challenges, and created a separate Agency for the province. Hedges had already been elected as one of the Company's 24 directors in April 1881. On 3 September of that year, he was appointed the first chief agent and governor of the new Bengal Agency. His brief was to deal with the issues outlined above.
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