Cornwallis: The Imperial Years

Cornwallis #2

by Franklin B. Wickwire, Mary B. Wickwire

This is the second and final volume of Franklin and Mary Wickwire's definitive biography of Charles, first Marquis Cornwallis. Cornwallis: The Imperial Years, a comprehensive appraisal of Cornwallis's career and character, reveals the nature of British government in India and Ireland and analyzes British relations with France from 1793 to the conclusion of the peace of Amiens in 1802.

The first volume of the biography, Cornwallis: The American Adventure, was published in 1970 and focused on Cornwallis's unsuccessful imperial role during the American Revolution.

The Imperial Years studies in detail Cornwallis's work in India, his contributions in Britain as master general of the ordnance, his tenure as lord lieutenant and commander in chief in Ireland, and his diplomacy in negotiating the peace of Amiens. Through Cornwallis's career the book shows how the British made important decisions that affected the Empire for the century to follow.

After the defeat at Yorktown, Cornwallis remained a major figure in the British imperial order. Appointed governor general and commander in chief in India in 1786, he accomplished major reforms in the Indian civil service and judiciary and instituted a land revenue settlement in Bengal. Scholars have called these measures the Cornwallis Code. Though he encountered stiff opposition in his attempts to reform the Indian Army, he led that army to victory in the third Mysore War, which resulted in the addition of considerable territory to the British Empire in India. Rewarded with a Marquisate for his work, he returned to England in early 1794. Cornwallis's subsequent career included a term as master general of the ordnance (1795-1801), part of which time (1795-1798) he also served in the cabinet. He was next lord lieutenant and commander in chief in Ireland (1798-1801). In Ireland, Cornwallis extinguished the last fires of the rebellion of 1798, captured a French army sent to aid the rebels, pacified the country, and negotiated the Act of Union. In 1801 the Pitt government appointed him British plenipotentiary to arrange a peace with France, which resulted in the Amiens settlement. Dispatched again to India as governor general in 1805, Cornwallis died there at Gazipore.

A major contribution to British imperial history, Cornwallis: The Imperial Years is massively researched in primary materials. Like the first volume, it also is distinguished by vivid and accessible writing.

351 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1980

About the author

Franklin Bacon Wickwire was associate professor of British history at the University of Massachusetts. He earned his A.B. from Hanover College in 1952, his A.M. from Indiana University in 1956, and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1961.