Board of Revenue Proceedings, 4th January-15th January, 1788

About this text

Introductory notes

The early records preserved in the West Bengal State Archive pertains to the administration of the land revenue system by the East India Company. The Company attained the revenue rights of the Province through the Grant of Diwani in 1765. The records in the repositories of the Archive date back to the Select Committee Records in 1768. In the early the revenue administration was managed by various intermediary agencies, these committees reflect the early experiments and confusion of the East India Company over revenue collection.

The Court of Directors decided to reconsider the revenue administration in 1785. On this line the Court wrote in their General Letter, dated 21st September, 1785, that, there would be a Board of Revenue comprising of one of Junior Member of Council, and four other senior servants of the Company. The department would manage the whole administration of settlement, collection and receipt of every branch of the Revenue department together. The Board of Revenue at the Fort William operated from 1786 to 1822.

Selection details

The Court of Directors decided to reconsider the revenue administration in 1785. On this line the Court wrote in their General Letter, dated 21st September, 1785, that, there would be a Board of Revenue comprising of one of Junior Member of Council, and four other senior servants of the Company. The department would manage the whole administration of settlement, collection and receipt of every branch of the Revenue department together. The Board of Revenue at the Fort William operated from 1786 to 1822.

1.

1.1.

To John Shore esq President Member of the Board of the Revenue
Gentlemen,

We desire that you will transmit to us comparative account of the prices of grain during the months of October, November, December in the years 1786 and 1787 extracted from the prices current sent by the several collectors and accompanied by your opinion formed from the best information you can procure if there be any apprehensions of a scarcity of grain before the crops of the next season may be expected to be ripe.

We desire that you will procure as soon as possible a statement of the quantity of salt, the manufacture of the present of season which you suppose will be ready for sale and delivery on the of March next and that you will [...] to send orders to the different agents to hasten the deliveries as much as possible.

We are etc
Cornwallis & Council
This is a selection from the original text

Keywords

crops, grain, scarcity

Source text

Title: Board of Revenue Proceedings, 4th-15th January, 1788, Board of Revenue Proceedings

Subtitle: Vol-30.1

Original date(s) covered: 1788

Provenance/location: This text was transcribed from manuscripts at the West Bengal State Archives. Original date(s) covered: 1788 West Bengal State Archive

Digital edition

Language: English

Responsibility:

Texts collected by: Ayesha Mukherjee, Amlan Das Gupta, Azarmi Dukht Safavi

Texts transcribed by: Muhammad Irshad Alam, Bonisha Bhattacharya, Arshdeep Singh Brar, Muhammad Ehteshamuddin, Kahkashan Khalil, Sarbajit Mitra

Texts encoded by: Bonisha Bhattacharya, Shreya Bose, Lucy Corley, Kinshuk Das, Bedbyas Datta, Arshdeep Singh Brar, Sarbajit Mitra, Josh Monk, Reesoom Pal

Encoding checking by: Hannah Petrie, Gary Stringer, Charlotte Tupman

Genre: India > official correspondence > state archives > West Bengal

For more information about the project, contact Dr Ayesha Mukherjee at the University of Exeter.

Acknowledgements