Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Notes on the Text
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Redefining ‘the Age of Wilberforce’
- 1 ‘Spheres of Influence’: the Evangelical Clergy, c. 1770—1830
- 2 Business, Banking and Bibles in Late-Hanoverian London
- 3 The Development of an Anglican Evangelical Party, c. 1800—35
- 4 Forging an Evangelical Empire: Sierra Leone and the Wider British World
- 5 Patriotism, Piety and Patronage: Evangelicals and the Royal Navy
- 6 ‘Small Detachments of Maniacs’? Evangelicals and the East India Company
- Conclusion: Britannia Converted?
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - ‘Small Detachments of Maniacs’? Evangelicals and the East India Company
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 October 2019
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Notes on the Text
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Redefining ‘the Age of Wilberforce’
- 1 ‘Spheres of Influence’: the Evangelical Clergy, c. 1770—1830
- 2 Business, Banking and Bibles in Late-Hanoverian London
- 3 The Development of an Anglican Evangelical Party, c. 1800—35
- 4 Forging an Evangelical Empire: Sierra Leone and the Wider British World
- 5 Patriotism, Piety and Patronage: Evangelicals and the Royal Navy
- 6 ‘Small Detachments of Maniacs’? Evangelicals and the East India Company
- Conclusion: Britannia Converted?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In St George's Church in Bloomsbury is a marble memorial. A life-size male figure lounges in a reverie, his pen resting in one hand and a scroll in the other. He reclines on the bosom of a severe classical female: Faith, cradling a large cross. She points – summoning him, perhaps – towards heaven. The seated figure has turned away from his desk and his eyes follow her gesture. The symbolism is apt: the subject was a man of business and he expired in the midst of his work, returning from a day in the City of London and dying of a heart attack at home, soon after family prayers. He was, the inscription proclaims, Charles Grant: Chairman of the EIC, one of its Directors for many years and MP for Inverness, and a member of William Wilberforce's inner circle. The focus of his memorial was, however, very specific. It writes Grant up as a Christian empire-builder: one whose business life was shaped by his faith and dedicated to the promulgation of that faith abroad. Beneath him, a turbaned cherub lifts the veil on an impressive list of achievements:
PROMOTION OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN THE EAST – ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENT IN INDIA – PURCHASE OF PROTESTANT CHURCH AT CALCUTTA – ESTABLISHMENT OF EAST INDIA-COLLEGE AT HERTFORD – RENEWAL OF THE COMPANY's CHARTER IN MDCCCXIII
The text inscribed at the base of the memorial is still more laudatory.
THIS MONUMENT IS CONSECRATED BY THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, AS A TRIBUTE OF RESPECT AND AFFECTION TO THE PERSON WHOSE NAME IT BEARS, AS A RECORD OF THEIR HUMBLE GRATITUDE TO THE SUPREME BEING, FOR THE LONG CONTINUED BENEFITS WHICH THEY DERIVED FROM THE COUNSELS AND LABOURS OF THEIR LAMENTED DIRECTOR,
AND AS AN ENDURING MEMORIAL OF THE PRINCIPLES WHICH THEY DESIRE TO RENDER PREVALENT IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE IMMENSE DOMINIONS WHICH IT HAS PLEASED PROVIDENCE TO CONFIDE TO THEIR CHARGE.
Behind this declaration of consensus, however, lay controversy. The scheme was put forward at a Special Court of the EIC on 17 December 1823. Notwithstanding the encomiums heaped on the dead man by the London banker and MP John Smith, cousin of Wilberforce, several speakers were sceptical. William Fullerton Elphinstone (1740–1834) opposed singling Grant out: were not all Company men honest?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Converting BritanniaEvangelicals and British Public Life, 1770–1840, pp. 207 - 244Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019