Place Name
Charles Cornwallis (December 31, 1738 – October 5, 1805), 1st Marquess Cornwallis, was a soldier and administrator probably best remembered as one of the leading military figures in the American War of Independence. His surrender in 1781 to a combined American and French force at the siege of Yorktown was to convince the British that continued fighting was futile. He later served as a civil and military governor in Ireland, where he helped bring about the Act of Union; and in India, where he was Governor General he pioneered major administrative reforms across civil, military, and corporate administration. According to historian Jerry Dupont, Cornwallis was responsible for “laying the foundation for British rule throughout India and setting standards for the services, courts and revenue collection that remained remarkably unaltered almost to the end of the British era.” He introduced legislation to protect native weavers who were sometimes forced into working at starvation wages by unscrupulous company employees, outlawed child slavery, and established a Sanskrit college for Hindus. When he returned to England he was appointed master of the ordnance, a post he held until 1798. In this position he was responsible for much of the British Army’s military infrastructure, overseeing its storage depots and supply infrastructure, as well as commanding its artillery and engineering forces. He oversaw improvements to Britain’s coastal defences, and was able to expand Woolwich Academy’s artillery training programme to address a significant shortage of qualified artillery officers. As Viceroy of Ireland between 1798 and 1801 at the time of the Union, he resigned when Catholic emancipation was not granted. And in 1802 he negotiated the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother Joseph, bringing a wide-ranging but short-lived period of peace across Europe. In 1805 he was reappointed Governor-General of India but died of a fever a few months after arriving. One of a cluster of streets named after military figures.
