The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. The company was incorporated by British royal charter in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England tra...

Thomas Twining was an English merchant, and the founder of Twinings of London. The son of a fuller who moved to London when the boy was nine years old, Thomas was at first apprenticed to a weaver. He changed careers, however, and worked for...

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the overseas possessions and trading posts establ...

Major-General Robert Clive, also known as Clive of India, Commander-in-Chief of British India, was a British officer and privateer who established the military and political supremacy of the East India Company in Bengal. He is credited with...

Warren Hastings was the first Governor-General of Bengal, from 1772 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption and impeached in 1787, but after a long trial he was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1814....

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG, PC, styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. In the United States and the...

Britain's King George III was the 18th century monarch who lost the fight to keep control over the American colonies. The third monarch of the Hanover house and the first to be born in England, he held the throne from 1760 until 1820, a rei...

Sir Joseph Banks was an British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage (1768–1771). Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia...

Tipu Sultan, also known as the Tiger of Mysore and Tippoo Sahib, was a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore and a scholar, soldier and poet. Tipu was the eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali of Mysore and his wife Fatima Fakhr-un-Nisa. Tipu introduced...

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The battle consolidated the Company's presence in Bengal, which later expanded to cover much of I...

Sir David Ochterlony, 1st Baronet GCB, was a British general. In 1777, he went as a cadet to India, where he served under Lord Lake in the battles of Koil, Aligarh and Delhi, and was appointed resident at Delhi in 1803. As the official Brit...

Kew Gardens (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) is the world's largest collection of living plants. Founded in 1840 from the exotic garden at Kew Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, UK, its living collections include more than 30,0...

William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Me...

Richard Colley Wesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, was an Irish and British politician and colonial administrator. He first made his name as Governor-General of India between 1798 and 1805 and later served as Foreign Secretary in the British Ca...

Lieutenant Colonel James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident in Hyderabad from 1798 to 1805. He also built the historic Koti Residency in Hyderabad, a landmark and major tourist attraction. He married a local Hyderabadi noblewoman...