Presidencies and provinces of British India

Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India, still earlier, Presidency towns, and collectively British India, were the administrative units of the territories of India under the tenancy or the sovereignty of either the English East India Company or the British Crown between 1612 and 1947.

British India is divided into three periods. From the early 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, the East India Company traded in Bengal on the sufferance of the native powers. Its rivals were the merchant trading companies of Holland and France. In the next hundred years, referred to as Company rule in India, the Company acquired paramountcy, but increasingly shared its sovereignty with the Crown, gradually losing its mercantile privileges. Following the Mutiny of 1857, the Company's remaining powers were transferred to the Crown initiating the direct rule by the British Empire (1858–1947). The term "British India" has also been used secondarily as a shortened form for "the British people in the British Empire in India." Quote: "The history of British India falls ... into three periods. From the beginning of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century the East India Company is a trading corporation, existing on the sufferance of the native powers, and in rivalry with the merchant companies of Holland and France. During the next century the Company acquires and consolidates its dominion, shares its sovereignty in...
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