HASTINGS, WARREN

born Dec. 6, 1732, Churchill, near Daylesford, Oxfordshire, Eng. died Aug. 22, 1818, Daylesford the first and most famous of the British governors general of India, who dominated Indian affairs from 1772 to 1785 and was impeached (though acquitted) on his return to England. Additional reading Penderel Moon, Warren Hastings and British India (1947), is the best short account. Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings (1954), is a full biography. P.J. Marshall, The Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1965), deals with the trial and the controversial episodes featured in it. For the English and Indian backgrounds respectively, see Lucy S. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics (1952); and Abdul Majed Khan, The Transition in Bengal, 17561775 (1969). Macaulay's essay on Warren Hastings, available in most editions of his collected essays, should still be read.