The Bombay Presidency or Bombay Province, also called Bombay and Sind (1843–1936), was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India and later the Dominion of India, with its capital in the city that came up over the seven islands of Bombay. The first mainland territory was acquired in the Konkan region with the Treaty of Bassein. Poona was the summer capital.
Image: Bombay Prov north 1909
Image: Bombay Prov south 1909
Silver rupee of the Bombay Presidency, in the name of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah (ruled 1719–48), minted at Bombay in c. 1731. Most of the gold and silver coinages of the Presidencies were in the Mughal style.
1 Pice (1/64 Rupee) copper coin of the Bombay Presidency from 1821, with the United East India Company bale mark.
Presidencies and provinces of British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:Between 1612 and 1757 the East India Company (EIC) set up "factories" in several locations, mostly in coastal India, with the consent of the Mughal emperors, Maratha Empire or local rulers. Its rivals were the merchant trading companies of Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, and France. By the mid-18th century three Presidency towns: Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, had grown in size.
During the period of Company rule in India, 1757–1858, the Company gradually acquired sovereignty over large parts of India, now called "Presidencies". However, it also increasingly came under British government oversight, in effect sharing sovereignty with the Crown. At the same time, it gradually lost its mercantile privileges.
Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 the company's remaining powers were transferred to the Crown. Under the British Raj (1858–1947), administrative boundaries were extended to include a few other British-administered regions, such as Upper Burma. Increasingly, however, the unwieldy presidencies were broken up into "Provinces". The EIC presidency armies were restructured into the British Indian Army.
A mezzotint engraving of Fort William, Calcutta, the capital of the Bengal Presidency in British India 1735.
The Indian peninsula in 1700, showing the Mughal Empire and the European trading settlements.
The Indian peninsula in 1760, three years after the Battle of Plassey, showing the Maratha Empire and other prominent political states.
Expansion of British Bengal and Burma.