The President of the Board of Control was a British government official in the late 18th and early 19th centuries responsible for overseeing the British East India Company and generally serving as the chief official in London responsible for Indian affairs. The position was frequently a cabinet level one. The position was abolished in 1858 with the abolition of the East India Company. It was succeeded by the new position of Secretary of State for India.
Image: 1st Baron Grenville cropped
Image: Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville by Sir Thomas Lawrence
Image: George Legge, Viscount Lewisham, later 3rd Earl of Dartmouth, 1778, by Batoni
William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, was a British Pittite Tory politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807, but was a supporter of the Whigs for the duration of the Napoleonic Wars. As prime minister, his most significant achievement was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. However, his government failed to either make peace with France or to accomplish Catholic emancipation and it was dismissed in the same year.
Lord Grenville as Chancellor of Oxford, by William Owen, c. 1809-25
A caricature of Saartjie Baartman, Lord Grenville, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan by William Heath