Harry Verelst (colonial governor)

Harry Verelst (11 February 1734 – 24 October 1785) was a colonial administrator with the British East India Company who served as the governor of Bengal from 1767 to 1769.

Like his predecessor, Verelst attempted to reform the Company's administration in Bengal, but he lacked Clive's authority.

After returning to Britain in 1770, he engaged in public polemics about his tenure and British rule in Bengal with William Bolts, a disgruntled former Company employee, and faced lawsuits incited by the latter.

Failing to transport much of his wealth from India, Verelst fell into dire financial straits and fled to the continent to evade his creditors.

With his uncle's help, Verelst gained employment as a writer (office clerk) in the East India Company's Bengal establishment.

A few months later, he was forced to take refuge at Falta with the Company's council after Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah's attack on Calcutta.

After Calcutta was retaken, he set out for Lakshmipur once again but was imprisoned by officers of the Nawab in violation of the treaty made by the latter with Robert Clive.

After his appointment as chief of the Lakshmipur factory was successfully contested by a higher-ranking Company servant, Verelst returned to Calcutta.

[1] In 1772 William Bolts, a former Company employee who had clashed with Verelst and been deported to Britain, published the first volume of his book Considerations on India Affairs, in which he criticised the system of British government in Bengal[5] and condemned what he considered to be the corruption of Clive's and Verelst's administrations.

[1] Later that year, Verelst published his response to Bolts accusations, a book titled View of the Rise, Progress and Present State of the English Government in Bengal.

[1] The lively polemics between Bolts and Verelst stimulated the great public debate that was occurring at the time about the Company's governance in India.

[7] However, Knott died in the desert on the overland route back to Britain, and all of the papers and possessions he was transporting were lost with him.