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 Dictionary of Indian Biography (Buckland) |
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 Dictionary of Indian Biography G to I
| Date transcribed | 2011-04-00 | | Transcribed by | Peter Bailey | | Comment | Note that notables of Indian, Afghan, etc. origin do not always follow the alphabetical name pattern established by Buckland in his original work. |
| | Surnames | Impey | | | First Name(s) | Elijah | | | Titles | Sir | | | Year of Birth | 1732 | | | Year of Death | 1809 | | | Entry | Son of Elijah Impey, merchant : born June 13, 1732 : educated at Westminster (with Warren Hastings) : King's Scholar : and at Trinity College, Cambridge: Scholar : Fellow : called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn, 1756 : in 1772, counsel for the E. I. Co. before the House of Commons : under the Regulating Act of 1773 was appointed the first Chief Justice of the new Supreme Court at Calcutta, i.e. Chief Justice of Bengal : knighted : to India in 1774 : presided in 1775 at the trial of Nuncomar (q.v.) for forgery, and, after the jury's verdict of guilty, passed sentence of death : and Nuncomer was hanged, Aug. 5 : Impey's conduct on the trial has been impugned as having been actuated in behalf of Warren Hastings : there is no proof of collusion, and Impey has been pronounced by high authority to have behaved with absolute fairness : in 1777, he decided in favour of Hastings on the question of his alleged resignation of the Governor-Generalship : he sentenced (Sir) P. Francis (q.v.) to pay Rs. 50,000 damages in the Grand case : he was in 1780 made President of the new Sadr Diwani Adalat: there is no proof that he received extra salary for the office : at the instigation of Francis, through Burke in England, he was recalled in 1783, to answer six charges of illegality, which Sir Gilbert Elliot, afterwards Lord Minto (q.v.), brought forward in 1787 : Impey defended himself at the bar of the House of Commons and the impeachment was abandoned : M.P. for New Romney, 1790-6 : died Oct. 1, 1809. Owing to Burke (prompted by Francis) and to Mill's history (followed by Thornton and Macaulay,) Impey was long regarded as one of the ogres of Indian history, a traditional monster of iniquity. His Life, by his son, E. B. Impey, 1846, did something to rehabilitate his name, and, later, high authorities have done more : the fact that the virulent attempts to impeach him failed is most significant. |
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A List of eminent persons who served in British India, together with short biographical notes of each
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