John Malcolm
1769 - 1833
Early career: from soldier to diplomatist
Having reached Madras in April 1783, Malcolm was assigned to a regiment at Vellore. He had entered the service of what had become far more than a trading company. On the profits of the cotton textile trade and revenue from its growing territory, particularly Bengal, it was in competition with the many other regional kingdoms which were establishing themselves after the erosion of Mughal power. His first task as an ensign commanding sepoys was to escort to safety English prisoners surrendered by Tipu Sultan under the treaty of 11 May 1784. Boy Malcolm, as he long continued to be known, became a good horseman and marksman. Later, as adjutant in the 29th battalion of the Madras native infantry at Masulipatam, he paid off his debts and forsook gaming. When his regiment was ordered to Hyderabad in 1790, he determined to become a ‘political’ (diplomatic) officer. The ‘once careless’ youth became fluent in Persian. A chance opportunity came in 1792 when the military encampment of Lord Cornwallis at Seringapatam needed a Persian interpreter to serve as liaison between the company's and the nizam of Hyderabad's troops. After the war, in February 1794, he returned to England on medical leave.
Not long after Malcolm landed in England he presented a paper listing grievances of the company's military officers over their scanty pay and slow promotion. This caught the attention of Henry Dundas (later Lord Melville), president of the Board of Control. Dundas persuaded Sir Alured Clarke, the new commander-in-chief of the Madras army, to add Malcolm to his staff. In May 1795, after visiting his parents and studying briefly at the University of Edinburgh, he returned to India.
Early in 1796, following action against the Dutch on the Cape, Lieutenant Malcolm became private secretary to the commander-in-chief. This service continued under General George, Baron Harris, with extra income as town major of Fort St George. When Lord Mornington landed in April 1798 Malcolm submitted a paper on how to deal with the princes of India. In October, after being appointed assistant to the resident at Hyderabad, a crisis erupted. When, under company pressure, the nizam disbanded the ‘French corps’, the sepoys mutinied, seized their French officers, and threatened Malcolm's life. Only action by deserters from Malcolm's old infantry regiment, who were part of the mutinous corps, saved him. Hastening to the residency Malcolm took command of a body of the nizam's horse in support of the ‘Hyderabad contingent’; the muntineers were soon overawed and persuaded to lay down their arms. Malcolm then hurried to Calcutta, captured colours in hand, and personally laid a report of these events before the governor-general. He was invited to join the expedition then sailing south to deal with Tipu Sultan. After rejoining the Hyderabad contingent (19 January 1799), Malcolm became the key liaison between the governor-general and various military units, especially Mornington's brother Colonel Arthur Wellesley and the King's 33rd foot, deploying forces then marching upon Seringapatam during the Mysore campaign. After victory was assured, he was made first secretary of the commission for the settlement of Mysore, and became instrumental in restoring the former Hindu (Woodiyar) maharaja's family to rule over the territories of Mysore.
Envoy to Persia and private secretary to the governor-general
Meanwhile, Napoleon's presence in Egypt prompted British efforts to thwart French designs in India. Malcolm was chosen as envoy to Persia, the first person since Elizabeth's reign to undertake such a mission. He travelled overland from Madras, with stops in Hyderabad and Poona, and embarked from Bombay at the end of 1799. At Muscat the imam was induced to accept a company agent, but delays occurred at Bushehr, Shiraz, and Esfahan over stickling slights and protocols of etiquette and ceremonial, and almost a year passed before his audience with the shah took place. Lavish exchanging of presents (nazrs) took place before any serious negotiations could begin. Treaties were agreed on 28 January 1801 (but, in the end, never ratified): unrestricted trade, commercial stations, cession of the islands of Qishm, Anjam, and Kharg, and curbs upon French influence and upon actions by the amir of Afghanistan, Zaman Shah, in exchange for military supplies, ships, and troops. But Persia refused to give up its gulf islands. Malcolm returned to India by way of Baghdad, letting its Turkish pasha know that the company was determined to oppose French designs.
As acting private secretary to Marquess Wellesley, as Lord Mornington had now become, Malcolm soon accompanied the governor-general up the Ganges to settle the affairs of Oudh, another princely state. He then went to Madras to persuade the governor, Lord Clive, not to retire: Wellesley wished to preserve recently enacted revenue and judicial regulations and needed able and experienced officials to remain at their posts. By March 1802 Malcolm was becoming ‘Lord Wellesley's factotum and the greatest man in Calcutta’ (letter from Col. James Young, Kaye, 1.175). With war clouds again gathering, he went to Hyderabad and Poona to examine relations with their respective princes, the nizam and the peshwa. At Bhore Ghat, anticipating war, a Maratha chief seized and held him for a couple of days. In Bombay the Persian ambassador, Haji Khalil Khan, was killed during hostilities between company sepoys and Persian attendants; Malcolm sent Lieutenant Charles Pasley with the corpse and messages and gifts for the shah.
The Second Anglo-Maratha War began when Maharaja Holkar attacked and defeated Maharaja Sindhia and the peshwa, Baji Rao. The peshwa turned to the company for help, and on 31 December 1802 signed the treaty of Bassein. In March 1803 Malcolm joined General Arthur Wellesley as the Marquess Wellesley's representative and chief political negotiator, but he fell ill in June and went on leave. Military actions against Sindhia began in August 1803. Mountstuart Elphinstone took Malcolm's place, and he missed the great battles at Assaye and Argaon. But he then helped to negotiate terms for peace. The settlement made with Sindhia and lesser chiefs, especially his allowing Sindhia to keep his great stronghold at Gwalior (in which he was supported by Arthur Wellesley) incurred the wrath of the Marquess Wellesley. This censure, communicated on 22 April 1804, left him ‘perfectly heart-broken’ (DNB). He again fell ill, and was forced to retreat to the coast. As a consequence, he did not take up his new appointmend as political resident of Mysore, made in 1803, until December 1804. Early in 1805, others having failed, Wellesley sent Malcolm to deal with Sindhia. From Lord Lake's camp he advocated ways to deal with both Sindhia and Holkar, devising formulas for guaranteeing peace. After the peace treaty, concluded on 7 January 1806, he was assigned to settling hosts of land grants, pensions, and rewards for services rendered to the company during the three campaigns.
Not until late March 1807, after half a year in Calcutta, did Malcolm return to his post as resident of Mysore. He was never thrifty, and often engaged in costly diplomatic missions which, despite extra allowances, left him impoverished, as well as worn out from overwork and exposure to the climate. On 4 July 1807 he married (Isabella) Charlotte (1790–1867), younger daughter of Colonel Alexander Campbell. They had one son, George, who became a soldier, and four daughters, of whom Margaret eventually married her first cousin, also named Alexander Campbell. But despite marriage, Malcolm stayed restless. He hoped that, as a lieutenant-colonel, he might command a force going to Basrah and combine military with diplomatic functions. The governor-general, Lord Minto, however, was anxious about the impact of the treaty of Tilsit upon Indian affairs. Wishing to prevent a French–Russian advance towards India, he decided to send missions to Lahore, Kabul, and Tehran. Malcolm was chosen for Persia, but his mission ended ultimately in failure. Sent to the Persian Gulf with a somewhat vague commission, albeit backed by a force of three frigates and 500 sepoys, Malcolm's efforts to overcome French influence failed: his messengers were forbidden to advance beyond Shiraz. He abandoned his efforts, and had hardly returned to Calcutta when yet another expedition was launched. This too was hastily cancelled when Sir Harford Jones, who had arrived in Bombay en route to Persia as the crown's envoy, set off for Bushehr, determined to carry out his assignment. Jones replaced Malcolm because the court of directors remembered Malcolm's expensive policies as Wellesley's envoy in 1800.
In 1809 the Madras (‘white’) mutiny occurred: a European garrison at Masulipatam had revolted against its commander. Sir George Barlow, governor of Madras, sent Malcolm to investigate and make a settlement. When Malcolm arrived, the mutinous regiment was on the point of marching to Hyderabad, where the company's forces were also about to mutiny. Mutineers vaguely talked of a declaration of independence, emulating their erstwhile colonial cousins in America. Faced with this situation, Malcolm negotiated freedom for the commander (Colonel Innes), convened a meeting of company officers, and persuaded the mutineers to abandon plans for marching to Hyderabad. While he was successful, and thereby gained time, his conciliatory gestures were not approved. Sir George Barlow wanted nothing less than stern punishment for the mutineers.
Persia, England, and India: ambition frustrated
Malcolm returned to diplomatic service, and was again dispatched to Persia. Early in 1810, while at Bushehr, he completed his Sketch of the Political History of India (1811), which was later issued in expanded form as The Political History of India (1826; repr. 1970). In Tehran he was received with pomp and cordiality while Sir Harford Jones was snubbed. Jones, the crown's ambassador to the shah, was exasperated by lack of success and support from the East India Company, and reacted with fury. Tensions between the two delegations became extremely acute. Eventually the British government, wishing to keep all diplomatic relations strictly within its own control, took steps to nullify the actions of the governor-general. Sir Gore Ouseley was appointed as London's new ambassador to the shah; and on hearing the news Malcolm decided to leave Persia for India. (One of Malcolm's most durable legacies was his introduction to that country of the potato, one local name for which is translated as ‘Malcolm's plum’.) In vain the shah offered him inducements to remain as a military adviser, even bestowing a newly created order of the Lion and Sun of Persia upon him. On reaching Bombay and before returning to Britain, while awaiting the auditing of his expense accounts (which brought him censure), Malcolm started to write his History of Persia. At this time he also wrote his Observations on the Disturbances in the Madras Army in 1809, which came out shortly after his arrival in London in 1812. His Sketch of the Sikhs was published in the same year.
In England, Malcolm was knighted, allowed to keep the Persian order of the Lion and Sun, and made a KCB (April 1815). His views on the East India Company's army were sought by the Board of Control; and he gave testimony before the Commons on the renewal of the company's charter. He also became acquainted with literary figures, such as Sir Walter Scott; and his classic History of Persia, which appeared in 1815, brought him an honorary doctorate of laws from Oxford. Translated into French (1821), German (1830), and Persian (n.d.), the history was particularly valuable for contextualizing events surrounding his own time in Persia, and served as the standard western work for about a century. Claiming that he was bereft of funds, Malcolm eventually received £5000 from the company. Like any Indian officer, debarred from European service, he could look only to India and hope for a regimental command as colonel on full pay or for further political service. At forty-seven Malcolm again embarked for India, leaving his family behind him. While at sea, he wrote a review of William's History of the Bengal Army (Quarterly Review, 18, January 1818).
Malcolm reached India in March 1817, on the eve of the Third Anglo-Maratha War. The governor-general, Lord Moira, gladly welcomed him; and he was soon sent to visit various major princely states. As a brigadier in the Deccan army, he then took part in actions against the Pindaris, and was in the process of pursuing them across the River Narbada at the head of a light field force when formal word about the outbreak of war reached him. Not long after, Holkar of Indore joined the peshwa and the bhonsle of Berar in opposition to the British. On 21 December 1817, Malcolm's force engaged Holkar's army in battle at Mahidipur, and won a decisive victory. Yet his headlong charge against the Maratha position was considered by some to be more a result of sepoy valour than of good generalship. Holkar sued for peace on 6 January 1818. But it soon became clear that no attempt to ‘settle’ central India could succeed without a ‘voluntary’ surrender by the peshwa: Maratha warlords would refuse to lay down their arms and would go on fighting. On 1 June 1818 company forces finally surrounded Baji Rao's encampment. Malcolm offered the peshwa an annual pension of eight lakhs of rupees for life and gave him a twenty-four-hour ultimatum. The peshwa, having little choice, capitulated, and his forces were gradually disbanded. The size of the pension displeased the governor-general and the court of directors, though both later acknowledged that Malcolm had been right in setting the original terms. However, the peshwa survived for thirty-three years and the ultimate cost was £2 million. Full order and peace could not come to the peshwa's dominions without much more work, and Malcolm spent many months completing this task. Only after suppressing mutinous Arab contingents, building military cantonments, destroying formidable fortresses, and ending the formation of dangerous bunds by turbulent warriors did violence gradually subside. During this period Malcolm produced a vast report on Malwa (central India), which was published in Calcutta in 1821, and later expanded to become his Memoirs of Central India (1823).
At this point Malcolm's hopes and ambitions were thwarted and his pride offended. Mountstuart Elphinstone was picked to succeed Sir Evan Nepean as governor of Bombay. Malcolm was promoted major-general and GCB, but his wish to become lieutenant-governor of central India was refused by the court of directors; the newly won peshwa's territories were transferred to Bombay, and his hopes for the Madras governorship were dashed in 1820 when Sir Thomas Munro was chosen to succeed Hugh Elliot. Thus, despite the fact that his pay as brigadier and his stipends as a political officer left him better paid than the governor of Bombay, Malcolm was not mollified. His hopes for other military assignments, possibly expeditions against the amirs of Sind or against Ranjit Singh at Lahore, also came to nothing. While still popular among notables, officers, and princes in central India, he resigned his position and went to Bombay. The marquess of Hastings failed in his efforts to dissuade him from leaving. His homeward journey by way of Suez and the Mediterranean took until late April 1822.
Malcolm spent the next five years in England. Living with his family, initially at Frant, Sussex, near Tonbridge, and then at Hyde Hall, near Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, he cultivated contacts and wrote. His new acquaintances included Madame de Staël, Humboldt, Schlegel, Sedgwick, Julius Hare, and above all the Cambridge historian and philosopher of science William Whewell. After the appearance of his A Memoir of Central India (1823), Political History of India (1826), Sketches in Persia (1827), and Letter to the Duke of Wellington on the State of India, he sought new assignments. But hopes for another mission to Tehran foundered on his insistence that both crown and company credentials be granted him. His wish to succeed Munro as governor of Madras failed when he was unable to see that Stephen Lushington was already chosen. In contests between the company and the crown that he could never really win, he wore out the patience of friends. Some, like Wellington, wearied of his restless ambition and by now exaggerated sense of self-importance. Finally, the Bombay governorship again became open; and Malcolm accepted it. He hoped for Central India to be added to the Bombay presidency, or that his new post might serve as a stepping stone to the governor-generalship.
Governor of Bombay and final years
But what Malcolm encountered, as governor of Bombay, was more trouble than could have been anticipated. No sooner had he assumed office on 1 November 1827 than the Moru Raghanath v. Pandurang Ramachandra case came up, and an acrimonious constitutional crisis erupted. Sir John Grant, one of the Bombay supreme court judges, issued a writ of habeas corpus against Pandurang Ramachandra, a ‘privileged sirdar’ who was protected by a company treaty (sanad). This action, extending the court's jurisdiction beyond Bombay Island and touching matters ‘political’, was regarded as going beyond the legitimate limits of judicial authority. On 3 October 1828 the governor-in-council ordered a stay of proceedings in the Raghanath case and in similar writs of habeas corpus. Sir John Grant, piqued, retorted that he was not obliged to heed orders of the company's government. While the matter was being referred to the government of India and the crown, Malcolm forbade officials to discuss such sensitive matters in the press. When the commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Bradford, came to Grant's support and threatened to use military force, Malcolm decided that, should this occur, he would have Bradford arrested and deported. Grant then issued a writ of attachment against Pandurang Ramachandra and, when the governor failed to act on it, closed the court. This prompted Malcolm to issue a proclamation announcing that henceforth, since the court (Grant) was no longer protecting the persons and property of Bombay inhabitants, it was incumbent upon the government to act in its place. Such action was narrowly averted by the arrival of new judges. As they did not share Grant's views, this all but ended the matter—except that a letter from Ellenborough (president of the Board of Control) to Malcolm, referring to Grant as ‘like a wild elephant led away between two tame ones’ (Kaye, 2.530) found its way into the Bengal Harkaru—due to some mysterious foe's calculated indiscretion. This caused considerable embarrassment to the sender when news of the leak reached London.
This all-consuming ‘scandal’ was the last important event of Malcolm's career. While he tended other duties, such as country tours, visits to Baroda, Kathiawar, and Cutch, retrenchments, public works, road construction, and steam navigation (summarized in his ‘Farewell minute’ in his Government of India, 1833), his administration was not popular. Even though a statue (by Chantrey) was erected after he left Bombay, his day was clearly over. Following his return to England in 1831, his efforts to fulfil further public roles also ended in disappointment. Friends helped to secure his election for Launceston at the general election held that year, but at the election of 1832, held after the passage of the Reform Bill (which he opposed as Wellington's spokesman in the Commons), he was unsuccessful in a contest at Carlisle. Early in 1833 he was still working on his Government of India (1833) and Life of Clive (posthumously published in 1836) when he came down with flu. He continued to work, collecting documents on the company's charter renewal, and was addressing a meeting of the court of proprietors in this connection when he collapsed. After another partial recovery, he died on 30 May 1833, at his lodgings in Princes Street, Hanover Square, London. He was buried on 6 June at St James's, Piccadilly. A marble bust by Chantrey, paid for by subscription, was erected in Westminster Abbey, and an obelisk raised on Whita Hill, above Langholm, Dumfriesshire.
What distinguished Malcolm throughout most of his career was an ability to work with people and to inspire trust. Ambition, sensitivity, and self-confidence, sometimes excessive, accounted for many diplomatic successes. Influence in moulding policies undergirding imperial structures in India cast him as one the most able officers ever to have served the East India Company and the rising Indian empire. In the words of Malcolm Yapp, ‘he was the ideologue par excellence of British India ... His insight, his imagination, his willingness to think outside accepted patterns, and, above all, his capacity to bring in a range of considerations far beyond that of which others were capable, all mark him out as a man of real intellectual genius’ (Yapp, 53).
Robert Eric Frykenberg
Sources J. W. Kaye, The life and correspondence of Major-General Sir John Malcolm, GCB, late envoy to Persia and governor of Bombay, from unpublished letters and journals, 2 vols. (1856) · Life and letters of Sir Gilbert Elliott, first earl of Minto, from 1751 to 1806, when his public life in Europe was closed by his appointment to the vice-royalty of India, ed. countess of Minto, 3 vols. (1874) · The dispatches of ... the duke of Wellington ... from 1799 to 1818, ed. J. Gurwood, 13 vols. in 12 (1834–9) · A selection from the despatches, memoranda, and other papers relating to India of ... the duke of Wellington, ed. S. J. Owen (1880) · Supplementary despatches (correspondence) and memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur, duke of Wellington, ed. A. R. Wellesley, second duke of Wellington, 15 vols. (1858–72) · H. Jones Brydges, An account of the transactions of his majesty's mission to the court of Persia, in the years 1807–11, to which is appended, a brief history of the Wahauby, 2 vols. in 1 (1834) · F. Rawdon-Hastings, marquess of Hastings [Lord Moira], Comments excited by the conduct of the chairman at a meeting of the proprietors of the East India Company on the 11th February, 1825 (Malta, 1825) · F. Rawdon-Hastings, Papers regarding the administration of the marquis of Hastings in India: printed in conformity to the resolution of the court of proprietors of East-India stock of the 3d March 1824, 8 vols. (1824?) · Papers respecting the Pindarry and Mahratta wars laid before the court of the East India Company to enable the court to judge of the propriety of entertaining the question of further remuneration to the late governor-general, East India Company (1824), vol. 12, p. 466; vol. 4, p. 135 · Treaties and engagements with native princes and states in India, concluded for the most part in the years 1817 and 1818, East India Company (1824), iv, cxxxv · S. Smiles, A publisher and his friends: memoir and correspondence of the late John Murray, 2 vols. (1891) · DNB · GM, 1st ser., 103/2 (1833), 81–4, 559–60 · C. A. Bayly, Indian society and the making of the British empire (1988), vol. 2/1 of The new Cambridge history of India, ed. G. Johnson · B. Laufer, The American plant migration (1938) [Malcolm's plum] · M. E. Yapp, Strategies of British India: Britain, Iran and Afghanistan, 1798–1850 (1980) · private information (2005) [J. Malcolm]
Archives BL, corresp., Add. MSS 13602–13603, 13669, 13746–13748 · BL OIOC, diary, corresp., and papers, MS Eur. F 128, and home misc. series II, pt II, 202–209 · BL OIOC, letters relating to the Anglo-Maratha War, IOR MSS 9899/17 · BL OIOC, minutes on southern Maratha and Gujarat, MS Eur. D 640 [copies] · Bodl. Oxf., collections of history of Persia · JRL, report on judicial administration · NL Wales, letter-book :: BL, letters to Sir Charles Pasley, Add. MSS 41963–41964 · BL, letters to Lord Wellesley, Add. MSS 37282–37310, passim · BL OIOC, letters to Lord Amherst, MS Eur. F 140 · BL OIOC, letters to Sir Thomas Munro, MS Eur. F 151 · BL OIOC, letters to Henry Wellesley, MSS Eur. E 172–181 · Bodl. Oxf., letters to Sir Graves Haughton · Bodl. Oxf., letters to Richard Heber · CBS, letters to Lord Hobart · Herefs. RO, corresp. with Sir Harford Jones Brydges · NL Scot., corresp. with John Leyden and James Morton · NL Scot., corresp. with Sir Charles Malcolm · NL Scot., letters to Lord Melville · NL Scot., corresp. with first earl of Minto · NL Scot., letters to Sir Walter Scott · RGS, letters to Lord Melville, misc. corresp., and MSS · U. Nott. L., corresp. with Lord William Bentinck · U. Southampton L., corresp. with Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington
Likenesses W. Bewick, chalk drawing, 1824, Scot. NPG · G. Hayter, oils, 1826, Scot. NPG · J. Porter, mezzotint, pubd 1827 (after G. Hayter), BM, NPG · F. Chantrey, statue, 1831, Bombay · F. Chantrey, marble bust, exh. RA 1837, Westminster Abbey · F. Chantrey, bust, AM Oxf. · F. Chantrey, pencil drawing, NPG · S. Lane, oils, Oriental Club, London · S. Lane, oils, Scot. NPG
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Robert Eric Frykenberg, ‘Malcolm, Sir John (1769–1833)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17864, accessed 29 July 2013]
Sir John Malcolm (1769–1833): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17864
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