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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 877: INDIA JURY BILL, ETC.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

INDIA JURY BILL, ETC.

An important alteration was introduced this session into the administration of justice in India, by a bill brought in by Mr. Wynn, for the regulation of juries within the territories of the East India Company. The existing law admitted all British subjects to serve upon juries; but the right had never been extended to all persons born within the British dominions. During late years a large population had sprung up in India, known by the name of “half-caste,” one of their parents having been a native, and the other an European. This class, though born in wedlock, as well as another numerous class, consisting of the illegitimate children of European fathers by Indian mothers, were disqualified from serving upon juries, under the idea that they were not British subjects; and Mr. Wynn moved that this disqualification should be removed, which motion was adopted. A bill was also passed this session allowing the East India Company to appoint any person to a writership who should produce testimonials of character, and undergo such an examination as might be fixed by the court of directors and the Indian board. By an act, passed in 1813, no person was eligible to be a writer in the Company’s service who had not passed four terms in the East Indian college; and in consequence of the extension of the Company’s territories, and the establishment, of new courts in Bengal, much inconvenience had arisen from the restriction, as the college could not supply a sufficient number of young men fit for office.