1854 in India

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See also:	List of years in India Timeline of Indian history

Events in the year 1854 in India.

Incumbents

• James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie, Governor-General of India, 1848 to 1856
• Vyankatrao I Raje Ghorpade, Raja of Mudhol State, 20 February 1818-December 1854
• Balwantrao Raje Ghorpade, Raja of Mudhol State, December 1854-27 March 1862
• Thakur Sahib Akherajji IV Bhavsimhji, Rajput of Bhavnagar State, 1852–1854
• Thakur Sahib Jashwantsimhji Bhavsimhji, Rajput of Bhavnagar State, 1854–11 April 1870
• Muhammad Said Khan, Nawab of Rampur from 1840 to 1855, died on 1 April
• Ghulam Muhammad Ghouse Khan, Nawab of the Carnatic, 1825-1855

Events

• March– The British Raj annexed Jhansi, Lakshmibai was given a pension of Rs. 60,000 and ordered to leave the palace and the fort.
• The British Raj annexed Jhansi, Nagpur, and Oudh and began annexing Udaipur State, Chhattisgarh
• Nagpur became the administrative division of Chota Nagpur Division
• Bhopal Agency was absorbed into the Central India Agency
• The British medal first issued the India General Service Medal (1854) to exceptional British and Indian soldiers
• Calcutta Survey first issued Inverted Head 4 Annas postage stamps
• Dalhousie, India, a hill station in Himachal Pradesh, was established by the British Empire's government in India as a summer retreat for its troops and officials
• Howrah Junction railway station was opened
• The first train ran on Eastern Railway zone between Howrah and Hooghly on 15 August
• The Dalhousie administration formally dissolved Fort William College^[1]
• The East India Company formed the 3rd Bengal (European) Light Infantry which later helped suppress the Indian Rebellion of 1857
• Woodstock School, a Christian, international, co-educational, residential school located in Landour, a small hill station contiguous with the town of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, was established
• Government College of Art & Craft, one of the oldest art colleges in India, was established on 16 August at Garanhata, Chitpur
• Government Arts College, Kumbakonam was established on 19 October in Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu
• Happy Valley Tea Estate, a tea garden in Darjeeling district in the Indian state of West Bengal, was established
• Parliament's Act XXXIV of 1854, India's first Telegraph Act, set up the public telegraph in 1855
• Khana railway station was established
• The portion of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway from Tannah to Callian was opened on May 1
• Dadabhai Naoroji founded a Gujarati fortnightly publication, the Rast Goftar ('The Truth Teller'), to clarify Zoroastrian concepts and promote Parsi social reforms^[2]
• Alexander Cunningham, a British army engineer with the Bengal Engineer Group, published LADĀK: Physical, Statistical, and Historical with Notices of the Surrounding Countries^[3]
• Nathan Brown, an American missionary, published খ্রীষ্টৰ বিবৰণ আৰু শুভ বাৰ্তা, Jesus Christ and his Holy Messages
• William Prinsep sold Belvedere Estate to the East India Company

Births

• Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah, anti-British Indian revolutionary with sympathy for the Pan-Islamic movement, born on 7 July at Itwra Mohalla, Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh
• John Frederick McCrea, a South African recipient of the Victoria Cross, born on 2 April 1854 in Madras
• Matilda Smith, botanical artist whose work appeared in Curtis's Botanical Magazine for over forty years^[4]
• Isabel Cooper-Oakley, a prominent Theosophist and author, born on 31 January in Amritsar
• Arthur Anthony Macdonell, a noted Sanskrit scholar, born on 11 May in Muzaffarpur
• Richmond Ritchie, a British civil servant, born in Calcutta
• Vasudevanand Saraswati, Saint who is regarded as an incarnation of Lord Dattatreya, born on 13 August in Sindhudurg, Maharashtra, India

Deaths

• Armine Simcoe Henry Mountain, British Army officer who served as Adjutant-General in India, died on 8 February 1854 in Fatehgarh
• Vyankatrao I Raje Ghorpade, Raja of the Mudhol State
• Thakur Sahib Akherajji IV Bhavsimhji, Rajput of Bhavnagar State

References

1. Islam, Sirajul. "Fort William College". Banglapedia. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
2. Mohanram, edited by Ralph J. Crane & Radhika (2000). Shifting continents/colliding cultures : diaspora writing of the Indian subcontinent. Amsterdam: Rodopi. p. 62. ISBN 9042012617.
4. Ogilvie, Marilyn, and Joy Harvey. The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century. Routledge, 2003.