The Bengal Army was the army of the Presidency of Bengal, one of the three Presidencies of British India. Although based in Bengal in eastern India, the presidency stretched across northern India and the Himalayas all the way to the North West Frontier Province (now the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa). The Bengal Army included some of the most famous units in India: Skinner's Horse from Bengal, the Gurkhas from the Himalayas and the Corps of Guides on the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
The Presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company until the Government of India Act 1858 (passed in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857) transferred all three presidencies to the direct authority of the British Crown.
The Bengali presence in the Bengal Army was reduced in the late nineteenth century because of their perceived primary role as mutineers in the 1857 rebellion.
In 1903 all three presidency armies were merged into the Indian Army.
Famous quotes containing the words bengal and/or army:
“In Bengal to move at all
Is seldom, if ever, done,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.”
—Noël Coward (1899–1973)
“I thought when I was a young man that I would conquer the world with truth. I thought I would lead an army greater than Alexander ever dreamed of. Not to conquer nations, but to liberate mankind. With truth. With the golden sound of the Word. But only a few of them heard. Only a few of you understood. The rest of you put on black and sat in chapel.”
—Philip Dunne (1908–1992)