Ceded and Conquered Provinces

The Ceded and Conquered Provinces constituted a region in northern India that was ruled by the British East India Company from 1805 to 1834; it corresponded approximately—in present-day India—to all regions in Uttar Pradesh state with the exception of the Lucknow and Faizabad divisions of Awadh; in addition, it included the Delhi territory and, after 1816, the Kumaun division and a large part of the Garhwal division of present-day Uttarakhand state. In 1836, the region became the North-Western Provinces, and in 1904, the Agra Province within the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.

Ceded Provinces

At the start of the 19th century, only the Benares division and the fort of Allahabad in present-day Uttar Pradesh were under British rule. In 1801, the Nawab of Awadh, Saadat Ali, ceded some territory to the British in return for protection against a threat of attack from the north-west by Zaman Shah Durrani, the grandson of Ahmad Shah Durrani. The territory included the Gorakhpur and Rohilkhand divisions; the districts of Allahabad, Fatehpur, Cawnpore, Etawah, Mainpuri, Etah; the southern part of Mirzapur; and the terai parganas of Kumaun, and came to be known as the Ceded Provinces. A year later the Nawab of Farrukhabad ceded Farrukhabad district to the British.

Conquered Provinces

With the outbreak the Second Anglo-Maratha War, General Lake, took the Meerut division, and soon, the rest of the Agra division, and the districts around Delhi. In addition, most of the trans-Jamuna districts of Banda and Hamirpur were added, as well as a small area in Jalaun district.
In 1816, under the Treaty of Sugauli signed at the conclusion of the Anglo-Nepalese War, the Kumaon division and Dehradun district of present-day Uttarakhand state were annexed as well.

Administration

The Ceded and Conquered Provinces were a part of the Bengal Presidency of British India under the administration of the Governor-General-in-Council. The great distance of the newly acquired territory from the capital of the presidency in Calcutta created administrative hitches. In response, a number of temporary arrangements were attempted, but proved to be less than optimal; finally, in 1831, an independent Board of Revenue and a separate Sadr Diwani and Nizamat Adalat were created for these provinces. In 1833, an act of the British Parliament, the Government of India Act 1833 concurrently promulgated the division of the Bengal Presidency, the elevation the Ceded and Conquered Provinces to the new Presidency of Agra, and the appointment of a new Governor for the latter. However, the plan was never carried out, and in 1835 another act of Parliament, the India Act 1835 renamed the region the North Western Provinces, this time to be administered by a Lieutenant-Governor, the first of whom, Sir Charles Metcalfe, would be appointed in 1836.