William Wilberforce Bird (1784–1857) was a British colonial administrator who served as Deputy-Governor of

Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia an ...

and, in 1844, as the acting

Governor General of India The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 1 ...

William Wilberforce Bird had the same name as his father, who was

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

. He was born in 1784 and educated in

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined wit ...

and

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

before being nominated to join the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

in 1802. After training, he arrived in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

in 1803, where he undertook further training at the

Fort William College Fort William College (also known as the College of Fort William) was an academy of oriental studies and a centre of learning, founded on 18 August 1800 by Lord Wellesley, then Governor-General of British India, located within the Fort William co ...

and was then posted to

Benares Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic tra ...

. Bird conducted himself well in Benares, including on occasions when he had to deal with civil disturbances involving local people. He was involved in both financial and judicial work before being appointed to the Supreme Council of India, of which in due course he became president when the then Governor-General of India was absent. He served as Deputy-Governor of Bengal Presidency throughout the period when

Lord Ellenborough Baron Ellenborough, of Ellenborough in the County of Cumberland, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 19 April 1802 for the lawyer, judge and politician Sir Edward Law, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench from ...

was Governor, standing in for him while Ellenborough was engaged in the

North-Western Provinces The North-Western Provinces was an Presidencies and provinces of British India, administrative region in British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Ceded and Conquere ...

. Bird then replaced Ellenborough as Governor-General of India, acting in that capacity until the arrival of Sir Henry Hardinge from England in 1844. Hardinge reappointed Bird as Deputy-Governor of Bengal Presidency but Bird had retired from service and returned to England by the end of that year. In the same year, until October, he was President of

The Asiatic Society The Asiatic Society is a government of India organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of "Oriental research", in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions. It was founded by the p ...

. Bird married Hannah Elizabeth Brown, second daughter of David Brown, in Benares on 11 August 1818. He died at home on 1 June 1857. In the long-running debate concerning

education in India Education in India is primarily managed by state-run public education system, which fall under the command of the government at three levels: central, state and local. Under various articles of the Indian Constitution and the Right of Chi ...

, Bird favoured the secular cause, along with people such as

Thomas Macaulay Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, (; 25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a British historian and Whig politician, who served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and as the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1 ...

, as opposed to one that desired further to promote a Christian basis for schooling. He said in 1835 that secular education was having good results in India and raised concerns that a Christian approach might upset the native people, potentially leading to what he described as "catastrophes of a very serious description".

References

1784 births 1857 deaths Presidents of The Asiatic Society Governors-General of India Members of the Council of India British East India Company civil servants {{UK-gov-bio-stub