John Prinsep

Who was John Prinsep?

John Prinsep was born the son of a vicar in rural Oxfordshire, England, with limited horizons for advancement. He joined the East India Company as a cadet, travelling to Bombay, and was soon engaged in mercantile pursuits, eventually becoming the earliest British merchant to plant indigo, and becoming extremely wealthy in the process. Prinsep subsequently returned to England, where he became a London alderman and a Member of Parliament, but he eventually lost both large fortunes he created. He was the progenitor of an Anglo-Indian family of merchants, all of whom were artistically gifted.

John Prinsep was born on 23 April 1746, the son of Rev. John Prinsep, BA graduate of Balliol College, Oxford and vicar of Bicester, Oxfordshire. The young Prinsep arrived in Bombay in 1771 as a cadet, shortly after the arrival of Warren Hastings as the first Governor-General of Bengal.

The vicar's son and former London cloth merchant arrived in Calcutta with almost nothing to his name.