Lieutenant Governor
Lieutenant Governor constitutionally a deputy of the Governor General in Council entrusted with the responsibility of governing the province on behalf of the Governor of Bengal Presidency who was concurrently the Governor General of India. The series of conquests and annexations made by the fort william authority enlarged the Bengal province to the largest part of northern and northwestern India. The Charter Act of 1833 provided for bifurcating the presidency by creating two new provinces to be governed by Lieutenant Governors who will be appointed by and responsible to the Governor General. Thus a new province called North Western Provinces was created and to govern it a Lieutenant Governor was appointed in 1835. But no similar post was created for Bengal proper though it became administratively too much a burden on the Governor General whose preoccupation with imperial affairs did not permit him to pay any meaningful attention to the affairs of the province. Administratively Bengal remained neglected. The press and public opinion had been too critical about such a state of affairs.
| Frederick James Halliday | (1 May 1854) |
| Sir John Peter Grant | (1 May 1859) |
| Sir Cecil Beadon | (23 April 1862) |
| Sir Willam Grey | (23 April 1867) |
| Sir George Campbell | (1 March 1871) |
| Sir Richard Temple | (9 April 1874) |
| Sir Ashley Eden | (8 January 1877 - 1 May 1877) |
| Sir Steuart Colvin Bayley | (15 July 1879 - 1 Dec 1879) |
| Sir Augustus Rivers Thompson | (24 April 1882) |
| Mr Horace Abel Clckerell, | (11 August 1885 - 17 Sep 1885) |
| Sir Steuart Colvin Bayley | (2 April 1887 |
| Sir Charles Alfred Elliott | (17 December 1890) |
| Sir Antony Patrick MacDonnell | (30 May 1893 - 30 Nov 1893) |
| Sir Alexander Mackenzie | (18 Dec. 1895 - 7 April 1898) |
| Sir Charles Cecil Stevens | (22 June 1897 - 21 Dec 1897) |
| Sir John Woodburn | (1898) |
| Sir B Fuller | (1905) |
| Sir Andrew Fraser | (1906) |
| Sir Edward Baker | (1912) |
At last, under the charter actS of 1853 the Governor General was relieved of his duties as Governor of Bengal and he was empowered by the Act to appoint a Lieutenant Governor for the Bengal province with an independent Secretariat and Legislative Council.
The Governor General of India thus appointed on 1 May 1854 Sir Frederick James halliday the first Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. On the partition of bengal (1905) two Lieutenant Governors were appointed for the two newly created provinces- Bengal (including Bihar and Orissa) and Eastern Bengal and Assam. With the reversal of the partition in December 1911, Bengal was reunited with the constitutional change that a Governor in Council would now govern the province of Bengal Presidency with the same powers and functions of the Governors of Madras and Bombay presidencies. Lord carmichael was the first Governor of Bengal and he assumed office on 1 April 1912. [Sirajul Islam]
