The British Empire Library


Highland Imperialist & Knight of India: Hector Munro of Novar (1726-1805)

by Stuart McCabe


The Author Explains
Sir Hector Munro of Novar; is a person not well known in Scottish history, yet during the Hanoverian period he is a figure that played a significant part in helping expand British imperial interests in India, and at home promote the agricultural and farming revolution of improvement which would drastically transform the culture of the Highlands.

He fought on the side of George II during the jabobite rebellion of 1745, and later he served as soldier in the British Empire, and with the multi-national East India Company. In India he rose as a commander and won two important sieges against the French and Dutch Empires, and fought several brutal battles against native princes, and won the important Battle of Buxar in 1764 against the Mughal Emperor.

At home in Scotland he would use his vast fortune to expand his own empire, acquired through aggressive land-acquisition. He also entered politics becoming a member of parliament.

Munro was one of the first to introduce the modern ideas of farming and agriculture that would contribute to the Highland Clearances, where whole communities would be replace by economies based on sheep farming. In one infamous incident he used military force to suppress a rising by crofters and cattlemen. He also promoted modernisation of roads and bridges across Scotland, transforming communications and communities in the Highlands.

This work seeks to examine events in Scotland during the reigns of George II and George III, through the life of Hector Munro, and narrates the complex politics of India, and the complexity of Highland Scotland's role in Empire

British Empire Book
Author
Rosemary Raza
First Published
2019
Pages
177
Publisher
Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
Availability
Amazon


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