where lamps are exchanged. She made him
Earl of Beaconsfield at this time. After the nominal
Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was deposed at the conclusion of the
Indian Rebellion of 1857 (10 May 1857 – 1 November 1858), the government of the
United Kingdom decided to transfer control of
British India and the
princely states from the mercantile
East India Company (EIC) to
the Crown, thus marking the beginning of the
British Raj. The EIC
was officially dissolved on 1 June 1874, and the
British prime minister,
Benjamin Disraeli, decided to offer
Queen Victoria the title "Empress of India" shortly afterwards. Victoria accepted this style on 1 May 1876. The first
Delhi Durbar (which served as an imperial coronation) was held in her honour eight months later on 1 January 1877. The idea of having Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India was not particularly new, as
Lord Ellenborough had already suggested it in 1843 upon becoming the
governor-general of India. By 1874,
Major-General Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen's private secretary, had ordered English charters to be scrutinised for imperial titles, with
Edgar and
Stephen mentioned as sound precedents. The Queen, possibly irritated by the sallies of the republicans, the tendency to democracy, and the realisation that her influence was manifestly on the decline, was urging the move. Another factor may have been that the Queen's first child,
Victoria, was married to
Frederick, the heir apparent to the
German Empire. Upon becoming empress, she would outrank her mother. By January 1876, the Queen's insistence was so great that Benjamin Disraeli felt that he could procrastinate no longer. Hence, the title
Kaisar-i-Hind was coined in 1876 by the orientalist
G.W. Leitner as the official imperial title for the British monarch in India. The term
Kaisar-i-Hind means emperor of India in the vernacular of the Hindi and Urdu languages. The word
kaisar, meaning 'emperor', is a derivative of the Roman imperial title (via
Persian and
Ottoman Turkish – see ), and is cognate with the German title , which was borrowed from the Latin at an earlier date. Many in the United Kingdom, however, regarded the assumption of the title as an obvious development from the
Government of India Act 1858, which resulted in the founding of British India, ruled directly by
the Crown. The public were of the opinion that the title of "queen" was no longer adequate for the ceremonial ruler of what was often referred to informally as the "Indian Empire". The new styling underlined the fact that the native states were no longer a mere agglomeration but a collective entity. When
Edward VII ascended to the throne on 22 January 1901, he continued the imperial tradition laid down by his mother, Queen Victoria, by adopting the title Emperor of India. Three subsequent British monarchs followed in his footsteps, and the title continued to be used after India and Pakistan had become independent on 15 August 1947. It was not until 22 June 1948 that the style was officially abolished. The King wrote in his diary that it was heavy and uncomfortable to wear: "Rather tired after wearing my crown for hours; it hurt my head, as it is pretty heavy." The title "Emperor of India" did not disappear when British India became the
Union of India (1947–1950) and
Dominion of Pakistan (1947–1952) after independence in 1947. George VI retained the title until 22 June 1948, the date of a Royal Proclamation made in accordance with Section 7 (2) of the
Indian Independence Act 1947, reading: "The assent of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is hereby given to the omission from the Royal Style and Titles of the words and the words "Emperor of India" and to the issue by His Majesty for that purpose of His Royal Proclamation under the Great Seal of the Realm." Thereafter, George VI remained monarch of Pakistan until his death in 1952, and of India until it became the
Republic of India on 26 January 1950.
British coins, as well as those of the
Empire and the
Commonwealth, had routinely included the abbreviated title . Coins in India, on the other hand, had the word
empress, and later
king-emperor in English. The title appeared on coinage in the United Kingdom throughout 1948, with a further Royal Proclamation made on 22 December under the
Coinage Act 1870 to omit the abbreviated title. ==List of title-holders==