Arriving at
Madras in 1783 as an ensign in the
East India Company's Madras Army, he served as a regimental soldier for eleven years, before spending a year in Britain to restore his health. He returned to India in 1795 as Military Secretary to General Sir
Alured Clarke, participating en route in Clarke's capture of the
Cape of Good Hope. In the
Anglo-Mysore wars of 1799 he served with the
Hyderabad contingent, and later as joint secretary of the Peace Commission setting up the new government of
Mysore. Later that year he was selected by the Governor-General (
Lord Mornington, later Marquess Wellesley) to lead a diplomatic mission to Iran. Following his return in 1801 he became Wellesley's private secretary, based in
Calcutta (Kolkata). In the Anglo-Maratha war of 1803–05, he accompanied
Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) as the Governor-General's representative and diplomatic agent; the two men forming a lifelong friendship. In 1804, he was appointed British Resident at Mysore, but in 1805-6 saw further service in north India with General Lake. In early 1808, the Governor-General,
Lord Minto, sent him on a second mission to
Iran, but at this time French influence was dominant in
Tehran, and he was rebuffed. Later that year a separate mission from London under Sir Harford Jones arrived in Iran and achieved success, the Iran government having by then become disenchanted with the French. Malcolm was again sent to Iran in 1810, but by that time the British government had decided to conduct diplomatic relations with
Iran directly from London, and appointed
Sir Gore Ouseley as ambassador. In 1812, Malcolm returned to Britain for five years' furlough, and spent much of his time as a writer, completing his
History of Iran (the first in English derived directly from Iran sources) in 1815. For this he received an honorary DCL from the
University of Oxford. Returning to India in 1817, he acted as the Governor-General's agent in negotiations leading up to the third (and last) Anglo-Maratha war. He also acted as a general, leading Company troops to victory against Maharajah
Malhar Rao Holkar II at the decisive
Battle of Mahidpur (Mehidpoor) on 21 December 1817. In January 1818, Malcolm was placed by the
Marquess of Hastings in the military and political charge of Central India (roughly, today's
Madhya Pradesh); during the four years he filled that station, his attention was directed to the object of collecting materials for the illustration of its past and present condition. The report hereof he sent to Calcutta, where it was printed by order of Government. Disappointed to being superseded for the governorship of Bombay and Madras by his juniors, Malcolm left for Britain in 1822, where he lived with his family as a country gentleman, completing two more books. In 1827 he was appointed
Governor of Bombay. His governorship was generally successful, despite controversy over an unfortunate quarrel with the judges of the Bombay Supreme Court, who sought to extend their jurisdiction beyond Bombay to the
Deccan hinterland, newly acquired by the company from the Maratha
Peshwa of
Poona. In seeking to end both sati (the self-immolation of widows on their husband's funeral pyres) and female infanticide by moral persuasion, Malcolm visited
Gujarat in February 1830 and met
Sahajanand Swami, the founder of the
Swaminarayan sect of Hinduism, who was advocating similar reforms. He has ever since been remembered in Swaminarayan literature. Together with his predecessor, Mountstuart Elphinstone, he was a pioneer in the promotion of Indian education and the training of Indians for the higher ranks of government. He also served as president of the
Literary Society of Bombay In 1831 Malcolm finally returned to Britain, and immediately became a
Member of Parliament for the
rotten borough of
Launceston, supporting his friend the Duke of Wellington in opposition to the
Reform Bill. He bought
Warfield Hall in
Berkshire from the Parry family and busied himself renovating it. His last public act was a speech in April 1833 to the Proprietors (shareholders) of the East India Company, persuading them to accept the Government's terms for renewal of its Charter. Immediately afterwards he suffered a stroke and died on 30 May 1833. He was buried in
St James's Church, Piccadilly. There is a marble statue of Malcolm, by
Francis Chantrey, in the north transept of
Westminster Abbey. There is also a statue of him in the town hall at Bombay and a 100-foot-high obelisk celebrating his achievements on Whita Hill, above
Langholm in Scotland. ==Family==