Talk:Viceroy of India

The page has "The term viceroy derives from vice and royal. The Viceroy's wife was called the vicerine."

Is that correct? I have always thought that viceroy derives from vice and roy (where roy means "king"). Also, is the spelling of the title of his wife "vicereine"? Does anyone know which is right please?

Songwriter 13:47 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

My dictionary has Vice + roy, and your spelling for the wife's name, so I'll put that info into the article. (of course it also claims that vicereine can also mean a female viceroy: are they guessing, or has there actually been one somewhere?) -- Someone else

I have a bit of a problem. I'm about to rewrite the article on the Earl of Halifax but I have his dates of the Viceroyship as being April 1926 to April 1931, these being the dates he arrived and left India. His DNB article clearly describes him as carrying out viceroy-type activities right up until his departure - certainly until January 1931 but that rather eliminates Goschen from proceedings. Is there perhaps quite a big gap between the time when viceroys are named and the time they take up their positions and does this table reflect that? I'll make no changes (except to the Halifax article) until I know what the situation is for fear of making a mess of everything.

--Mr impossible 15:11, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Huh, yeah, I've seen that dating as well. The National Portrait Gallery only calls Goschen Governor of Madras from 1924-1929. The Langer Encyclopedia of World History calls Irwin Viceroy from 1926 to 1931, and discusses stuff he did in 1931. On the other hand, Britannica says that he was Viceroy from 1925 to 1931, but then says his "term in India" was from 1925 to 1929. I would imagine that what we have here is that Halifax remained Viceroy until 1931, but left India in 1929, and Goschen was acting Governor-General in his absence. But I have no idea - need to find a good book on the Raj to check up on this, I'd guess. john 16:54, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Surely it's the other way round. He definitely left India in April 1931 but perhaps Goschen had been appointed before that. I wouldn't trust Britannica to tell me the sun was coming up tomorrow. I shall look in Lawrence James' Raj if I can track down a copy. Bookshop for lunch again then. I'm just getting sadder and sadder. --Mr impossible 10:24, 7 May 2004 (UTC)