Bentinck, Lord William Henry Cavendish (1774–1839)

British colonial administrator, governor general of India 1828–35. He acted to suppress the Thugs (a fraternity of robbers who strangled their victims) and tried to stop the practice of suttee (the burning of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre). He also established English as the medium of instruction.

As governor of Madras (now Chennai) from 1803, he introduced reforms that provoked a mutiny among the Indian soldiers (sepoys), and was recalled 1807. He became governor general of Bengal 1827 and then governor general of India the following year.