Cornwallis in India each governed by a separate presidency, the Bengal region, including Calcutta, had come under the direct rule of the British East India Company in 1757, with authority to levy taxes, and its presidency dominated the others. Its civil head, the Governor-General of Fort William, ranked ahead of those of Madras and Bombay. Cornwallis quickly established himself as a transformational leader. British colonial administration was dominated in the 1760s and 1770s by Warren Hastings, the first man to hold the title of Governor-General. The military arm of the East India Company was directed during the Seven Years' War and the Second
Governor-general sovereign and performs the same duties as they carried out historically, though their role is almost purely ceremonial. Rare and controversial exceptions occurred in 1926, when Canadian Governor General the Viscount Byng of Vimy refused Prime Minister Mackenzie King's request for a dissolution of parliament; in 1953 and 1954 when the Governor-General of Pakistan, Ghulam Mohammad, staged a constitutional coup against the Prime Minister and then the Constituent Assembly; and in 1975, when the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, dismissed the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. In some realms, the monarch could in principle overrule a governor-general, but this has