1 ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS. 369
2 ment of the administration was the closer attention paid te
3 affairs in Bhattiana. After a long boundary contention
4 with Patiala the British Government asserted its supremacy,
5 over the country upon which encroachment had been made,
6 and a separate district of Bhattiana was established about
7 1837, subsequently becoming part of the later Sirsa district.
8 These six districts were grouped for administrative pur-
9 poses into the Delhi and Hissar divisions. Things so re-
10 mained till Ranjit Singh’s death, and some years after-
11 wards, when the Darbar (or Sikh Court) was foolishly moved
12 to interfere on the other side of the Sutlej ; this led to the
13 first Sikh War, and the annexation of the cis-Sutlej dis-
14 tricts, Ferozepore, Ludhiana, Ambala, as well as (for
15 *security) the districts of Jullundur, Hoshiarpur, and Kan-
16 gra, which were trans-Sutlej, or between the Sutlej] and
17 the Beas Rivers. A British Resident was appointed to
18 aid the Darbar in administering the Punjab to the north-
19 west of the Beas River ; but a second Sikh war broke out,
20 ae in 1849, Lord Dalhousie very reluctantly annexed the
21 whole.
22 695. The Province was not attached to any Presi-
23 Administrative ai Gency, -but simply annexed to the Brit-
24 visions after an- jish dominion. It was~ divided into
25 nexation. Ses . a Le
26 seven divisions in charge eof Commission-
27 -ers, with headquarters at Ambala, Jullundur, Amritsar,
28 Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi and Leiah (Derajat), em-
29 bracing 24 districts. These districts were Thanesar, Am-
30 bala,*Simla, Kangra, Hoshiarpur, Jullundur, Ferozepore,
31 Pakpattan (1852 Gugera, 1865 Montgomery), Lahore, Am-
32 ritsar,. Batala (1852 Gurdaspur), Wazirabad (1852 Gujran-
33 wala), Gujrat, Shahpur, Rawalpindi, Leiah (1861 Bannu),
34 Dera Jsmail Khan, Jhang, Multan, Khangarh (1861
35 Mugzafiargarh), Dera Ghazi Khan and in 1852 Sialkot. The
36 three additional districts of Peshawar, Kohat and Hazara,
37 at first administered under thé direct control of the Board,
38 were formed into an eighth division about the year 1850.
39 Tn February 1858 the divisions of Delhi and Hissar were
40 formally incorporated in the province of the Punjab, add-
41 ing, six to the twenty-seven original districts. The
42 Thanesar district, however, was broken up in 1862, and
43 divided between Ambala and Karnal (Panipat). The
44 division of the Province into ten divisions and thirtv-two
45 districts continued for 22 years unchanged. : In 1884, how-
46 AA