The East India Company
Basic facts:
- founded in 1600 , when a corporation of merchants was granted a royal charter for trading with the East Indies
- trading with the East Indies
- consisted of numerous stockholders (Court of Proprietors) who met regularly and appointed a Court of Directors
- after initial problems, the Company settled and expanded in India and East Asia and held trade monopolies
- the East India Company engaged in local ruling and warfare
- after 1773 , several Acts of Parliament sought to regulate and control the East India Company
- the Company was dissolved in 1874
Traded goods
In the Eighteenth Century, the East India Company mainly traded in
commodities such as:
- spices: pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger
etc. (from the "spice islands")
- tea: (mainly from China)
- (dyed) cotton, silk (India, China)
- porcelain, furniture (China, Japan)
The East India Company and London
The East India Trade was virtually omnipresent in eighteenth-century London:
- East India House in Leadenhal Street
- the East India Docks in Deptford and Blackwall
- storage buildings in the City of London
- goods sold everywhere in shops and at auctions
- increasing numbers of coffee- and tea houses
- daily news and advertisements in the numerous newspapers
Main theses
- the East India Trade was a key institution in the transformation of the economic system that took place in the eighteenth century
- many of the things that are considered characteristic for Britain and British lifestyle today go back to the East India trade
