24 Facts About British East India

1.

East India Company was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,393
2.

British East India seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, and kept trading posts and colonies in the Persian Gulf Residencies.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,394
3.

British East India ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,395
4.

Company eventually came to rule large areas of British East India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,396
5.

Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858 when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control of India in the form of the new British Raj.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,397
6.

British East India was dissolved in 1874 as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act enacted one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigial, powerless, and obsolete.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,398
7.

The official government machinery of the British East India Raj had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its armies.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,399
8.

British East India's granted her charter to their corporation named Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,400
9.

British East India achieved a major victory over the Portuguese in the Battle of Swally in 1612, at Suvali in Surat.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,401
10.

British East India decided to explore the feasibility of a foothold in mainland India, with official sanction from both Britain and the Mughal Empire, and requested that the Crown launch a diplomatic mission.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,402
11.

British East India established its first Indian factory in 1613 at Surat, Gujarat, and its second in 1616 at Masulipatnam on the Andhra Coast of the Bay of Bengal.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,403
12.

The high profits reported by the company after landing in British East India initially prompted James I to grant subsidiary licences to other trading companies in England.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,404
13.

British East India established trading posts in Surat, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta .

FactSnippet No. 1,253,405
14.

British East India Company was fiercely competitive with the Dutch and French throughout the 17th and 18th centuries over spices from the Spice Islands.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,406
15.

British East India's envoys had to prostrate themselves before the emperor, pay a large indemnity, and promise better behaviour in the future.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,407
16.

The companies merged in 1708, by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state, with the charter and agreement for the new United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the British East India Indies being awarded by Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,408
17.

British East India sought a permanent establishment, while Parliament would not willingly allow it greater autonomy and so relinquish the opportunity to exploit the company's profits.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,409
18.

British East India became the single largest player in the British global market.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,410
19.

British East India knew that Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn had amassed a substantial fortune from the Levant and Indian trades.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,411
20.

East India Company had been granted competitive advantages over colonial American tea importers to sell tea from its colonies in Asia in American colonies.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,412
21.

The British government took over its Indian possessions, its administrative powers and machinery, and its armed forces.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,413
22.

In 1818, the company entered into an agreement by which those of its servants who were certified insane in British East India might be cared for at Pembroke House, Hackney, London, a private lunatic asylum run by Dr George Rees until 1838, and thereafter by Dr William Williams.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,414
23.

The arrangement outlasted the company itself, continuing until 1870, when the British East India Office opened its own asylum, the Royal British East India Asylum, at Hanwell, Middlesex.

FactSnippet No. 1,253,415
24.

The East India Company's merchant mark consisted of a "Sign of Four" atop a heart within which was a saltire between the lower arms of which were the initials "EIC".

FactSnippet No. 1,253,416