The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies, and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures. The EIC had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time. The operations of the company had a profound effect on the global balance of trade, almost single-handedly reversing the trend of eastward drain of Western bullion, seen since Roman times.
Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet, was an English economist, merchant and politician. He was an economist proponent of mercantilism and governor of the East India Company. He led the company in the Anglo-Mughal War.
The Bombay Presidency or Bombay Province, also called Bombay and Sind (1843–1936), was an administrative subdivision (province) of British India, with its capital in the city that came up over the seven islands of Bombay. The first mainland territory was acquired in the Konkan region with the Treaty of Bassein (1802). Mahabaleswar was the summer capital.
Kolkata (Calcutta) was a colonial city. The British East India Company developed Calcutta as a city by establishing an artificial riverine port in the 18th century CE. Kolkata was the capital of the British India until 1911, when the capital was relocated to Delhi. Kolkata grew rapidly in the 19th century to become the second most important city of the British Empire after London and was declared as the financial (commercial) capital of the British India. This was accompanied by the development of a culture that fused Indian philosophies with European tradition.
Major-General Sir David Ochterlony, 1st BaronetGCB was a Massachusetts born military officer of the East India Company in British India. He held the powerful post of British Resident to the Mughal court at Delhi.
The Mazagaon Fort was a British fort in Mazagaon, Bombay, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, built around 1680. The fort was razed by the Muslim Koli general, Yakut Khan in June 1690. The fort was located at the present-day Joseph Baptista Gardens, atop Bhandarwada Hill outside the Dockyard Road railway station.
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:
Sir George Oxenden (1620–1669) was the first governor of the Bombay Presidency during the early rule of the British East India Company in India.
Sir William Norris, 1st Baronet was an English diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1695 to 1701. He was also a servant of the East India Company, and served as ambassador to the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb. The family name is sometimes spelt Norres or Norreys.
Qasim Yakut Khan also known as Yakut Shaikhji, Yakub Khan and Sidi Yaqub was a naval Admiral and administrator of Janjira Fort who first served under Bijapur Sultanate and later under the Mughal Empire.
Bombay, also called Bom baim in Portuguese, is the financial and commercial capital of India and one of the most populous cities in the world.
Captain Richard Keigwin was a rebel governor of Bombay in 1683-84 during the East India Company's charter over Bombay. He was never recognized in this position by the Company. He acted as governor of Bombay with the support of the militia, whose salaries had been cut by the Governor, Joshua Child. He was also supported by the population at large who welcomed the withdrawal of trade monopolies during this period.
Bartholomew Harris was an English governor in India. After Sir John Child, 1st Baronet was appointed governor of Bombay in May 1687, Harris assumed the former office of Child as president of the English factory in Surat. After Child's death on 4 February 1690, Harris also assumed the Bombay presidency, even though he chose to stay in Surat, where he died on 10 May 1694. Harris was buried at the English Cemetery north of Surat near the Variav Gate, where his tomb is still to be found. Harris was buried next to his wife Arabella, who had died in 1686 at the age of eighteen. Both their names are inscribed on a stone marker inside the pavilion-like construction on top of their graves.
Sir Thomas Rolt (c.1631–1710) was a British official of the East India Company, President of Surat and Governor of Bombay from 1677 to 1681. His father was Edward Rolt of Pertenhall in Bedfordshire; his mother was Edward Rolt's second wife Mary, a daughter of Sir Oliver Cromwell.
John Vaux was the Deputy Governor of Bombay in 1689. In the year 1697, when Vaux, along with his wife, were enjoying a boat ride in River Tapi in Surat, the boat capsized. A landmark known as Vaux's Tomb was built at the mouth of the River Tapi. The tomb served as a guide to approaching sailors.
George Weldon was an English merchant and the Deputy Governor of Bombay.
Richard Child, 1st Earl Tylney, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1708 and 1734. Initially a Tory, he switched to supporting the Whigs after 1715. He held no Office of State, nor any commercial directorship of significance, but is remembered chiefly as the builder of the now long-demolished Palladian "princely mansion" Wanstead House, one of the first in the style constructed in Britain. In the furnishing of his mansion Child became the main patron of the Flemish painter Old Nollekens. He died in March 1750 aged 70 at Aix-en-Provence, France, and was buried on 29 May 1750 at Wanstead.
The Anglo-Mughal War, also known as Child's War, was the first Anglo-Indian War on the Indian subcontinent.
Virji Vora was an Indian merchant from Surat during the Mughal era. The East India Company Factory Records describe him as the richest merchant in the world at the time. According to English records, his personal worth is estimated to be worth 8 million rupees, a substantial amount of money at the time. He has been variously described as a "merchant prince," and a "plutocrat."
