British East India Company

Facts about the British East India Company.

The beginning of the British East India Company was in 1600 when Queen Elisabeth I granted a charter to a London trading company and gave it monopoly on British trade with India. Their first trading post was established in 1612, at Surat in Gujarat. After that, the British East India Company established more trading posts at Madras (1640), Bengal (1651) and Bombay (1668).

It was the British East India Company that ruled India for almost 250 years, and not the British government. The British gained a lot of control in India, but many small and large states remained ‘independent’: they kept their kings and maharajas, but in the meanwhile the British made a fortune with mining and trading.

The British had everything under control and English became the language of administration. That was until 1857, the year of the Indian uprising, also known as the Indian Mutiny. This incident left deep scars on both the British and the Indians. The British government took over control and the British East India Company lost its power..

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