The East India Company
This
piece was inspired by a walk I did around Limehouse and Poplar a year or so ago,
and a recent episode of Michael Portillo’s ‘Great Indian Railway Journeys’. The
East India Company, the world’s richest and most powerful corporation enjoyed a
royally sanctioned monopoly on trade between London and the Far East for over
250 years, and left an indelible mark on London’s East End.
The origins of the East India Company go all the way
back to 1600, when Elizabeth I granted a charter to the ‘Company and Merchants
of London trading with the East Indies’. The Company was originally focused on bringing
back spices from South Asia - the first voyage left in 1601 and returned two
years later with 500 tons of peppercorns – but towards the end of the 17th
century it turned its attentions to India and its cotton. As early as the
1700s, the East India Company had come to dominate the global textile trade.
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| An East India warship destroying Chinese vessels in the First Opium War |
From 1699, the Company also began shipping goods from
Canton: silk, textiles, porcelain and, of course, tea. To pay for these, the
East India Company introduced large numbers of opium plants into China, which
they imported from their territories in India. This led to widespread addiction
and social breakdown in that country and eventually Britain and China became
embroiled in what became known as the Opium Wars.
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| The newly-built East India Dock at Blackwall 1806 |
Until the construction of the East India Docks in
1803, East India ships moored at the fishing hamlet of Blackwall, where the
cargoes were loaded onto barges before being taken in secure wagons (always
under armed guard) along Commercial Road to warehouses in the City - notable
the vast Cutler Street complex.
East India Company warehouses were of high quality to
reflect the kudos of the company and the high value of the goods being stored.
A huge staff was needed to operate the warehouses and these were much
sought-after posts offering fair wages and a welfare scheme. To weed out
inevitable attempts at pilfering, warehousemen coming off shift were ‘rubbed
down’. The more wily, however, got round this by sewing special pockets into
their clothes into which tea could be secreted! Punishments for theft ranged
from public whipping to transportation.
The emergence of the East India Company transformed several
East End communities and countless
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| 'Lascars' in Limehouse |
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| Main hall of the Stranger's Home in Limehouse |
By the 1820s, there were so many destitute Chinese on
the streets that a law was passed compelling the East India Company to provide
lodgings for Chinese and ‘Asiatic’ sailors waiting to sign on with a vessel. In
1857, the government opened the ‘Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and
South Sea Islanders’ on West India Dock Road in Limehouse.
But the East India Company did not remain a purely
commercial enterprise. By the mid-18th century, its remit has
widened considerably. It gradually took over full administrative powers over
its
territories, including the right to collect taxes, and was supported in
this by a military presence. The Company had always had its own armed security
service to defend its ships and warehouses, but this soon evolved into a fully-fledged
private army. By 1803, the Company had 260,000 soldiers to do its bidding. With power bases in Madras, Bombay and Bengal, the
East India Company soon took over the role of agent of the British government
in India, the vehicle through which control of the sub-continent was
coordinated before the days of the Raj.
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| Map showing East India Company territories |
But as the 19th century progressed, concerns
grew about corruption and mismanagement. Added to this, the Indian Mutiny of
1857 brought the Crown to the realisation that direct control was the way
forward. It removed the Company’s taxing powers, and seized its possessions and
armed forces. By 1874, the East India Company had been dissolved.
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| Restored lock gates at East India Dock basin |
Once capable of holding up to 250 ships at
a time, the East India Docks are now mostly filled in (they ceased to be
operational in 1967). Only the Grade II-listed lock gates are a reminder of the commercial
activity that used to take place here.
Local names, however, provide a nod to the
past: Clove Crescent, Oregano Drive, Nutmeg Lane and Saffron Avenue being just a
few.
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| East India House on Leadenhall Street |
The Company’s wharves and warehouses are also
long gone, and East India House, the Company’s grand headquarters on Leadenhall
Street has been replaced by Lloyds of London.
But St Matthias Old Church, sponsored by
the East India Company, still stands in Poplar - its many nautical-themed
graves a testament to this area’s history.
References:
The London
Encyclopedia ed. Ben Weinreb et al. (2008)
Artists’
London David Piper (1982)
East End
Chronicles Ed Glinert (2005)
