East India Company

This article is about the 16th–19th-century English and British trading company. For other uses, see East India Company (disambiguation). East India Company (EIC) Flag of the British East India Company (1801).svg Company flag after 1801 Former type Public Industry International trade Fate Dissolved Founded 31 December 1600 Founders John Watts, George White Defunct 1 June 1874 Headquarters London, England Colonial India British Indian Empire Imperial entities of India Dutch India 1605–1825 Danish India 1620–1869 French India 1769–1954 Portuguese India (1505–1961) Casa da Índia 1434–1833 Portuguese East India Company 1628–1633 British India (1612–1947) East India Company 1612–1757 Company rule in India 1757–1858 British Raj 1858–1947 British rule in Burma 1824–1948 Princely states 1721–1949 Partition of India 1947 v t e The East India Company (EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company or the British East India Company and informally as John Company,[1] was an English and later British joint-stock company,[2] which was formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China. Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.[3] The company received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth on 31 December 1600,[4] making it the oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies. Wealthy merchants and aristocrats owned the Company's shares.[5] The government owned no shares and had only indirect control. The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions.[6] 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. Despite frequent government intervention, the company had recurring problems with its finances. The company was dissolved in 1874 as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act passed one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigial, powerless, and obsolete. The official government machinery of British India had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its armies.