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East Indiaman was a general name for any ship operating under charter or license to any of the East India Companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. Thus, one can speak of a Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, or Swedish East Indiaman.<br/><br/> In Britain, the Honourable East India Company itself did not generally own merchant ships, but held a monopoly granted to it by Queen Elizabeth I of England for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, which was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.<br/><br/> English (later British) East Indiamen usually ran between England, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The Indiamen often continued on to China before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena.<br/><br/>
A painting of the East Indiaman ‘Atlas’, shown off South Foreland, near Dover, in broadside view. She sailed on her first voyage to India in 1813 and made at least nine more thereafter until 1830.<br/><br/> The ‘Atlas’ was built in 1812 at Paul's Yard near Hull. She was mounted with 26-guns and had a complement of 130 men at full strength. During her East India Company service she sailed to Madras, Bengal and China under the command of Captain Charles Otway Mayne, who was able to accumulate a fortune as a result of these voyages.
The East India Company (also the East India Trading Company, English East India Company, and then the British East India Company) was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China.<br/><br/> The oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies, the Company was granted an English Royal Charter, under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, by Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600. It ceased to trade in 1857.
The launch of the Honourable East India Company ship 'Edinburgh' (1825), painted by William John Huggins. The view is from a boat in the Thames looking roughly north, with the Blackwall mast house visible above the 'Edinburgh' on the edge of the Brunswick Dock. There appears to be a yacht with a figurehead representing 'Fame' and flying the Scottish saltire on the left, and a Trinity House yacht in the right foreground.
Fort St George (or historically, White Town) is the name of the first English (later British) fortress in India, founded in 1644 at the coastal city of Madras, the modern city of Chennai.<br/><br/> The East India Company, which had entered India around 1600 for trading activities, had begun licensed trading at Surat, which was its initial bastion. However, to secure its trade lines and commercial interests in the spice trade, it felt the necessity of a port closer to the Malaccan Straits, and succeeded in purchasing a piece of coastal land, originally called Chennirayarpattinam or Channapatnam, from a Vijayanagar chieftain named Damerla Chennappa Nayaka based in Chandragiri, where the Company began the construction of a harbour and a fort.<br/><br/> The fort was completed on 23 April 1644, coinciding with St George's Day, celebrated in honour of the patron saint of England. The fort, hence christened Fort St George, faced the sea and some fishing villages, and it soon became the hub of merchant activity.<br/><br/> The fort currently houses the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly and other official buildings. The fort is one of 163 notified areas in the state of Tamil Nadu.
John Eldred sailed with Newberry and other merchants in 1583 on a royal decreed voyage to the Middle East to initiate trade in spices. Eldred remained in Basra while others continued to Persia and India. Six months later, Eldred left Basra with 70 barges laden with spices, mainly nutmeg and cinnamon. After 44 days they arrived in Baghdad where they joined a caravan of 4,000 camels that took 40 days to transport the merchandise to Aleppo in Syria. He remained in Aleppo for three years and when he left he was a wealthy man. He retired to the country in Suffolk buying a large manor which he named ‘Nutmeg Hall’. When the East India Company was established in 1600, Eldred became a major sponsor and financier.
After A Dutch spy, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, copied Portuguese nautical maps while working as secretary for the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa in the 1580s, his published maps and books enabled the maritime passage to the elusive East Indies to be opened to the English and the Dutch. This allowed the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company to break the 16th century monopoly enjoyed by the Portuguese on trade with the East Indies (Indonesia) and the Spice Islands (Moluccas), though not without a great deal of bloodshed. The Portuguese East India Company lost its stranglehold on East Indies’ trade and commerce, and was liquidated in 1633.
The East India Company, which became the British East India Company after the 1707 Treaty of Union, was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The Company was granted an English Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600. After a rival English company challenged its monopoly in the late 17th century, the two companies were merged in 1708 to form the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), colloquially referred to as John Company.<br/><br/> The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea and opium. The Company also came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions, to the exclusion, gradually, of its commercial pursuits; it effectively functioned as a megacorporation. Company rule in India, which effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, lasted until 1858, when, following the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British Crown assumed direct administration of India in the new British Raj. The Company itself was finally dissolved on 1 January 1874, as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act.
East Indiaman was a general name for any ship operating under charter or license to any of the East India Companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. Thus, one can speak of a Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, or Swedish East Indiaman.<br/><br/> In Britain, the Honourable East India Company itself did not generally own merchant ships, but held a monopoly granted to it by Queen Elizabeth I of England for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, which was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.<br/><br/> English (later British) East Indiamen usually ran between England, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The Indiamen often continued on to China before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena.
The 'Asia' was built in 1811 and is depicted off Hong Kong between 1831 and 1832. Huggins has painted her in starboard broadside, flying the red ensign and distinguishing flags. Chinese junks are shown to left and right of her, with more European ships in the distance depicted in front of what may be 'Lintin' (Nei Lingding) Island.<br/><br/> The subject of Indiamen in the East was a popular one with Huggins who began his working life at sea and served in the East India Company as a steward and assistant purser on board the 'Perseverance', which sailed for Bombay and China in December 1812, returning in August 1814.
The Kent was an East Indiaman, a vessel sailing for the British East India Company, and launched in 1820. She completed two voyages to Bombay and China for the Company and was on her third voyage, to Bengal and China, when she was lost at sea in the Bay of Biscay due to a fire. Her captain for all three voyages was Henry Cobb.<br/><br/> East Indiaman was a general name for any ship operating under charter or license to any of the East India Companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. Thus, one can speak of a Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, or Swedish East Indiaman.<br/><br/> In Britain, the Honourable East India Company itself did not generally own merchant ships, but held a monopoly granted to it by Queen Elizabeth I of England for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, which was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.<br/><br/> English (later British) East Indiamen usually ran between England, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The Indiamen often continued on to China before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena.