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The British Empire was the largest empire in history.

In the late 1500s, under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, England was a seafaring nation embarking on an age of exploration. The captains of these expeditions weren’t setting out for free, though. Their voyages were were about making England wealthy. Kings and Queens in Europe knew that there was wealth to be found abroad - whether that was gold and silver, or valuable goods like exotic materials or foods that couldn’t be found in their home lands.

At this time many of the countries of Europe were at war, and so the English knew that a race was on not just to ’discover’ new lands but also to capture them before rivals like Spain, Portugal and France got there first!

Over the next 400 years, the English navy, merchants and soldiers gradually explored the globe. They took and held onto many lands as their own. By the 1700s British rule was worldwide and the British Empire became the leading global power from 1815 to 1945. Some countries still recognise the English monarch as ‘head of state’ - such as Canada and Australia.

Others were famously lost - like the North American states that are now the USA!

The nations that were colonised by the British had British laws and customs imposed upon them, were often violently oppressed and lost their ability to govern themselves. Many nations fought against the imposing British Empire however uprisings and protests were severely punished. While the British Empire lost dominance after the Second World War, the effects on the world can still be seen to this day.

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There was a saying that ‘the sun never set on the British Empire’. If you look at a map of the Empire, you’ll see that this means that the British had lands or colonies in every timezone around the world.

Arguably the most economically important of these territiores was India -called The ‘Jewel in the crown’ of the Empire. Britain dominated the country from 1757 and directly ruled over it from 1858. The wealth taken from India funded Britain’s industrial revolution.

This is a divisive period of history. Some historians argue that India benefitted from British rule and the thousands of kilometres of railways it built, the schools, hospitals and factories it put in place and the new legal system that helped settle ancient regional rivalries. Other historians argue that all of this was for the benefit of the British and their economy, and was all put in place without India’s consent or agreement.

Certainly, British customs and traditions were forced onto their colonies whilst local traditions, cultures and religions were ignored or trampled on. Workers were exploited and their land was seized. Any rebellions there were (and there were many) were often treated excessively harshly by the British troops.

Trading companies were one of the biggest means of expansion for the British Empire. and The East India Company (EIC) was one of the most important.

The EIC is an early example of Globalization and this book will show how although it was born from trade with India, it came to link with the transatlantic slave trade, the production of cotton in Asia, and even with a war over tea with China. It may be long gone but its presence is still felt, both in the UK and in India especially.

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A Peters projection map showing more accurate scale of countries and continents. 

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Maps were hugely important during the time of the British Empire to establish working trade routes and to see goods and people safely transported round the world. Maps were also a great tool for rulers to show off the extent of their empires.

The map of the world we’re used to seeing is what’s called a Mercator map and dates from roughly 1569, when the British Empire was just starting to grow. It was useful because it can show the North and South of each country as ‘up’ and ‘down’ whilst still showing all the other directions, but it isn’t very accurate.

Mercator maps cannot show what size countries actually are because you cannot unfold a sphere into a flat rectangle map, and so the countries are resized. On a Mercator map, the countires of the global north look a lot bigger than they really are.

This has drawn a lot of criticism because it’s said to make continents like Africa and countries like India appear smaller and less important than the exaggerated European ones. Despite its inaccuracies though, the Mercator world map is very useful for navigation and is still in use today, in schools, books and even Google Maps

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The map for the Imperial Federation 1886. It was produced to mark the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, a major event at South Kensington in London. It was opened by Queen Victoria and by the time it closed in had enjoyed over 5 million visitors.

The map shows the countries under British rule by 1886 in pink and the main trading routes and colonies of the time. It is decorated with illustrations of figures from all round the world in the border – an Aboriginal person from Australia, a Native American chief, Canadian fur trappers as well as others. The mythical figurehead for Great Britain, Britannia, is front and centre, with her trident pointing to Britain, resting on a globe of her own.

The art of the map could be telling two conflicting stories. On the one hand, it’s clearly putting the British Empire at the top with all the other countries and continents underneath – Britain here is represented by Britannia, commonly shown as a helmeted female warrior. On the other hand, whilst India is represented by a Rajah, tiger and elephant in all their splendour, there is also an Indian labourer bent double under a bale of cotton, standing between two British colonial officers. Britannia is also sitting in triumph on top of a globe held up by the mythological Greek Titan Atlas, who has a banner around him saying ‘Human Labour’. Perhaps the illustrator for this map felt that both stories should be told?

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James Lancaster was given command of the first East India Company fleet in 1600. 

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The East India Company (EIC) was a British company founded in 1600 to start trading in South, Southeast and East Asia.

Over the course of its life the company gained control of large chunks of the region and at its peak it was the largest corporation in the world with its own army twice the size of the entire British Army.

Yes - you read this correctly! The EIC was a private company with it’s own army. It’s as if Amazon or Microsoft owned a military to help them to improve their business! At one point it had a hand in half of the world’s trade, especially in staples like cotton, spices, sugar, salt, indigo and tea. As well as being involved in the Transatlantic slave trade, the company came to rule over large parts of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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The later EIC flag featuring the Union flag of Great Britain

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For a trading company overseas a flag was extremely important. At a time when lots of countries were at war with one another and when piracy was a real danger, a flag told another ship or a country exactly who they would be trading with (or stealing from!)

Originally the flag was the cross of St George in the left corner with lots of horizontal red stripes around it. This caused a bit of a problem when trading with Japan because the cross was seen by Japanese rulers as a symbol of Christianity. In 1616 EIC ships were turned away from Japanese ports because the cross had been banned.

The flag changed when Scotland and Northern Ireland became part of the United Kingdom. It is possible the EIC flag might even have inspired the first flag of the United States, America had been part of the British Empire and some historians believe the Founding Fathers of America wanted a flag that symbolised American loyalty to the British whilst also representing the self-governance of the EIC. There’s alsoa theory that Americanss wanted a flag that would ally them with the EIC against the British Crown in their War of Independence!

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The earlier EIC flag with the St George's cross

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The merchant's mark of the East India Company.

Soon after founding, the company began branding its cargoes with this 'balemark' to allow easy identification of their goods in busy ports and markets.

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Samples of some of the spices that were brought back to Elizabethan England. Peppercorns. Ground nutmeg and a whole nutmeg. Ground cinnamon and a cinamon stick. Ground cloves

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In 1579, amidst England’s war with Spain, Francis Drake sailed to the East Indies across the Pacific Ocean and discovered the Moluccas or Spice Islands. Although the Moluccas had been known to the Spanish and Portuguese for some time, this was the first time a British sailor had gone there.

In exchange for linen, gold and silver, Drake was able to bring back huge amounts of exotic new spices like cloves and nutmeg. These can be bought today in any supermarket in the UK, but back then they caused a huge stir.

Before then, British food was traditionally fairly bland, with only traditional homegrown herbs.

A lot of money could be made out of these new spices that added such flavour to food and during Elizabeth I’s reign London merchants petitioned the Queen to allow them to go to the Indian Ocean and start challenging the Spanish and Portuguese trade monopoly there.

In 1592 Portuguese rutter was captured. A rutter is asailor’s handbook with information on how to safely navigate the oceans. With this information, the English now had access to new routes to China, Japan and India.

In 1602 another Portuguese ship was captured by the newly formed British East India Company. The goods on this ship were so valuable they allowed the EIC to set up two trading posts for spices. By the late 1600s the EIC had grown in power and established trading stations all across Eastern Asia to funnel spices back to England.

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British involvement in African slavery goes back hundreds of years, right back to the Tudors. The wealth of global empires depended on the use of slave labour. The enslaved provided the workforce needed to cheaply produce many of the trade goods that were then sold on for massive profits.

Although Elizabeth I originally did not at first agree to slavery, she later allowed John Hawkins - the first British transatlantic slaver - to go to West Africa for the purpose of procuring slaves for British territory in the Americas. Over the next hundred years slavery became a royally-appointed business.

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This coin is also called a Guinea and on one side shows King Charles II with a tiny elephant below him. The elephant is there to show that the gold to make this guinea came directly from the Royal African Company’s work. Guinea coins would be in British pockets and purses for 150 years.

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In 1663 King Charles II sold control of the African slave trade to The Company of Royal Adventurers which would later become known as the Royal African Company. Charles poured money into the Company and it became well known for its trade in gold, ivory and in slaves from the Asante peoples and region. The Royal African Company (later renamed the African Company of Merchants) continued until 1821. It is estimated that this company alone shipped more Africans to America as slaves than any other.

The company laid claim to small islands in the Gambia River, establishing outposts like James Island to make its trading easier. This part of Africa became known to the West as ‘Guinea’.

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Chocolate was first sold in Britain in 1657. It was made from beans from the cocoa pod and from sugar - another new product from overseas. It was soon popular in the coffee houses and became very fashionable to drink chocolate.

Chocolate had already been drunk for centuries in South America where the cocoa pods grow but it eventually made its way to Europe with the Spanish conquistadors.

Slave trading companies like the Royal Africa Cormpany quickly became essential to the chocolate trade. The Spanish had been using indigenous people to grow and harvest the crop in Jamaica before the British arrived and took the island from them.

The work was hard and the climate unforgiving, and the indigenous workers eventually died out.

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Fry’s is thought to have created the first solid chocolate bar in the early 1800s. Before this, chocolate was usually consumed as a drink. 

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This led to the British shipping thousands upon thousands of Africans to the Caribbean and South America to work on plantations, swapping human beings for cocoa beans, which could be packaged up and sent back home to be made into chocolate.

Moving goods around the world in the 1800s was a slow process, and so the British cocoa bean production was moved from the Caribbean to other parts of the world. Many factories were opened in Asia to sell to its many citizens there, reducing transport times and costs.

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An advert from 1700 offering a reward for the return of an escaped enslaved teenager. At the time, Shadwell was part of an expanding East London docklands - growing due to increased international trade - and it is likely that many enslaved workers were being brought to Britain at this time, either as workers or to be sold.

The advert offers a reward of one guinea and illustrates how enslaved people were branded with their owners' marks.

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A branch from a cotton plant
Cotton plants are now the world’s most important non-food crop. The cotton fibres grow to protect the plant’s seeds.

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Cotton was one of the biggest trades in the entire British Empire and united both the Transatlantic slave trade and the East India Company. It’s almost impossible to separate one from the other as the cotton trade fed and relied on both.

Cotton fabric was the saviour of the East India Company. Originally they had planned to trade British wool fabrics and heavy cloths for spices, but no one in India wanted British tweeds and wool in such a hot climate. Instead, the EIC switched to trading in the many different types of cotton fabrics they found in India and established ports near the biggest producers of them. Even today, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata (which the British called Bombay, Madras and Calcutta) are some of the largest cities in India, and part of that is because of the early cloth trade. The East India Company called the trade in Indian cotton the ‘Piece Trade’.

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Being able to grow cotton in both India and the Caribbean meant the British Empire had a huge trade in an incredibly useful and versatile cloth. Before it was exported the fabric might be dyed using indigo or turmeric.

Once it got to Britain, it would make its way through ports like Liverpool or Manchester, who grew very rich from the cotton trade. From there, some of it might be made into clothes for slaves and sent to the Caribbean, or it might be taken to West Africa to swap for more slaves. A large part of it stayed in the UK, where it became incredibly popular.

In fact, cotton became so popular that in the early 1700s laws were passed to stop so much being imported because it was feared to be damaging the trade in British wool and linen. When the Industrial Revolution happened though, wool factories in Yorkshire and Lancashire switched to become cotton mills. They became extremely wealthy from the switch and cotton was cemented as a staple part of British life and clothing, as it still is today.

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Chintz gets its British name from the Hindi word ‘chint’, meaning spotted or speckled. Artists used woodblocks to print the designs onto the fabric or the designs could be handpainted.

Chintz was one of the first fabrics the British turned to when their wool and linen fabrics failed to sell in India. Over time it was so popular in Britain and Europe that its designs changed and Indian flowers and plants were replaced with British ones instead.

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Eventually chintz became one of the many Indian words absorbed into the English language. ‘Chintzy’ now means something that looks a bit outdated or cheap, but the word originally comes from the popularity of Indian fabrics in Britain.

When the British tried to make their own versions of Chintz it wasn’t as nice as the Indian fabric, so the poorer English reproductions were called ‘a bit chintzy’ and we gained a whole new word for the dictionary!

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In the 1630s the East India Company officially took over the village of Madraspatnam (now called Chennai) and turned it into a major port for their trade. Madras fabric was made in several of the villages around Madraspatnam and the East India Company began to include this local fabric into their fabric trading. It’s very colourful and is typically a chequer-pattern fabric. Today it’s used a lot for shirts and other clothing.

Madras fabric was shipped by the British all over the world. In Africa it could be swapped for slaves and eventually the trade in Indian fabrics made up 30% of Anglo-African business.

The Kalabari people of southern Nigeria called madras fabric ‘injiri’ (meaning ‘George’, for the port it came from) and it was almost sacred. For others it was used for special and religious occasions, like weddings or other ceremonies. It’s possible that when Nigerians were captured and shipped to the Caribbean as part of the Transatlantic slave trade they took this tradition with them.

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Lightweight and breathable, Madras was seen as ideal fabric for slaves working in the hot fields and it became a common sight on many Caribbean islands. However, whilst it was brought over by the British and used by colonisers, this cloth soon gained a rebellious meaning.

The traditional headtie for example was originally seen as a way to separate out black women as slaves and prove they were ‘inferior’ to white women because they couldn’t have their hair on show. But black women turned this on its head and instead their colourful eye-catching Madras headties became a symbol of colonial rebellion, especially when freed black women wore them.

Madras fabric became a way for both men and women to subvert the colonisers and keep their identity. Today Madras fabric is still used as part of the national dress and costume of several Caribbean islands, including Antigua, Barbuda, Trinidad, Haiti, Jamaica and Guadeloupe.

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Lightweight and breathable, Madras was seen as ideal fabric for slaves working in the hot fields and it became a common sight on many Caribbean islands. However, whilst it was brought over by the British and used by colonisers, this cloth soon gained a rebellious meaning.

The traditional headtie for example was originally seen as a way to separate out black women as slaves and prove they were ‘inferior’ to white women because they couldn’t have their hair on show. But black women turned this on its head and instead their colourful eye-catching Madras headties became a symbol of colonial rebellion, especially when freed black women wore them.

Madras fabric became a way for both men and women to subvert the colonisers and keep their identity. Today Madras fabric is still used as part of the national dress and costume of several Caribbean islands, including Antigua, Barbuda, Trinidad, Haiti, Jamaica and Guadeloupe.

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Eventually it became part of a new art movement called Art Nouveau and became popular with rebellious people like the author Oscar Wilde. The company Liberty began using it in their fabric designs on the advice of Wilde and even today they are famous for their paisley fabrics.

The name ‘paisley’ is not its original name, though. In Persia it was called the boteh or buta, so the name ‘paisley’ actually comes from the town of Paisley in Scotland, who made so many imitation paisley shawls that the town gave its name to the pattern in the UK. Other names the pattern is known by are ‘Persian pickles’ in the US and ‘Welsh pears’ in Wales.

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A modern design by Alexander McQueen inspired by Oscar Wilde’s adoption of Paisley style

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Before the mid 1800s, cloth had to be dyed with natural ingredients. One of the most brilliant colours was indigo, a dark blue which came from a plant called Indigofera.

Indigo had been used in West Africa and India for centuries. When the British and other European traders discovered it, the dye became incredibly popular and one of the most lucrative items to trade. It even became the basis of the British Navy’s uniform and we still have ‘navy blue’ to this day.

By the 1800s Indigo was being grown on Caribbean plantations and in India. Indigo-dyed cotton was then traded in the UK for money or in West Africa for more slaves. The trade in indigo was so lucrative that it became known as ‘blue gold’

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Indigo led to several revolts in British ruled India. The British forced the Indian farmers in Bengal and Biharto stop growing crops and instead grow indigo for the British. To do this, farmers were given loans that they could never pay back, meaning their children would be forced into working on the indigo farms as well to try and pay off the debt.

In 1859 the Bengal farmers revolted and won a landmark case against the British meaning that they were no longer forced to grow Indigo, but it remaind an important part of the Bengal economy. But in 1878 a synthetic blue dye was discovered and the West no longer had to rely on indigo plants. Indigo production in Bengal and Bihar collapsed. This eventually led to Gandhi’s battle for Indian Independence.

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Jute (also known as hessian or burlap) had been made in the Bengal region of India for centuries.

It’s made from a plant and originally been used for peasant clothing or for making sacks, but when the EIC began trading in Bengal the Company quickly found wider uses for it and saw a money-making opporutnity in this versatile material.

Originally jute could only be processed by hand, as it was done in India, but a factory owner in Scotland worked out that he could treat the material with whale oil and use machnes to manufacture the materials.

It became such a big industry and so important to the British Empire that the Dundee factory owners became known as the Jute Barons. Some even went over to Bengal to set up new factories along the Hooghly River. Between 1850 and the early 1900s the amount of land given over to jute production multiplied 80 times.

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Jute is very strong and cheap to grow, unlike cotton. It can be made into strong bags (called hessian, burlap or gunny sacks), cloth, or into strong ropes. As the EIC grew and the Britsh naval fleet began to reach its heyday, demand for jute grew more and more.

Jute from India moved down the Hooghly (or later by newly-built trains) to Kolkata (Calcutta), sailed to Dundee (on ships that used jute in their ropes and rigging), was processed into sacks, sailed on again to the Caribbean, where they were filled with sugar and transported once more back to Europe. The humble gunny sack (the word gunny coming form the Hindi word goni) is representative not only of the EIC’s trade but also of the slave trade in the Caribbean.

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Detail of Elizabeth II’s gown showing floral emblems from around the Commonwealth. As well as jute and cotton there are flowers and plants from Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

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Today jute is still one of Bangladesh’s main exports and is rightly named the Golden Fibre. Jute plant leaves feature on the national emblems for Bangladesh, Pakistan and on the Bangladesh Bank logo, whilst there was even a nod to the EIC and British link to the trade in Elizabeth II’s coronation gown.

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A tea caddy produced by the modern East India Company

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By the mid 1700’s the British had acquired a serious tea habit. The British had first starting importing tea when they began trading in China and Japan and by the late 1600s it was being sold in English coffeehouses alongside chocolate.

Tea at this time only came from China so the Chinese could charge huge sums for it. This made tea very expensive for people in Britain and so the EIC needed to find a way to get tea at a lower price.

As well as silver, the EIC traded opium - a powerful drug grown in India - for tea leaves, causing a devastating drug epidemic in China. This angered the Chinese and various emperors tried to ban the trade.

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The story goes that to break the Chinese tea monopoly a wild tea plant was found growing in Assam, India. This was crossed with a tea plant that had been smuggled out of China. The British had created a new tea plant that would grow happily in India’s monsoon climate (unlike China’s tea that preferred the mountains) and give them the taste they liked. Assam tea was born and it was followed by Earl Grey in 1770. Tea was now affordable and everyone could have a brew.

In 1773 tea was so much a part of British life it even caused problems in its other colonies. The Tea Act of 1773 meant that tea could only be sold in British colonies if it came from England and the EIC.

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A bust of Siraj ud-Daulah at the Plassey Monument at the site of the battle

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It wasn’t just the British in India. By the mid 1700s the French and the Dutch both had trading interests there.

In Bengal, the English and French Companies were competing with each other for trade, and in 1756 the new Nawab (governor) of Bengal - Siraj ud-Daulah - grew tired of their squabbling. He especially disliked the British because they refused to stop expanding their fort at Kolkata (Calcutta), a key city in Bengal. The Nawab was equally disliked by the EIC, who thought he preferred the French to them- something that might threaten their trade in Bengal, which was an important place for shipbuilding, cotton and cloth trading.

Siraj ud-Daulah wasn’t especially popular with some powerful Indians, including one of his military commanders, Mir Jafar. He was particularly disliked by the Jagat Seths, a monumentally rich and powerful banking family, because he demanded tribute from them. Their founder had helped establish the Mughal Emperor - the title the Emperor gave, ‘Jagat Seth’ means ‘banker of the world’. They were so wealthy and powerful they had more money than the the whole of Britain. They refused to pay the tribute. Meanwhile the EIC were close allies with the Jagat Seth - the company’s biggest moneylender!

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Scene of the black hole of Calcutta. Photo taken in 1903.  The building was only built to hold between 2 and 6 men. Indian soldiers would have been stationed at what is now the fenced-off veranda.

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Things went badly when Siraj ud-Daulah finally lost patience with the British. He captured Fort William and his soldiers forced the defeated British soldiers into the Fort’s own dungeon, nicknamed the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’. The dungeon was only designed to hold 6 men, but around 146 captured British were crammed into the tiny 4x5.5m cell. By the following morning, only 20 were alive, the rest had been crushed to death.

This sparked fury within the EIC and a British army was promptly sent to fight the Nawab. In 1757 Siraj ud-Daulah fought the British at Palashi, a place close to Kolkata and where the Battle of Plassey is named for (Plassey is an anglicisation).

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Lord Robert Clive (Clive of India) led the EIC's army at the battle of Plassy. The paintig shows him meeting with Mir Jafar after the battle.

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11 hours later and Mir Jafar was now the new puppet ruler of Bengal under control of the British, the Jagat Seth didn’t have to pay a ruler they disliked and the EIC had control over the wealthy region of Bengal.

The Battle of Plassey was a pivotal point for the EIC. Having such influence in Bengal meant the British could push other European rivals out of India and win control from other Indian rulers, eventually ruling the entire country.

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Staple crops grown in Bengal at the time. Wheat, pulses and rice.

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Now that they were in control of Bengal, the East India Company was able to collect taxes from the kingdom’s population and they exported the grain grown there for their own profit.

In autumn 1768 and summer 1769, disaster struck when the crops failed and there were droughts instead of usual monsoon rains. The crops that did grow were still being exported out of Bengal by the EIC, either for trade or to to feed its own army. Very little was available to the local population and some EIC officers even went so far as to create their own private rice monopolies, sensing a business opportunity. The price of rice got pushed up higher as a result so that by 1770 they had more than quadrupled and people began to starve.

By the end of Summer 1770 people were dying in the thousands. The return of the monsoon rains were good for the crops, but the damp weather also brought with it diseases which the starving people were more likely to catch. Deserted villages became a common sight and it’s thought perhaps a third of Bengal’s population died.

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In the 1700s India was a series of divided territories, each with their own rulers, which the European empires had taken advantage of by conquering or by turning them against each other.

Britain wanted to expand its territory, connecting their terrritories in Bengal with Chennai (Madras). Meanwhile the various Indian rulers made efforts to influence the English and French (and their highly-trained armies), using them to fight their own wars.

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Mysore was a kingdom ruled by the Sultan Haider Ali - a Mulsim military leader who saw the British and the East India Company as a threat to India. Mysore was allied to Britain’s main rival at this time - the French. Other neighbouring Indian rulers however saw Mysore as a powerful threat to them and helped draw the EIC into a series of four wars in order to secure their kingdoms.

There were two Sultans of Mysore during the wars, Hyder Ali and his son Tipu who took over after his father’s death in the second war. Known as the Tiger of Mysore, the legend goes that Tipu was out hunting one day when he was confronted by a tiger. His gun didn’t work and as the tiger leapt on him, Tipu was forced to use his dagger instead to kill the beast. After this he enjoyed using the tiger as a symbol of his strength and power. He had tigers everywhere, from his war turban to his throne, his coins, swords, even his soldiers’ uniforms.

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Tipu famously had an immense golden throne that he never sat in, swearing that he would not use it until he had recovered the parts of his kingdom taken by the EIC and its allies during the third Mysore War. The throne was a large octagonal platform that sat on the back of an enormous golden tiger. It was supported by tiger legs and each point on the octagonal platform was topped with another golden tiger head finial, covered with precious jewels, animal decorations and also inscribed with verses from the Qu’ran.

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Tipu Sultan was killed in the fourth Anglo-Mysore war. The British were astonished by Tipu’s wealth and the majority of it was sent back to the UK, including his 2,000 strong library, his jewels, gold and numerous exsquisitely crafted artefacts. The throne though was too big to take back in one piece and too expensive to sell as just one piece. Instead it was broken up into pieces and shipped back in more affordable pieces. One of the tiger finials and a Huma bird topper are now stored along with other Tipu treasures at Windsor Castle.

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The most famous of the treasures was Tipu’s Tiger. It is a masterpiece combination of a musical instrument, a piece of art, and an expression of Tipu’s feelings towards the colonising British.

At first glance this is a lifesized wooden statue of a tiger sinking it’s teeth into a Britsih soldier’s neck. However, at the back fo the tiger there’s a crank, and the statue is revealed to be an automaton. It’s a pipe organ with a keyboard that can have a tune played on it, whilst the organ mimics the soldier’s screams and a tiger’s roars. When the instrument is being played, the soldier’s arm moves up and down, as if he was trying to push the tiger off.

The tiger made it’s way to the Victoria & Albert museum, where it is one of the most popular exhibits in the entire museum to this day. It’s a masterpiece of engineering and craftsmanship and also a life-sized testament to how deeply Tipu Sultan loathed the East India Company and the British.

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A tiger decoration from the sultan's throne

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With the death of Tipu, Mysore fell largely under the control of the EIC military commander, Lord Charles Cornwallis. He drew up the Cornwallis Code which would replace the legal system in Mysore. Laws were translated into English so they could be assessed by English judges and the local Nawab in charge of justice was removed. Because no Indian could be a part of the EIC which controlled the kingdom, Indians were effectively barred from any positions of power in their own country.

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Sepoy of Madras Native Infantry and his wife, 1810 
Watercolour on Oriental paper, by a Company artist, Tanjore, 1810 (c). The caste marks on this sepoy’s face show that he is a Hindu. In 1806 the Madras Army offended both Hindu and Muslim soldiers when it banned the wearing of caste marks and required Muslim soldiers to shave their beards. The resulting mutiny demonstrated that the East India Company needed to respect the customs of its men. The new regulations were abolished.

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By 1857 the EIC had taken control over of Indian states and around two thirds of the country. Rulers had been overthrown or replaced with people more sympathetic to the EIC so the company could continue its business as it pleased.

Whilst the top jobs were overwhelmingly dominated by the British, a large number of Indians still worked for the EIC. At the height of its power, the vast majority of the EIC’s 300,000 strong army was Indian. These local soldiers were called sepoys and they swore an oath of loyalty not to Britain but to the EIC. Other locals worked in roles such as engineers, porters and cooks.

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Lithograph 'Mutinous Sepoys' from 1857. As well as soldiers, thousands of people rose up against the British for many reasons - from the annexing of territory to unfair systems of taxation.

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Meanwhile, the EIC continued to make changes to Indian laws and economy. Some laws may have had good intentions (like outlawing child marriage), but the vast majority of changes were done without any thought to Indian cultural identity. There were also fears that the EIC and the British were trying to force Indians to become Christian and that people’s traditional ways of life were being threatened. EIC taxes on the locals were very high.

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Sepoy's with the muzzle-loading Enfield rifles

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It all came to a head on May 10th 1857 when the EIC started issuing sepoys with the new Enfield Rifle and its ammunition.

In those days, rifle ammunition was a paper wrapping with a bullet at one end and gunpowder at the other. To load the rifle, soldiers had to bite off the end off the cartridge, pour the powder down the barrel of the rifle and then ram the rest of the cartridge with the bullet after it.

To make the cartridges slide down the barrel of the rifle more easily, they had been greased with animal fats, and a rumour went round that this was a mix of cow and pig fats. The Muslim soldiers would not touch it because it contained pork whilst the Hindus wouldn’t because it contained beef.

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Replicas of the rifle cartridges that inspired the mutiny.

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The first riot began in Meerut when 85 sepoys were thrown in jail for refusing to use the new catridges. They were broken out by other sepoys only to be shot dead by the British.

From there violence and rebellion spread quickly across Northern India. This was the last straw after decades of mistreatment by the British and soon even state rulers and royalty began rebelling.

The British were slow to respond, often refusing to believe their units would disobey them until it was too late. Some sepoys rebelled by refusing to turn up at all and staying at home, whilst others took up arms. The only common factor between the rebels was their hatred of the British and the EIC, otherwise they were from different states, castes, backgrounds, language groups and religions.

The fighting was brutal on both sides. After British women and children were killed, the British sent in over 70,000 troops in retalliation. Rebels were hanged in trees or notorously ’blown from a gun’ - tied in front of a cannon as it was fired. The British were slow but incredibly ruthless in their suppression of the rebellion.

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Rani Lakshmi Bai was born in 1828 and was married to the Maharaja of Jhansi in 1842. She was one of the leading figures in the Indian War of Independence and became an Indian national hero and symbol of resistance.

Rani Lakshmi Bai was an unusual woman for her time. She was well-educated and had been taught to ride, shoot and fight with a sword. She was known for having a unique outlook on the world and her love of horses.

When her husband the Maharaja died in 1853, the British refused to recognise their son as heir and the EIC took over Jhansi under one of their new laws.

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A life-size replica of the type of sword that Rani may have used

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When the Indian War of Independence broke out in 1857, Lakshmi Bai found herself drawn into the rebellion when sepoys took over the fort at Jhansi and killed the British people there. Once they had left (after threatening to destroy the palace nd being given a lot of money), Jhansi was invaded again by EIC Indian allies who wanted to divide the kingdom between themselves.

After asking for help from the EIC and getting none because the EIC believed she had helped the sepoys earlier, Lakshmi Bai secured the kingdom of Jhansi herself. When the EIC did come and told her to relinquish it, she refused and instead demanded independence. When the EIC attacked, Rani Lakshmi Bai led a successful defence of Jhansi.

In 1858 though, Jhansi fell to the EIC and Rani Lakshmi Bai was forced to escape on her horse. She died later that year defending another state from an EIC attack, legend has it dressed as a sowar (a type of soldier) and carrying a talwar or sword. Before she died, the legend says that she asked for her body to be cremated, so the British could not have it.

For many in India then and now she is a symbol of resistance against oppression and the British Empire.

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Rebellion against the British colonisers wasn’t just happening in India. The enslaved workers on Caribbean plantations run by the EIC began to successfully rise up. In Haiti in 1791 the slaves established a Black republic (and so were the first country to abolish slavery). There were also major rebellions in Jamaica with the Maroons (escaped slaves) fighting the British colonisers for the next 150 years from the jungles.

Enslaved people could also rebel by speaking their own language in private, ruining tools and machines, practicing their own religion in secret, and in many small ways, such as wearing Madras cloth.

‘Bussa’s Rebellion’ was the largest rebellion in Barbados and was arguably the first of several movements across the Caribbean that shook support for slavery in the UK and led to its abolition.

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Hurricane lamps like these were hung in trees by the rebels who used them to find their way at night and to mark targets for sabotage.

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The Rebellion started because in 1815 the British government were debating passing an Imperial Registry Bill. This would have made registration lists of all the slaves in British colonies like Barbados. Many enslaved people saw this as a preparation for emancipation (freedom), so when emancipation didn’t happen they decided it would be taken.

It is thought that Bussa was a in charge of checking the fences and boundaries of his plantation. It would have given him ample opportunity to meet with other slaves on his and neighbouring plantations and organise their fight. On 14th April 1816 Bussa led 400 enslaved people against the local military. They set fire to the sugarcane fields which were the signal for others to do the same to the fields in their parishes. Fierce fighting ensued. Bussa was killed in the fighting and afterwards hundreds were executed or split up and sent to other islands for their part in the rebellion.

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The replica diamond included in the artefacts box is roughly the size of the original uncut Koh-i-Noor. Today the Koh-i-Noor is a lot smaller than most people think it should be following Prince Albert’s recut, and lives in the Jewel Tower at the Tower of London in Tower Hamlets.

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One of the most controversial (not to mention, sparkliest) pieces of EIC history is the Koh-i-Noor diamond. This large diamond is one of the best known in the world, weighing 105.6 carats (although originally it was 186 carats and is now only the 90th largest diamond in the world). It has been quite literally a jewel in the British Royal Crown ever since 1849.

The history of the Koh-i-Noor often starts with the ruler Shah Jahan - famous for building the Taj Mahal. eventually had most fot he gemstones including the Koh-i-noor made into a legendary peacock throne - a throne with a canopy covered in diamonds.

The diamond made it’s way down through Indian history until it came to Duleep Singh, who was made Maharaja of Lahore when he was only 5 years old.

Lahore was part of the Kingdom of Punjab, and when the EIC too over this part of India in 1849, the diamond was taken by the British as a ‘spoil of war’, and forced the 11-year-old Maharaja to sign it over to Queen Victoria.

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The Koh-i-Noor on display at the Great Exhibition in 1851 prior to its re-installation. Many visitory were reportedly dissapointed by how small they felt it was!

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After being re-cut on the order of Prince Albert to make it sparkle more, the diamond was worn as a brooch by the Queen, but after her death it was made the main feature of the Queen Consort’s Crown. It’s supposed to be bad luck for any man to wear the Koh-i-Noor so ever since it was brought to England it has only ever been worn by female members of the Royal Family: first Queen Victoria, then her daughter in law Queen Alexandra, before being set in yet another crown by Queen Mary. Interestingly, it was removed and replaced with another diamond for Queen Camilla at King Charles’ coronation.

Today no less than four countries other than the UK claim the Koh-i-Noor should be theirs. For India the diamond has come to represent centuries of colonial rule and cruelty, but the British govenerment insists the gem was obtained legally. The diamond passed through many countries before the British took it, so it could be claimed by Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan or India.

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A lot has been said about the effects of the Empire and the EIC on the world, but one of the biggest and easiest impacts to find is just the act of speaking English.

English has one of the largest vocabularies of any language on the planet and has an ever-changing set of grammar rules and mannerisms, making it one of the hardest to learn. Despite that, it is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, both through native speakers and as a foreign language. The biggest reason for that is the British Empire, which spread English across the continents as the language of trade and business.

The Empire also explains English’s huge vocabulary because of the British penchant of adopting and adapting other countries’ words into English. The British spent several centuries in India and as a result added Urdu, Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali and Sanskrit words to its vocabulary, alongside Canadian, Chinese, Caribbean and African words too. Sometimes it went further and the British not only took the word but also the object into British culture as well.

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Jungle : From the Hindi word ‘Jangal’ meaning ‘forest’

Pundit : From the Hindu term ‘Pandit’ - an expert who had memorised lots of the Hindu holy texts

Trek : Originally an African word meaning a long journey by oxen

Juggernaut : in Hinduism Jaganath Krishna meant ‘a world-moving god’. Locals used the term to describe the British as they conquered the lands.

Shampoo : From the Hindi ‘Champi’ meaning to ‘knead or massage’.

Bungalow : From ‘Bangla’ - ‘belonging to Bengal’. This word was used used to describe the one-storey houses built in Bengal by European settlers.

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After huge loss of life during the Indian rebellion, peace was finally declared on 8th July 1858. The scale of hatred against the British and the EIC had shocked the British people. India was still very profitable for the British and the EIC, but it had become clear that the EIC could not stay in control. In Britain the government passed the Government of India Act in 1858 which brought India under the control of the British government – the British Raj. Queen Victoria began calling herself the Empress of India and issued a proclamation that Indians would have the same rights as other British subjects. In reality 9 out of 10 jobs in India in 1900 involving the running of the country were still done by white British men.

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In 1834, just one year after the British abolished slavery, the British found they needed workers in the Caribbean to replace their slaves. Over the next 90 years the British would send about 1.3 million Indians to the Caribbean and other colonies to work as ‘indentured labour’. They were treated poorly, to the point where Mahatma Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress in South Africa 1894 to fight for Indian business and property rights.

This movement of people forced by the British Empire is still felt today. There are now recognised Indo-Caribbean and Indo-African ethnic groups made up of the indentured labourers’ descendants, especially in Trinidad, Guyana, South Africa, Fiji and Mauritius. In Guyana, Indo-Guyanese people make up 40% of the population.

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Pakistani troops during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani  war

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In 1942, during World War II, India launched the ‘Quit India’ movement which called for independence from the British. Mahatma Gandhi led peaceful, non-violent protests against British rule, which saw him arrested. This movement, more than anything, united the Indian people against British rule.

By the end of the Second World War, Britain’s place in the world had changed dramatically and the demand for independence could no longer be ignored.

India gained independence from the British in 1947.The Muslim population wanted a separate homeland, whereas the Hindu majority wanted to keep India together. As a result, the British split the country, resulting in what we know as the mainly Hindu India and the mainly Muslim countries of West Pakistan (modern day Pakistan) and East Pakistan (modern Day Bangladesh). This partitioning caused bloody fighting between the countries, the effects of which are still being felt today.

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In 1917, the term “the British Commonwealth of Nations” was first used. Now just known as ‘The Commonwealth’. it is an association of 56 member states. most of which are former teritories of the British Empire.

By the late 1800s many of Britain’s colonies no longer wished to be under imperial control. Britain didn’t want more expensive rebellions like the ones in India and the Caribbean, and so began to allow colonies to become ‘dominions’ - these were countries that could self-govern but that would still have the British monarch as their head of state.

When India became independent in 1947, it asked to join the commonwealth, joining other countries such as Australia, Canada and South Africa. Over the 20th century more countries would join or leave and - most importantly - it was declared that all countries were equal within the commonwealth.

In 1948, Britain introduced the British Nationality Act - declaring than everyone within the Commonwealth was a British suject - meaning that they had freedom of movement to travel to Britain. This helped Britain to rebuild after the war.

Today Commonweath countries benefit from political, social and economic ties and no longer have to declare allegiance to the British crown.

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The East India Company luxury goods store today

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But what happened to the East India Company?

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But what happened to the East India Company?

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At it’s peak, the EIC had employed around 1 in 3 people in the entire British workforce. In the aftermath of the Indian War of Independence when the British Government took over direct control of India, the company was nationalised. The crown took over all of its Indian possessions, its administrative powers and machinery, and all of its armed forces. One tiny part of the company remained, trading in tea and coffee until the late 1800s.

In a twist of fate, after 135 years, the Indian entrepreneur Sanjiv Mehta bought the EIC in 2005. He re-launched the company as a luxury food, tea and coffee brand with a store in London’s wealthy Mayfair area. Since then, he’s received many emails from Indians all over the world, expressing their support for him for repurposing something that was once a symbol of oppression and humiliation.

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The 'Boston Tea Party' - Americans tip EIC tea into docks.

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In America the expensive duty they had to pay to the EIC for tea led to a revolt. The Americans tipped the tea into the docks at Boston and stormed EIC ships. This event led to the American War of Independence (and quite possibly the American preference for coffee over tea)!

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Indian artillery at the battle of Plassey

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Siraj ud-Daulah’s army was the biggest with 50,000 soldiers, 40 cannons and 10 war elephants arrayed against 3000 British soldiers. However, Siraj ud-Daulah’s enemies had ganged up on him and were using the EIC to protect their own interests.

The Jagat Seth paid the British commander £4,000,000 to overthrow Siraj-ud-Daulah - that’s nearly half a billion pounds today - plus the equivalent of over £1m per month for troops and other expenses! On top of this, Mir Jafar had promised to refuse to fight if the British made him the next Nawab of Bengal.

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This map is from 1909 and the pink areas show the land under direct British rule at this time. Over the previous 200 years, the East India Company gradually took over regions either through military might or by pitting the Indian rulers against each other.

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Although the rebellion failed it boosted the support for the abolitionists and the British government eventually passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Today Bussa is seen as a hero in Barbados and although the ‘Emancipation Statue’ in Barbados is of an anonymous enslaved persom, it is nicknamed ‘Bussa’s statue’ by locals.

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A set of kurta pajamas that became highly popular with the British in India and later made its way around the world.

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One of the best examples of this adoption of name and object are pyjamas. Originally the British had worn nightgowns in bed, but when they went to India, the hot climate prompted some to start wearing native clothing instead. British men in India are documented wearing kurta pajamas as early as the 1600s (when they were called moghul’s breeches), but it was the 1800s when pajamas really caught on in the UK and were adopted as sleepwear. Our word pyjama comes from the Urdu pajama, although whilst the British pyjamas means both the trousers and the shirt, the Urdu pajama is just about the trousers.