Merchant

Information on Merchants and Bankers, Trade and Commerce, including Banks

Bank of Bengal, Calcutta

See also:

• Commerce and trade reading list
• Opium trade

External links

• Merchants and Bankers Dan Byrnes’ site has many references to India related merchants and trade.

Other parts of the site can be accessed via Merchant Networks. A search facility is available at the bottom of the page. India related information includes:

• On the Hodson Lists for Families of British India
• Decline of indigo business in India
• Listings for British-India (but you must scroll down this page a considerable way)

The email listings, both old and new also contain references to India.

• A Short History of British India Steam Navigation 1856-1956 from B I Ship. Contains details of the firm of Mackinnon, Mackenzie & Co, and the establishment of The Calcutta & Burmah Steam Navigation Co Ltd which became the British India Steam Navigation Co
• "Routes into Networks: The Structure of English Trade in the East Indies, 1601-1833" by Emily Erikson and Peter Bearman 2004. Columbia University Working Papers Series
• Indian banking Wikipedia
• "200 years and going strong" by Shiv Kumar June 26, 2005 tribuneindia.com. The State Bank of India had its origins in the Bank of Calcutta established on June 2, 1806, subsequently renamed the Bank of Bengal on January 2, 1809
• "The Rise and Fall of the Oriental Bank in the Nineteenth Century: A Product of the Transformations that Occurred in the World Economy or the Result of its Own Mismanagement" by John McGuire, South Asia Research Unit, Curtin University, Perth WA. Paper presented to Asian Studies Association of Australia, 15th Biennial Conference, National Convention Centre, Canberra, 29 June - 2 July 2004. Now an archived webpage.
• "Who Controls India’s Economy? A Continuing Pattern of Concentration of Wealth" by Ashoka Mehta The New International, March-April 1951 www.marxists.org
• Brewing in 19th-century India barclayperkins
• The Legacy Continues...A history of Price Waterhouse, Lovelock & Lewes and PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd. in India by Rathin Datta. The first chapter, to page 50, covers the period from 1880 to independence. html version, pdf

Maps

• A map of the East-Indies and the adjacent countries, with the settlements, factories and territories, explaning [sic] what belongs to England, Spain, France, Holland, Denmark, Portugal etc. with many remarks not extant in any other map c1717- 1720 by Herman Moll, geographer. University of Texas. Also available Norman B. Leventhal Map Center Collection at the Boston Public Library and National Library of Australia. catalogue description from NLA.

Historical books online

• The East India Trade in the XVIIth century, in its Political and Economic Aspects by Shafaat Ahmad Khan 1923 Archive.org
• Trade And Commercial Organization In Bengal (1650-1720) by Susil Chaudhuri 1975 Archive.org mirror version originally from Digital Library of India.
• A geographical description of the four parts of the world taken from the notes & workes of the famous Monsieur Sanson, geographer to the french king, and other eminent travellers and authors. To which are added the commodities, coyns, weights, and measures of the chief places of traffick in the world, compared with those of England, (or London) as to the trade thereof. Also, a treatise of travel, and another of traffick, wherein the matter of trade is briefly handled: the whole illustrated with variety of useful and delightful mapps and figures by Richard Blome 1670 Archive.org
  • India page 49. “His atlas is full of information that merchants needed to conduct business overseas, with sections on each part of the world. The section on ‘India or the East Indies’ gives details of goods available at important trading centres such as Surat, the East India Company’s first base in India. Other information vital to traders is explained, for instance on coins, weights and measures. Unfortunately the text may be difficult to read at times. Also available in the Gale subscription database "The Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature 1450-1850", see Subscription websites, for suggested access, as possibly the text may be clearer.
• Travels in India by Jean Baptiste Tavernier, baron of Aubonne, tr. from the original French edition of 1676, with a biographical sketch of the author, notes, appendices, etc., by V. Ball. 1889 Volume 1, Volume 2 Archive.org
• An account of the trade in India: containing rules for good government in trade, price courants, and tables: with descriptions of Fort St. George, Acheen, Malacca, Condore, Canton, Anjengo, Muskat, Gombroon, Surat, Goa, Carwar, Telichery, Panola, Calicut, the Cape of Good-Hope, and St. Helena... To which is added, An Account of the Management of the Dutch in their Affairs in India by Charles Lockyer 1711 Archive.org
• A new account of the East Indies by Alexander Hamilton 1744 Volume 1, Volume 2 Google Books
• A philosophical and political history of the settlements and trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies by Abbé Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal 1804 edition, first published in an English translation 1783 Volume 1,Volume 2 (out of 6 volumes) Google Books
• The India officer's and trader's pocket-guide. In purchasing the drugs and spices of Asia and the East-Indies: With practical directions for the choice of diamonds, and an accurate account of the Chinese touch-needles [by W. Lewis] ... To which are prefixed, a complete account of the officers privilege ... and the duties of, and drawbacks on, East India goods. Compiled from Authority by H D S. 2nd edition 1789 Archive.org. Includes information relating to Ships' crews, East India [Company] Service. Includes a description of some products such as spices.
• "East Indies" from The Universal Cambist, and Commercial Instructor: being a general treatise on exchange, including the monies, coins, weights and measures of all trading nations and their colonies : with an account of their banks and paper currencies, Volume 1 by Patrick Kelly 1811 Google Books
• Oriental commerce: containing a geographical description of the principal places in the East Indies, China, and Japan, with their produce, manufactures, and trade by William Milburn 1813 Google Books

Volume 1. Contents, Volume 1. India commences Chapter 12, page 154. Volume 2, Contents, Volume 2

1825 revised edition, Contents by William Milburn and Thomas Thornton Google Books

• Trade In The Eastern Seas 1793-1813 by C. Northcote Parkinson 1937 Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection.
• The East Indian calculator, or, Tables for assisting computation of batta, interest, commission, rent, wages, &c. in Indian money: with copious tables of the exchanges between London, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, and of the relative value of coins current in Hindostan : tables of the weights of India and China, with their respective proportions, &c. : to which is subjoined an account of the monies, weights, and measures of India, China, Persia, Arabia, &c‬ by Thomas Thornton 1823 Google Books
• Useful Tables, forming an Appendix to the Journal of the Asiatic Society: part the first, Coins, Weights, and Measures of British India by James Prinsep 1834 Google Books
• Sketch of the commercial resources and monetary and mercantile system of British India: with suggestions for their improvement, by means of banking establishments 1837 Google Books
• The Anglo-Hindoostanee Handbook; or, Stranger’s Self-Interpreter and Guide to Colloquial and General Intercourse with the Natives of India1850 Google Books. Contents Includes Vocabulary, Monetary System, Weights, Linear Measures etc.
• The Chinese commercial guide : containing treaties, tariffs, regulations, tables, etc useful in the trade to China & Eastern Asia : with an appendix of sailing directions for those seas and coasts by S. Wells Williams 5th edition 1863 Archive.org
• The rise, progress, and present condition of banking in India, Index by Charles Northcote Cooke 1863 Google Books
• A Financial Chapter in the History of Bombay City 1864-65 by Dinsha Edulji Wacha 2nd Edition 1910 Archive.org. Includes the failure of the Bank of Bombay.
• ‪How to Develope Productive Industry in India and the East: Mills and Factories for Ginning, Spinning, and Weaving Cotton; Jute and Silk Manufactures... Etc., Etc. by P R Cola, late sole proprietor of the Arkwright Cotton Mills, Bombay. 1867 Google Books
• Hand-book of the Economic Products of the Punjab: With a Combined Index and Glossary of Technical Vernacular Words: Volume I Economic Raw Produce by Baden H Powell, H M Bengal Civil Service. 1868 Google Books

‪Hand-book of the Manufactures and Arts of the Punjab: Forming Vol. II to the "Hand-book of the Economic Products of the Punjab."‬ by B H Baden Powell, H M Bengal Civil Service 1872 Google Books‪

• "‪Russian Trade with India". Supplement to the Gazette of India‬ November 26, 1870 Google Books
• "Commerce and Companies": being a reprint from "The Pioneer", from August 1884 to September 1885 1885 Archive.org
• "Commerce and Trade" page 555 The Indian Empire, its People, History, and Products by William Wilson Hunter 2nd Edition 1886 Archive.org Contents
• A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India by George Watt There were ten volumes in total, including an Index volume Volume I, Abaca to Buxus 1885; Volume VI, Part II Sabadilla to Silica 1893; Volume VI, Part III Silk to Tea 1893 Archive.org

Most of/all the remaining volumes are available on Archive.org, as mirror versions from the Digital Library of India. Vol- II Cabbage to Cyperus; Vol- III Dacrydium to Gordonia; Vol-IV Gossypium to Lonociera; Vol-V Linum to Oyster; Vol-Vi Part-I Pachyrhizus to Rye ; Vol-VI Part-IV Tectona to Zygophillum: Archive.org together with an Index volume: Archive.org version. Restricted viewing, probably accessible to those in North America, and some other countries: Hathi Trust Digital Library ten volumes

The commercial products of India : being an abridgment of The dictionary of the economic products of India by Sir George Watt 1908 Archive.org Index

• The Economic History of India under early British rule, from the rise of the British power in 1757 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 by Romesh Dutt 6th edition 1920 Archive.org. First published c 1902.

The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age: From the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837.... Original title was India in the Victorian Age; an Economic History of the People 1904 edition, 3rd edition 1908 Archive.org.

• Monograph Series, Bengal. Subsequently republished in 1976 as Art in industry through the ages : Monograph series on Bengal Archive.org version mirror from Digital Library of India. This book consists of 11 monographs, listed in this catalogue record nla.gov.au. See Bengal (Presidency) for individual monographs available online, including some not included in the reprint edition.
• Monograph Series, Madras. Republished in 1982 as Art in industry through the ages. Monograph series on Madras Presidency / Southern India, whose contents of 8 monographs may be seen in this catalogue record nla.gov.au. See Madras (Presidency) for for individual monographs available online.
• A Monograph On Dyes And Dyeing In The Bombay Presidency by C G H Fawcett. [Sir Charles Gordon Hill Fawcett] 1896. Uniform Title: Miscellaneous Official Publications. Archive.org version mirror from Digital Library of India. Subsequently republished in 1976 as part of Art in industry through the ages : monograph series on Bombay Presidency, with this catalogue record for contents nla.gov.au.
• The history of the Bank of Bengal: an epitome of a hundred years of banking in India by CP Symes Scutt 1904 Archive.org
• The Old 'Country Trade' of the East Indies by William Herbert Coates, Comm. R N R (retired) 1911 Archive.org
• Businesses in Calcutta c 1917 from Bengal and Assam, Behar and Orissa : their history, people, commerce and industrial resources by Somerset Playne , J W Bond 1917 Archive.org
• Money, Banking and Exchange in India by Herbert Stanley Jevons 1922. Archive.org
• Early European Banking in India : With some reflections on present conditions by H Sinha 1927. Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India.
• Organised Banking in the days of John Company 1800-1857. With special reference to Early Banking in Bombay by B. Ramachandra Rau 1931. Archive.org, mirror from Digital Library of India.
• History of Indian Currency and Exchange by B.E. Dadachanji 3rd enlarged edition 1934 Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. Also available 2nd edition 1927 Archive.org version mirror from Digital Library of India.
• Banking In India by S. G. Panandikar 5th edition 1945. Poor quality text images. Archive.org. 3rd Edition 1940 Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India.
• Problems of Indian Currency and Exchange by N R Sarker 1944 Archive.org
• History and Problems of Indian Currency 1835-1949 by D K Malhotra 1949 Archive.org
• Life Assurance In India by P.A.S. Mani 1950 Archive.org
• British Agency Houses in India are mentioned page 65 Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries by Geoffrey Jones 2002 Preview Google Books
• The Investor’s India Year-Book: Archive.org mirror versions, originally from Digital Library of India. Edition 15, 1927-28 Archive.org mirror version; Ed. 31, 1943-44 Archive.org; Ed. 35, pub. 1949 Archive.org; Ed. 36, pub. 1950 Archive.org.
• A handbook of London bankers, with some account of their predecessors the early goldsmiths : together with lists of bankers from 1670, including the earliest printed in 1677, to that of the London post office directory of 1890 ... by F G Hilton Price 1890 Archive.org. Also earlier 1876 edition Archive.org