Publications
Hit a Brick Wall? Try India!, by Elaine MacGregor, published June 2014 in Sussex Family Historian (vol. 21 no. 2, article, pp.51-53) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/508981]
Preview:The Honorable East India Company (HEIC) was formed in the 17th Century when in the early 1600's Queen Elizabeth I gave a charter to the company giving them the rights to trade "anywhere east of the Cape of Good Hope" - including China, Japan, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and of course India, which became known as the "Jewel in the Crown". They were, first and foremost, a trading company and wanted to engage in the highly profitable spice and silk trade, which the Portuguese (ahead of the British by 100 years) and the Dutch had already established in the East Indies. As well as the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Danish, the Swedish, the Holy Roman Empire and the French were all trading there in one form or another. It is thought that over three million Europeans lived and served in South Asia from the 1600s to Indian Independence in 1947.