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The Honourable East India Company (HEIC), referred to most commonly as the East India Company, also, historically and colloquially, as John Company, or as Company Bahadur in India, was an early English joint-stock company[1] formed for trade with the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The company's main trade was in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea and opium. It was granted an English Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, with the intention of favouring trade privileges in India. The Royal Charter effectively gave the newly created company a 21-year monopoly on all trade in the East Indies. The Company transformed from a commercial trading venture to one that virtually ruled India and other Asian colonies as it acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions, until by the Government of India Act 1858 the British Crown assumed direct rule, following the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The Company was finally dissolved on 1 January 1874, as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act. The Company was founded as The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies[2] by a coterie of enterprising and influential businessmen, who obtained the Crown's charter for exclusive permission to trade in the East Indies for a period of fifteen years. The Company had 125 shareholders, and a capital of £72,000. Initially, however, it made little impression on the Dutch control of the spice trade and at first it could not establish a lasting outpost in the East Indies. Eventually, ships belonging to the company arrived in India, docking at Surat, which was established as a trade transit point in 1608. In the next two years, it managed to build its first factory (as the trading posts were known) in the town of Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. The high profits reported by the Company after landing in India (presumably owing to a reduction in overhead costs affected by the transit points), initially prompted King James I to grant subsidiary licenses to other trading companies in England. But, in 1609, he renewed the charter given to the Company for an indefinite period, including a clause which specified that the charter would cease to be in force if the trade turned unprofitable for three consecutive years. The Company was led by one Governor and 24 directors who made up the Court of Directors. They were appointed by, and reported to, the Court of Proprietors. The Court of Directors had ten committees reporting to it.
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