Madras - The First Major British East India Company Trading Outpost in India

In 1639 the British East India Company setup its first major trading outpost in India. There were in total three major trading outposts, Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. The setting up of the Madras outpost was without bloodshed, and if anything, it was an astute acquisition. Madras was in fact the first major British East India Company trading outpost in the subcontinent.

The history of Madras spans some 2,000 years and it was initially known as Puliyur Kottam. Much of its early history is written down in a series of manuscripts known as the Mackenzie Manuscripts or the Mackenzie Collection which codifies the oral history of the ancient city of Madras.

At the time of the acquisition, Madras was known as Madraspatnam. The word Madraspatnam is a combination of two words, the word “Madras” which denotes the name of the town and the word “patnam” which means town, and the word “Madraspatnam” simply means the town of Madras or Madras town. Prior to the acquisition, the town was under the dominion of the Raja of Chandragiri.  

Two years prior to the acquisition, a British East India Company administrator, Francis Day, who was stationed in the town of Masulipatnam, now in the state of Andhra Pradesh, located on the Coromandel Coast, was on the lookout for a town further south to serve as a trading hub in light of the fact that certain commodities like cotton and spice were cheaper in the south, when he stumbled across Madras.

It is difficult to say whether he discovered Madras on his own, or if it was proposed or suggested to him, there are varying accounts, but either way he and his superior Andrew Cogan managed to successfully lease Madras from the Raja of Chandragiri. The initial lease was for two years starting from August 1639.

Once the formalities were concluded, Francis Day and Andrew Cogan in the company of some three dozen men, which included two dozen British East India Company soldiers made their way to Madras to set up the first factory there.

The venture must have proved profitable because some 4 years later, the British East India Company authorized the construction of Fort St. George; the first British Fort in the subcontinent, at the cost of some £3,000. The fort was completed by the 23rd of April 1644, to coincide with St. George’s Day. The fort was built to protect British interests in the area, and in furtherance of a British Settlement there, and to secure the Coromandel Coast from the French and the Dutch who were competing for a share of the lucrative trade that existed at the time.

Copyright © 2020 by Dyarne Ward and Kathiresan Ramachanderam