British East India
Company
Charter Act, 1833:
The Industrial Revolution in Britain, and the consequent search for markets,
and the rise of laissez-faire economic ideology form the background to
this act.
The Act:
* divested the Company of its commercial functions;
* renewed for another twenty years the Company’s political and administrative
authority;
* invested the Board of Control with full power and authority over the
Company. As stated by Kapur ‘Professor Sri Ram Sharma, thus, summed
up the point: "The President of the Board of Control now became Minister
for Indian Affairs.”
* carried further the ongoing process of administrative centralization
through investing the Governor-General in Council with, full power and
authority to superintend and, control the Presidency Governments in all
civil and military matters.
* initiated a machinery for the codification of laws;
* provided that no Indian subject of the Company would be debarred from
holding any office under the Company by reason of his religion, place
of birth, descent or colour. However, this remained a dead letter well
into the 20th century.
Meanwhile, British influence continued to expand; in 1845 the Danish colony
of Tranquebar was sold to Great Britain. The Company had at various stages
extended its influence to China, the Philippines, and Java. It had solved
its critical lack of the cash needed to buy tea by exporting Indian-grown
opium to China. China's efforts to end the trade led to the First Opium
War with Britain.
Charter Act, 1853:
This Act provided that British India would remain under the administration
of the Company in trust for the Crown until Parliament should decide otherwise.
The end:
The efforts of the company in administering India emerged as a model for
the civil service system in Britain, especially during the 19th century.
Deprived of its trade monopoly in 1813, the company wound up as a trading
enterprise. In 1858 the Company lost its administrative functions to the
British government following the mutiny of the Company's Indian soldiers
in 1857, and India became a formal crown colony. In the early 1860s all
of the Company's Indian possessions were appropriated by the Crown. The
Company was still managing the tea trade on behalf of the British government
(especially to Saint Helena). When the East India Stock Dividend Redemption
Act came into effect, the Company was dissolved on January 1, 1874. The
Times reported, "It accomplished a work such as in the whole history
of the human race no other company ever attempted and as such is ever
likely to attempt in the years to come."
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