Calcutta, from Fort to City: a Study of a Colonial Settlement, 1690-1750
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Calcutta, from fort to city: A study of a colonial settlement, 1690-1750 PhD thesis for Colleges of Arts, Humanities & Law and the Social Sciences Submitted 2011 Page | 0 Thomas Mansfield Abstract: Calcutta, from fort to city: A study of a colonial settlement, 1690-1750 by Thomas Mansfield1 Despite the vast amount of interest in the history of Calcutta as both a colonial metropolis and as the birthplace of the British Empire in India, very little work has looked at the origins of the colony. Previous work has focussed upon the incidents of the 1750s without analysing the foundation and development of Calcutta which was integral to the power and success of the East India Company servants living and trading in Bengal. The history of the Company in India has been hitherto shaped by analysis of political and commercial events. However, the meticulously recorded diaries and consultation books of the Company allows us to look at the colony in a new way. The many thousands of pages of official material and private papers detail the formative sixty years of the colony before the events of the 1750s. This can be analysed by asking different questions about the causes for British actions in India and the growth of British colonial spaces. This analysis has yielded new understanding of how the British understood and controlled the urban colonial environment and population of Calcutta. In particular, the control of the space, behaviour and infrastructure of the colony developed due to a mixture of local contexts and European influences. This research therefore sheds new light upon how the Company survived and grew in Bengal before the Battle of Plassey and also illuminates wider historical themes of authority, space, urban development and cultural interactions in new unexplored setting. Title Image: British Library Maps Collection K.Top.115.46.8, View of Fort William at Bengal by Lambert and Scott. 1736 Page | 1 Acknowledgements Throughout the research and writing of this thesis I have been assisted by a great number of people without whose help I would never have been able to finish this research. In particular I would like to thank my tutors Professor Rosemary Sweet and Dr Prashant Kidambi whose invaluable advice and discipline have proved instrumental in this task. I would like to thank P.J Marshall whose kindness and generosity was inspirational at several milestones during my research and whose prolific work on this subject was the principle gateway into this research for me. I would like to thank Robert Travers who was so helpful when I met him whilst researching in Kolkata. I would like the thank all the staff of the British Library who without flinching answered many of my more naive questions relating to the source material and whose good nature made the long days poured over the tomes of the Company records so much more bearable. Also, I would like to thank my family and friends who have listened to my most basic ideas and let me ramble at them until they were more fully formed. Without the assistance of all of these people I would not have known where to begin and also where to finish when my enthusiasm overtook my reasoning. Finally I would like to thank my beautiful partner Faro who helped me keep going and never stopped believing in me. As always the strengths and best insights of this thesis would not have been possible without the help of these people but let any mistakes or omissions be my responsibility alone. Page | 2 In memory of my mother 1958-2009 Page | 3 Contents Tables and figures ............................................................................................................................... 6 Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 1: Regional connections and their impact upon Calcutta’s development ................. 15 Part 1: The farman, Nawabi politics and the challenge of permanent settlement ............................. 16 Part 2: The Marathas and the threat to Calcutta ................................................................................ 21 Part 3: The impact of European rivalries .......................................................................................... 26 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 31 Chapter 2: The men of the Company and their relationships ............................................... 32 Part 1: Connections of the Company ........................................................................................ 33 Part 2: Factions within the colony ............................................................................................ 36 Part 3: Company policies ........................................................................................................ 40 Chapter 3: Calcutta’s founding and its place within the East India Company system .......... 47 Part 1: Founding the colony and its physical environment ............................................................... 50 Part 2: Political and legal constraints ................................................................................................ 56 Part 3: The Subordinate Factories ..................................................................................................... 62 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 66 Chapter 4: Calcutta’s European Population ......................................................................... 68 Part 1: Life ........................................................................................................................................ 70 Part 2: Death, class and occupation ................................................................................................... 79 Part 3: A Connected Community ...................................................................................................... 88 Conclusion: ....................................................................................................................................... 93 Chapter 5: Calcutta’s Institutions of Law and Governance .................................................. 94 Part 1: Goldsborough and Eyre’s Reforms ....................................................................................... 96 Part 2: Courts and Magistrates ........................................................................................................ 105 Part 3: The black and white Zamindars, constables and soldiers .................................................... 111 Conclusion: ..................................................................................................................................... 117 Chapter 6: Controlling Calcutta’s Space ............................................................................ 118 Part 1: Controlling and defining Calcutta’s infrastructure .............................................................. 120 Part 2: The development and management with Calcutta’s Built Environment ............................. 126 Part 3: Regulating the built environment ........................................................................................ 134 Page | 4 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 138 Chapter 7: Controlling behaviour in Calcutta .................................................................... 139 Part 1: Regulating commercial behaviour ....................................................................................... 142 Part 2: Controlling deviancy ........................................................................................................... 147 Part 3: Controlling morals within the colony .................................................................................. 155 Conclusion: .......................................................................................................................... 162 Chapter 8: Calcutta’s Indian Population ............................................................................ 164 Part 1: The Indian population of the colony .................................................................................... 166 Part 2: Controlling and managing the Indian population ................................................................ 169 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 178 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 179 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 185 Primary Sources .............................................................................................................................. 185 Secondary Sources .......................................................................................................................... 189 Page | 5 Tables and figures Table 1: Estimates of the annual seasonal mariner population of Calcutta