The East India Company's London Workers: Management of The Warehouse Labourers, 1800-1858

WORLDS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY Volume 5
The East India Company’s London Workers

Management of the Warehouse Labourers,
1800–1858
WORLDS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
ISSN 1752-5667
Series Editor
H. V. Bowen (Swansea University)
Editorial Board
Andrew Cook (British Library)
Rajat Datta (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
P. J. Marshall (King’s College, London)
Nigel Rigby (National Maritime Museum)
This series offers high-quality studies of the East India Company, drawn
from across a broad chronological, geographical, and thematic range.
The rich history of the Company has long been of interest to those who
engage in the study of Britain’s commercial, imperial, maritime, and
military past, but in recent years it has also attracted considerable at-
tention from those who explore art, cultural, and social themes within
an historical context. The series will thus provide a forum for scholars
from different disciplinary backgrounds, and for those whose have in-
terests in the history of Britain (London and the regions), India, China,
Indonesia, as well as the seas and oceans.
The editors welcome submissions from both established scholars and

those beginning their career; monographs are particularly encouraged
but volumes of essays will also be considered. All submissions will receive
rapid, informed attention. They should be sent in the first instance to:
Professor H. V. Bowen, Department of History and Classics, Swansea
University, Swansea SA2 8PP
Previously published titles:

The Richest East India Merchant: The Life and Business of John Palmer of
Calcutta, 1767–1836, Anthony Webster
The Great Uprising in India, 1857–58: Untold Stories, Indian and British,
Rosie Llewellyn-Jones
The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian
Commerce and Politics, 1790–1860, Anthony Webster
Scottish Orientalists and India: The Muir Brothers, Religion, Education and
Empire, Avril Powell
The East India Company’s
London Workers
Management of the Warehouse
Labourers, 1800–1858
Margaret Makepeace
THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Margaret Makepeace 2010
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this
work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in
public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form
or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner
The right of Margaret Makepeace to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988
First published 2010

The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978-1-84383-585-1
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd

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CONTENTS
Figures and tables vi

Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
1 Introduction 1
2 The East India Company Warehouses 17
3 The Warehouse Labourers 40
4 Management Strategies: Incentives, Rewards and 67

Benevolence
5 Management Strategies: Systems of Internal Control 94
6 The Royal East India Volunteers: The ‘Union of 113

Civil and Military Dependence’
7 The Relationship between the East India Company 140

and its London Warehouse Labourers
8 The Warehouse Closures 156
9 Management of the Warehouse Labourers and 183

Pensioners, 1838–1858
10 Conclusion: ‘Good Masters to the Lower Class of 195

their Dependents’
Bibliography 201
Index 225
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
1 Plan of East India Company London properties in 1806 21

2 Elevation of the front of Fenchurch Street warehouse, 25
1806
3 Warehouse labourer recruitment, June 1801–November 42
1832
Tables
1 Proceeds of goods sold at the East India Company 6

sales in London, 1807/08 and 1811/12
2 Imports stored in the East India Company bonded 22
warehouses in 1819
3 Cargoes of East India ships arrived in London, 31
December 1808
4 Directors who nominated warehouse labourers and 46
the numbers of men appointed on their cards,
June 1801–November 1832
5 Analysis of the location of residential addresses 50
provided by labourers, 1820–31
6 Age distribution of warehouse labourers on 52
appointment, 1801–32
7 Fifty largest occupational groups for labourers 53
admitted to the East India Company warehouses,
June 1801–November 1832
8 Scale of weekly pensions awarded to warehouse 72
labourers and commodores under the regulations
of 15 August 1804
9 Payments for labourers’ wages, pensions, sick fund 78
and medical attendance, May 1819–April 1834
10 Scale of weekly pensions for labourers who were 84
subscribers to the Savings Bank under the regulations
of 26 March 1819
Figures and Tables vii
11 Deposits held in the East India Company’s Savings 85

Bank, 1828–9
12 East India Company labourers prosecuted at the Old 102
Bailey for pilfering, 1800–30
13 Composition of each regiment of Royal East India 115
Volunteers, 1796
14 Proposed supply of labourers for military training, 118
May 1798
15 Analysis of the body of East India Company warehouse 120
labourers for military purposes, May 1798
16 Enlistment into the Royal East India Volunteers, 125
3 August 1820
17 Discharges from the Royal East India Volunteers, 126
1820–34
18 Statement of expenditure for the Royal East India 134
Volunteers, 1 August 1832–6 August 1833
19 Age profile of warehouse commodores, messengers 159
and labourers, May 1834
20 Service profile of warehouse commodores, 159
messengers and labourers, May 1834
21 Commodores, messengers, labourers and cloth 160
drawers on the warehouse books on 31 May 1834
whose length of service did not exceed twenty years
22 Annual cost of compensation to commodores, 162
messengers, and labourers calculated in July 1834
23 Scale of compensation pensions for commodores 163
and labourers from 1834
24 Strength of the warehouse establishment, 1834–7 168
This book is dedicated to the memory of Anthony John Farrington (1939–2008)
– mentor, friend, and inspiration
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is based on my doctoral thesis submitted to the University of

Leicester in 2007. Many colleagues, friends, and members of my family
helped and encouraged me during the five years I spent researching and
writing the thesis, and here I wish to acknowledge their contribution.
My thanks go first and foremost to Huw Bowen for being such a pa-
tient, kind, and efficient supervisor. He was unfailingly generous in
sharing both his time and expertise, and his friendship, guidance and
support ensured that researching the Company labourers was a very
rewarding and enjoyable experience.
I am indebted to my employer, the British Library, for sponsoring
my studies and for granting a research break allowing three months
of uninterrupted writing. Colleagues past and present provided much
appreciated encouragement and assistance, especially Penny Brook,
Graham Shaw, Jill Geber, Clive Field, Richard Morel, Justine Taylor,
Andrew Cook, David Blake and Martin Moir. The late great Anthony
Farrington spurred me on, having sparked my interest in the London
operations of the East India Company many years ago. His deep knowl-
edge of the India Office Records and his infectious enthusiasm for the
history of the Company were a constant source of inspiration to me.
Clare Anderson co-supervised the thesis in its final stages and offered
valuable feedback on the first draft. Anne Murphy has acted throughout
as a supportive friend and adviser and as a sounding board for ideas.
Expert advice was also provided by Bob Aspinall and Chris Ellmers at
the Museum in Docklands, and by the archivists at the Bank of England.
Professors Sarah Palmer and Philip Cottrell examined the thesis, and I
thank them for their constructive comments and encouragement to go
on to produce a monograph.
Thanks must also go to my family: to my husband John for listening,
reading, commenting, and being tolerant when having random ideas
lobbed at him; to my children Philip and Frances for help with data
entry and manipulation; and to my parents Jean and George Meaden
for their unflagging interest and support.
I very much appreciate the labours of the eagle-eyed team who kindly
volunteered to read the final draft of the thesis: John, Anne, Penny, and
Jill. John has also had to bear the brunt of the disruption caused by
x Acknowledgements
the writing of this book, and I hope he will forgive me for keeping him
awake by working on the computer into the early hours of the morn-
ing. Finally, I must apologise to Philip and Frances for forcing them
to spend five of their formative years in the company of five thousand
dead men.
ABBREVIATIONS
BL British Library
BOE Bank of England
EIC East India Company
GL Guildhall Library, London
GRO Gloucestershire Record Office
HA Hertfordshire Archives
IOPP India Office Private Papers
IOR India Office Records
LMA London Metropolitan Archives
LMF Library and Museum of Freemasonry
MID Museum in Docklands, London
NRO Norfolk Record Office
REIV Royal East India Volunteers
TNA The National Archives
VOC Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie
One
INTRODUCTION
THE ENGLISH East India Company functioned for more than 250
years, and its complex history is made up of many interwoven strands
reflecting the wide scope of its activities: commercial, maritime, military,
administrative, political and imperial. It is therefore perhaps inevitable
that some aspects of the Company’s history have been overlooked or
neglected. This study fills one of the major gaps in the historiography
of the East India Company by providing a detailed examination of the
strategies used by the Company to manage the thousands of labourers
who worked in its London warehouses between 1800 and 1858, and by
showing how benevolence formed an integral part of the Company’s
domestic business practices. It analyses the composition of the ware-
house workforce and explores in depth the labourers’ experience of
working for the Company.
The East India Company: an outline history
By 1800 the East India Company was a commercial organization of

unrivalled size and complexity, playing a key role in the British econ-
omy. It supplied Asian commodities for the home market; employed
many staff on its domestic, overseas and marine establishments; and
provided a livelihood to manufacturers, tradesmen, shipbuilders and
suppliers of a wide variety of stores and export goods. The Company
had evolved from a small enterprise run by a group of City of London
merchants which, in 1600, had been granted a royal charter conferring
2 The East India Company’s London workers
the monopoly of English trade in the whole of Asia and the Pacific.1
At its outset the East India Company was interested in the commercial
opportunities offered by the spice islands of Southeast Asia rather than
India, and it raised a capital of £68,373 by subscription to send four
ships to Bantam and Sumatra in 1601. Following the success of this first
voyage, the Company sent out eleven more fleets to Bantam between
the years 1604 and 1613.2 The average profit on the voyages in 1601–12
was 155 per cent.3
For a large part of the seventeenth century, pepper from Southeast
Asia was the chief commodity traded by the Company as it strove to
maintain a share of the market despite strong opposition from the
Dutch.4 The textiles procured by the Company’s servants in their earli-
est Indian trading contacts at Surat and Madras in the early 1600s were
intended to be shipped to Southeast Asia and exchanged for pepper
and other spices. However, from around 1620 cargoes of Indian cloth
were carried back to England and over the course of the next century
they sparked growing interest amongst consumers. By the 1750s, Indian
textiles formed 60 per cent of the value of goods sold by the East India
Company in London.5 The Company also shipped Chinese merchandise
in increasing quantities from Canton: tea, silk, textiles and porcelain.
Asian commodities were paid for with exported British woollens and
metals, supplemented by silver bullion. The Company’s operations
were underpinned by the ‘factory’ system: when the ships returned to
Europe, agents known as ‘factors’ were left behind at trading posts to
negotiate with local merchants for the sale of current stocks of goods
and the procurement of return cargoes for the next year’s voyage.6
Company business was overseen by a central administration in London
based around the twenty-four elected members of the Court of Directors
and a number of specialized committees of the Court. The directors
were answerable to the Company shareholders who met regularly at the
General Court of Proprietors.7 The Company sent commercial, political
and administrative instructions on its ships to the councils established at
its main settlements in Asia, and these councils were in turn responsible
for the management of subordinate factories. As a consequence of the
long distances involved, the Company never fully resolved the problem
of controlling its overseas officials and making them obey orders.8 The
directors in London were faced with the choice of ratifying decisions
taken in Asia or of protesting against them in the vain hope of achiev-
ing alteration. The best means of influencing courses of action was to
appoint men of ability and integrity to overseas posts.9
At the start of the eighteenth century, East India Company activities
in India centred upon small coastal trading posts at Bombay, Calcutta
Introduction 3
and Madras.10 The subsequent development into something more than

a commercial enterprise was not the result of a grand plan on the part
of the directors, but an ‘emergent strategy’ which evolved when war
between Britain and France spread to India in the mid-1740s.11 The
Company succeeded in establishing military supremacy over rival
European trading companies and local rulers, culminating in 1757 in
the seizure of control of the province of Bengal. In 1765, the Mughal
Emperor granted the Company the diwani (the right to harvest the rev-
enues of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa), which provided funds to bolster the
Company’s military presence in the subcontinent.12 Further territorial
acquisitions in India during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries cemented the change in the Company’s role from mere
trader to a hybrid sovereign power. Although its commercial activities
continued, the Company also became ‘a powerful imperial agency ex-
ercising control over territories containing millions of people’.13 Faced
with this transformation and with growing concerns about mismanage-
ment and corruption, the British Parliament decided to place a curb
on the Company’s autonomy. In 1784 an Act established the Board of
Commissioners for the Affairs of India, often referred to as the India
Board or Board of Control.14 This was a government body which super-
vised the East India Company’s administrative and political affairs, but not
its commercial business nor the exercise of patronage by the directors.
The Company’s mercantile monopoly was however increasingly
coming under attack and its commercial operations were at first scaled
down by Parliament after years of pressure from the free trade lobby
and then wound up completely. Under the terms of the Charter Act
of 1793, the Company was obliged each year to provide for the export
and import of 3000 tons of goods by private traders.15 The Charter Act
of 1813 went further by removing the Company’s monopoly of trade
to India,16 whilst the Charter Act of 1833 ended its trade to China and
ordered the cessation of all commercial activity.17 The Company contin-
ued in its imperial role until 1858 when, in the aftermath of the military
and civil rebellion in the north of the subcontinent, the Government
of India Act transferred its powers to the India Office, a department of
state.18 The East India Company was finally dissolved on 1 June 1874,
following redemption of the dividend on its stock.19
The importance of the East India Company in the home economy
By the late eighteenth century, the Company’s trading activities were in-
extricably tied to its imperial obligations. It was generally assumed that
territorial expansion would generate surplus revenues in India in spite

of the increased costs of civil and military administration, and trade
provided a means of remitting these surpluses to Britain in the form of
goods imported into London. Maintaining the flow of remittances to
Britain was a major commercial objective for the Company in the early
nineteenth century,20 together with managing and retaining its monop-
oly in the face of pressure from free trade lobbyists; making profits to
share with its stockholders; adhering to efficient working practices to
ensure prudent and secure management of valuable commodities; and
meeting its obligations to the government by paying customs and rev-
enue duties on imports and by submitting annual reports to Parliament
for public scrutiny.
As well as importing vast cargoes, the East India Company was obliged
under the terms of its charter to export British manufactures worth
at least ten per cent of its trading capital each year, and it strove to
do so even though it was very difficult to sell European merchandise
in Asia.21 Yet the Company’s export trade played a significant role in
some sectors of the British economy. Huw Bowen has estimated that in
1800 the Company provided employment, both directly and indirectly,
for 55,000 private individuals supplying goods and services, of whom
30,000 were based in London and 25,000 in the provinces.22 Amongst
the provincial interests looking to the Company for a livelihood was
the woollen trade: sheep farmers, wool merchants, cloth dyers and ap-
praisers, and cloth manufacturers. In April 1812, a general meeting of
manufacturers of long ells from Cornwall, Devon and Somerset gave
its support to the continuation of the East India Company’s monop-
oly of the woollen trade to China, which it claimed gave employment
to approximately 16,000 labourers and consumed the wool of about
800,000 sheep. Without the benefit derived from the ‘steadiness’ of
the Company orders, the manufacturers claimed that ‘multitudes of
labourers would be reduced to absolute penury’ and every class of the
community adversely affected.23
Francis Russell, solicitor to the Board of Control, also stressed the
benefits of the ‘system of regularity’ established for the Company’s
trade and pointed out how many people relied upon the Company for
employment. He emphasized that the Company’s demand for manufac-
tured goods was regular and uniform, ensuring constant work for those
who made them, and explained:
Those with whom the Company have dealings, are certain of liberal treat-
ment, and punctual payment. Tradesmen, artificers, and manufacturers,
emulate for their custom. The number of families in London and its envi-
rons, whose whole support is dependent on the Company’s Trade, is great
Introduction 5
beyond conception … The India House, and their numerous warehouses,

are filled with persons bred up to the business from infancy; and if they
were to be deprived of it, the greater number, men of respectable charac-
ters and irreproachable conduct, must be reduced to want or distress.24
East India House and the warehouses were the centre of the Company’s
massive commercial operations in London.25 From here, the cycle of ex-
porting and importing goods was planned, implemented and managed.
Bidding at the Company’s London sales was used as an indication of
demand to determine the quantity and variety of commodities to order
from Asia.26 In the early nineteenth century the main imports were tea,
Bengal piece goods (textile fabrics woven in standard lengths for sale),
textiles from the Coromandel Coast and Surat, raw silk, pepper, salt-
petre, spices, drugs, indigo, sugar, coffee and nankeens (cotton cloth
originally made at Nanking). Strict regulations were written into the
Company’s charter to govern the sale of the Company’s own imports
and of all private trade goods at public auctions, which had to be adver-
tised well in advance.27 Whereas in the years 1720–65 Company sales in
London realized an average of approximately £2 million per annum,28
the total amount raised for all Company, private trade and prize goods
sold by inch of candle at the sales from 1 March 1807 to 1 March 1808
was £8,035,389.29 The sale of Company and private trade tea accounted
for approximately half the total value of goods sold in that year. Table 1
provides a detailed breakdown of the goods sold and the total amounts
raised at the Company sales in the years 1807–08 and 1811–12.
By 1819, the Company was importing 26 million lb of tea each year
from Canton.30 William Simons, clerk to the Committee of Buying and
Warehouses, said in 1820: ‘The tea trade being of vital importance to
the Company, it is a subject of every day’s consideration with the direc-
tors; nothing is left to chance or accident, as it respects the providing
of tea, or the sales.’31 Between 1793 and 1810, the East India Company
made a profit of almost £22 million on imports from China, and £5.2
million on those from India. Annual profits on China goods reached a
peak of £1,344,233 in 1810.32 The scale and impact of the Company’s
business was certainly apparent to Londoners in the early nineteenth
century. When the future of the Company charter was being debated in
Parliament in 1812, the City of London authorities petitioned in sup-
port of its renewal:
the limitation of the East India trade to the port of London has been
found essentially useful, by the establishment of spacious docks, consid-
erable manufactories, warehouses, storehouses, and other necessary and
commodious buildings, by the constant employment, even during a long
continuance of war, of many thousands of workmen, artificers, artizans
Table 1: Proceeds of goods sold at the East India Company sales in London,
1807/08 and 1811/12
(a) 1 Mar 1807–1 Mar 1808 (b) 1 Mar 1811–1 Mar 1812
Commodity Sale proceeds Commodity Sale proceeds

Company’s goods Company’s goods
Tea £3,795,630 Tea £3,540,262
Bengal piece goods £260,307 Bengal piece goods £276,164
Coast & Surat goods £172,574 Coast & Surat goods £961,343
Raw & organzine silk £319,212 Raw & organzine silk £651,460
Pepper £75,839 Pepper £23,953
Saltpetre £179,933 Saltpetre £214,565
Spices £115,402 Spices £102,448
Drugs, sugar, coffee, etc. £236,957 Drugs, sugar, coffee, etc. £10,933
Nankeens £50,136
Total £5,155,854 Total £5,831,264
Private trade goods Private trade goods

Tea £186,193 Tea £304,382
Piece goods £111,543 Piece goods £200,191
Raw silk £253,030 Raw silk £239,202
Nankeens £14,037 Nankeens £101,160
Pepper £20,066 Pepper £21,465
Saltpetre £377 Saltpetre £117
Drugs, sugar, indigo, etc. £2,202,437 Sugar, drugs, indigo, cotton, £1,054,752
etc.
Spices £580
Total £2,787,683 Total £1,921,849
(a) 1 Mar 1807–1 Mar 1808 (b) 1 Mar 1811–1 Mar 1812
Commodity Sale proceeds Commodity Sale proceeds
Neutral property and prize goods Neutral property and prize goods
Tea £29,269 Tea £2873
Drugs, etc. £62,228 Sugar, drugs, indigo, etc. £49,529
Pepper £355 Pepper £516
Piece goods £445
Raw silk £3096
Nankeens £1709
Spices £50,834
Total £91,852 Total £109,002
Grand total £8,035,389 Grand total £7,862,115
Source: (a) Accounts presented to the House of Commons, from the East India Company, respecting their Annual Revenues
and Disbursements, Trade and Sales, &c. for Three Years (London, 1808), p. 87. (b) Accounts respecting the Annual
Revenues and Disbursements, Trade and Sales, of the East India Company for Three Years (London, 1812), p. 62.
Introduction 7
and labourers in these establishments, both in the city of London and

on the banks of the Thames, upon whose occupation depends the sub-
sistence of a vast and increasing population, and, by the building and
equipment of ships and vessels, communicating full and immediate relief
to very numerous classes of persons engaged in different capacities and
pursuits.33
Debates about the role of the Company
The transformation of the East India Company into an imperial agency

provoked a debate which continues today about the Company’s dual
political and commercial role and about the influence it wielded.
Commenting on the Company’s persistent ability to stir up a variety of
reactions, P. Bruce Buchan has written:
The East India Company holds a unique place in the history of the
Corporation ranking as one of the largest, most controversial, most suc-
cessful, most destructive, most respected, most despised companies in the
English speaking world.34
Contemporary commentators were seldom neutral and tended to

be decidedly for or decidedly against the Company.35 Heated debates
arose each time the monopoly came up for renewal and large numbers
of pamphlets poured forth. Senior Company servants returning from
overseas were accused of corruption and depicted as ‘the evil personi-
fication of British rule in India’.36 The directors were said to be acting
purely from self-interest, reaping great benefits from their control of
substantial patronage. They were criticized for approaching Company
business with the narrow minds of ‘shopkeepers’ rather than having a
long-term vision for the development of the Company.37 To counteract
anti-Company propaganda, the directors sought to promote an alterna-
tive image of probity, diligence and benevolent paternalism.
Numerous books and articles have been written about the East
India Company since its demise, and it remains a contested institution
amongst historians. The Company’s activities are regularly reassessed.
In their investigation of British imperialism, P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins
maintain that:
the Company can no longer be portrayed as being a creaking, mercantil-

ist monopoly whose historic role was to impede the progressive forces of
British industry before finally being destroyed by them. It has now been
shown that the Company was a much more innovative and efficient or-
ganisation than it has been given credit for.38
A history of the Company by Nick Robins published in 2006 claimed

to be the first to address its ‘social record as a corporation’. The East
India Company is described as ‘a profit-making company that generat-
ed great wealth, but one that also contributed to immense suffering’.39
Although his book focuses on events in India, Robins calls attention
to the Company’s ‘tumultuous impact’ on London, speculating as to
why so little of the Company’s physical presence remains.40 He argues:
‘This absence is particularly strange given the fact that the Company
was a London institution par excellence.’41 He appears to believe that the
disappearance of most of the East India Company’s properties from
the metropolis and the lack of commemorative plaques at former sites
is somehow linked to a general unease about the Company’s corporate
corruption, a suggestion which overlooks the far more prosaic explana-
tion that the buildings were demolished in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries because commercial developers eagerly sought
large sites in the City and the fact that the East India Company had once
occupied the site was not of any consequence to the new owners.
Yet by emphasizing the importance of the Company’s role in London,
Robins has drawn attention to an aspect which has not been adequately
explored by modern historians, namely the influence of the East India
Company on the economy and society of London and of Britain as
whole. The Company has been regarded as a special case and not con-
sidered for inclusion in many broader surveys. Studies of the London
economy have tended to overlook the Company business archives as a
rich source of data for wage rates, conditions of work, commercial prac-
tices, real estate dealings and personnel management.
Huw Bowen has done much to correct this neglect, seeking ‘to estab-
lish the extent to which the influences of the East India trade and Indian
empire were felt within Britain’s economy and society’.42 By extracting
and analysing vast amounts of data from the Company’s financial and
administrative records, Bowen has undertaken an institutional analysis
to discover exactly what was happening inside the East India Company
during the period 1756–1833.43 His analysis, in common with other
studies of the Company in London, concentrates principally on the
directors and administrators in East India House.44 Hitherto hardly any-
thing has been written concerning the large body of labourers in the
metropolitan warehouses. India Office historiographer William Foster
mentioned the labourers in his works on the Company in London but
was more interested in the warehouse buildings and managers. Hoh-
cheung and Lorna H. Mui’s thorough examination of the Company’s
management of its tea monopoly contains much useful information
on the internal workings of the tea warehouses but has very few direct
Introduction 9
references to the men who were employed to handle the goods.45 No

detailed investigation has been undertaken that looks at the Company’s
role as the employer of the largest body of manual labourers in London
in the early nineteenth century and its consequent part in the social his-
tory of London. It is the aim of this study to fill that gap with a thorough
evaluation of primary source evidence.
Scope of this study
The years between 1800 and 1858 encompassed both the peak of the
East India Company’s power and its demise. The period marked the
mature phase of the Company’s commercial development, when do-
mestic business was at its most extensive and sophisticated. There were
at that time a number of significant management initiatives which di-
rectly affected the labourers, such as the raising of the Royal East India
Volunteers, a military corps in which Company servants from East India
House and the warehouses doubled as soldiers. In addition, a more
substantial amount of documentation about the labourers who were
working in the warehouses during the years 1800–58 has survived than
for earlier eras in the Company’s history.
This study aims to relocate the East India Company in its rightful
place at the centre of the early nineteenth-century London economy
by examining how the Company functioned as an employer in London
and how it behaved towards its staff. It explores the Company’s direction
of commercial operations in London, the management structure in its
warehouses, and the strategies adopted to control and regulate a large
and expanding labourer workforce. The valuable commodities passing
through the London warehouses were the basis of the Company’s com-
mercial wealth, and thus their handling was a matter of considerable
importance. In this, the study follows the work of Anthony R. Henderson
and Sarah Palmer, who have argued that research into the impact of in-
dustrialization must not be limited to manufacturing enterprises. They
investigated three London dock companies (East India Dock Company,
West India Dock Company and London Dock Company) during their
monopoly periods (1800–25), looking at the labour process involved
in handling high-value dutiable goods, and focusing on recruitment,
timekeeping and labour discipline.46 The present study seeks to do the
same for the East India Company. Moreover, it demonstrates that many
aspects of the labour processes described by Henderson and Palmer
were foreshadowed by the management techniques already being used
in the East India Company warehouses. The London dock companies
established at the turn of the nineteenth century were able to look at

how the East India Company was managing large numbers of manual
workers and pick out the elements of organization which they deemed
most fitting for their purposes.
This investigation also sets out to assess to what extent the East India
Company used benevolence as a management tool in the London
warehouses and whether the Company was an enlightened employer.
A new insight into the working of the East India Company is provided
by adopting the viewpoint of ‘history from below’ which takes account
of ‘the importance of the actions and lives of working people in con-
structing a shared history’.47 The East India Company archives have not
generally been considered a potential source for the social history of
London and this project has made use of much valuable material which
up until now has been largely overlooked. Tim Hitchcock has written of
historians’ recent preoccupation with the ‘middling sort’ encouraged
by a belief that the poor are too hard to research: ‘the poor, the women
and men who left few words between leather bindings, lost their appeal
for many historians’.48 Yet, even in a corporate archive such as that
of the East India Company, much about the poor awaits discovery by
those prepared to hunt for it. Petitions and letters from the warehouse
labourers provide an opportunity to consider the Company’s manage-
ment strategies and paternalistic approach from the recipients’ point
of view and to gain some understanding of employees’ experience of
being managed.49
It has proved possible to rescue the warehouse labourers and their
families from faceless anonymity, thereby ‘giving voice’ to them.50 Since
most of the warehouses closed before the national census of 1841 was
compiled, there are few sources outside the India Office Records which
indicate which individuals worked as Company labourers. This study
reinstates the labourers as the distinct and identifiable group which
they and their contemporaries certainly believed they represented, and
links into debates about the experience of the working classes in early
nineteenth-century London, touching upon such themes as living condi-
tions, health, wages, self-help movements, pensions, political awareness,
under-employment and unemployment.
Sources
The evidence used in this study is drawn mainly from archival and con-
temporary printed materials. All Company business was conducted in
writing, hence a vast archive was created in the headquarters at East
Introduction 11
India House in London, much of which is still available in the collections

of the India Office Records at the British Library. The Company was,
however, concerned about the amount of paperwork accumulating in
London and routinely destroyed records it no longer considered vital.51
Shortly after the India Office took over the Company’s responsibilities
for the government of India, an enormous quantity of documents was
weeded out. One official noted:
When the Company’s business was taken over by the Imperial Parliament
in 1858, one of the first acts of the new masters of the India House in
Leadenhall Street was to make a great sweep out of the old records that
from 1726 had been preserved there with scrupulous solicitude. They
swept 300 tons of these records out to Messrs. Spicer, paper makers, to be
boiled, bleached, and bashed into low class paper pulp.52
Amongst the discarded papers were whole series of committee and com-
mercial records, such as the papers of the Committee of Warehouses,
which would have been an important resource for researching the ware-
house labourers. However, the India Office Records comprise ten miles
of documents, and plenty of valuable evidence about the Company
warehouses does survive, albeit scattered between series and sometimes
tucked away in obscure places.53
The core data on warehouse operations and the men who worked as
labourers are found in the minutes of the East India Company Court
of Directors,54 and in the records of the Accountant General,55 and the
Military Department.56 The Court Minutes set down decisions made
at the highest level concerning policy, procedure and personnel, as
well as noting lesser matters referred to the various committees. If the
Court did not request a report from a committee, there is unfortunately
often no note of the action taken as most committee minutes produced
before 1834 have been destroyed. However, the Court Minutes have in
the region of 1400 pages of indexed entries for each year in the early
nineteenth century and have proved to be a comprehensive and vital
resource for discovering how the warehouses were managed.
The series of Accountant General’s records furnish statistics for the
commercial activities of the Company in London and include home
staff establishment books and compilations of notes on careers, and
salary books and pension records for staff at East India House and
in the warehouses. The Company collected particulars about the in-
dividual London warehouse labourers and recorded them in tabular
form in registers as a tool of management. Some survived because they
were needed by the India Office to verify pension entitlement, and they
were kept mostly in the Accountant General’s Department.57 However,
there is also one register of recruits to the Royal East India Volunteers
preserved in the archives of the Military Department.58 The personal
information in these records has been extracted for this study and anal-
ysed and combined to build up a picture of who the labourers were and
how the Company’s management strategies affected them.
A number of other sources in the India Office Records provide sup-
plementary data which enrich the analysis. The Finance and Home
Committee was set up when the Company’s administrative structure was
revised in 1834 in the wake of the Charter Act of the previous year. Its
remit included the management of the home establishment, marine
business, and the procurement of stores and military equipment to be
shipped to India. Although the process of closing down commercial
operations had already begun, the Finance and Home Committee re-
cords describe the warehouses retrospectively, with copious references
to past practices and precedents. The series contains a wealth of docu-
mentation concerning warehouse management and personnel, as well
as about the labourers’ families and lives outside the Company.59 The
Committee’s home correspondence is sizeable, consisting generally of
one large volume of papers for each month, and hitherto this series
has been decidedly under-exploited despite its interesting content, the
notable exception being David Harding’s close inspection when re-
searching the small-arms of the East India Company.60
Other significant documents were traced amongst several different
series in the India Office Records, varying between snippets of infor-
mation and whole volumes containing useful material. These include
patronage records in the papers of the Committee of Correspondence
and the Board of Control;61 home establishment papers;62 property deeds
for the London warehouses;63 East India Dock reports;64 Parliamentary
reports;65 and the private papers of Company directors and warehouse
managers.66
Additional data have been collected from other archives both in
London and farther afield. The dock company records inherited by
the Port of London Authority fill some of the gaps caused by the de-
struction of East India Company committee records.67 For example,
the minutes of the East India Dock Company contain copies of the
reports and correspondence of the East India Company Committee
of Warehouses and information about the dockside commercial pro-
cedures of the East India Company. Entries which describe how the
labourers in the docks were treated provide a means of comparison with
the East India Company’s management of its warehouse labourers. The
archives of the Bank of England have been sampled for details about
its staff and conditions of service to see whether any useful parallels
Introduction 13
may be drawn with the Company. Amongst the records consulted were
lists of the Bank’s London servants; salary and pension registers; appli-
cations for posts; rule books; and documents regarding the directors’
charitable fund.68 The holdings of The National Archives shed light on
the customs and revenue administration in the Company warehouses
and on the Royal East India Volunteers, and provided labourers’ wills
and census returns.69 Extensive use has been made of the proceedings
of the Old Bailey where criminal cases involving the Company and its
employees are recorded.70 Corroboration of the existence of provincial
patronage networks into which the labourers tapped has been traced in
county record offices.71
Structure of the study
This book traces the London labourers’ experience of working for the
East India Company from the busiest phase of domestic commercial ac-
tivity during the early nineteenth century to the winding-up and sale of
most of the warehouses in the aftermath of the 1833 Charter Act. It also
examines how the Company treated the small remnant of the labourer
establishment in the Military Store Department and the large group
of warehouse pensioners in the 1840s and 1850s. The importance of
benevolence as a tool of management and the paternalistic role of the
Company directors is assessed throughout the study.
Chapter 2 describes the Company warehouses in London: their lo-
cation and construction; the internal environment; the nature of the
goods being handled; working practices; and the management struc-
ture. Chapter 3 analyses the composition of the body of warehouse
labourers. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the Company’s management strat-
egies: first, incentives, rewards, and benevolence; and secondly systems
of internal control. Chapter 6 looks in detail at the Royal East India
Volunteers. Chapter 7 explores the relationship between the East India
Company and its warehouse labourers. Chapter 8 assesses the impact of
the warehouse closures in the 1830s, whilst Chapter 9 considers how the
Company managed the warehouse labourers and pensioners during
the years 1838–58. Chapter 10 draws together the main conclusions of
the study.
Notes
1 BL, IOR: A/1/2, Charter 31 December 1600.

2 Judith Farrington, ‘The First Twelve Voyages of the English East India Company,
14 Notes to Chapter 1
1601–13: A Guide to Sources’, Indonesia and the Malay World 29:85 (2001), pp.
141–60.
3 K. N. Chaudhuri, The English East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint-Stock
Company 1600–1640 (London, 1965), p. 22.
4 Anthony Farrington, Trading Places: The East India Company and Asia 1600–1834
(London, 2002), pp. 48–53.
5 Ibid., p. 69.
6 Chaudhuri, English East India Company, pp. 16–17.
7 C. H. Philips, The East India Company 1784–1834 (Manchester, 1940), pp. 2–3.
8 K. N. Chaudhuri, ‘The English East India Company in the 17th and 18th
Centuries: A Pre-Modern Multinational Organization’, in Companies and Trade,
ed. Leonard Blussé and Femme Gaastra (Leiden, 1981), pp. 29–46.
9 P. J. Marshall, Problems of Empire – Britain and India 1757–1813 (London, 1968),
pp. 102–3.
10 H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain,
1756–1833 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 2.
11 P. Bruce Buchan, ‘The East India Company 1749–1800: The Evolution of a
Territorial Strategy and the Changing Role of the Directors’, Business and
Economic History 23:1 (1994), pp. 52–61; see also P. J. Marshall, ‘The British in
Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700–1765’, in The Oxford History of the British Empire,
Vol. 2 The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford, 1998), pp. 487–507.
12 Bowen, Business of Empire, p. 3.
13 Ibid., p. 1.
14 24 Geo. 3 c. 25.
15 33 Geo. 3 c. 52 For further discussion see H. V. Bowen, ‘British India, 1765–
813: The Metropolitan Context’, in Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2, ed.
Marshall, pp. 530–51.
16 53 Geo. 3 c. 155.
17 3 & 4 Will. 4 c. 85.
18 21 & 22 Vict. c. 106.
19 36 & 37 Vict. c. 17 East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act, 1873.
20 P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688–
1914 (London, 1993), pp. 323–5.
21 Marshall, Problems of Empire, p. 79.
22 Bowen, Business of Empire, p. 272 Table 9.2.
23 The Times, 29 April 1812, p. 1a.
24 Francis Russell, A Short History of the East India Company (London, 1793), p. 39.
25 For the location of East India House and the warehouses, see Chapter 2 and
Figure 1.
26 Chaudhuri, ‘The English East India Company in the 17th and 18th Centuries’,
pp. 44–5.
27 Marshall, Problems of Empire, pp. 81–2. Commanders, officers and artificers serv-
ing on East India ships were allowed to export and import fixed amounts of
‘private trade’ goods for their own profit, the amount allowed varying accord-
ing to rank. ‘Private trade’ was distinct from ‘privilege trade’ which consisted
of merchandise sent to England by overseas Company servants as a means of
remitting home their fortunes (see Russell, Short History, p. 27 n).
28 Marshall, Problems of Empire, pp. 81–2.
Notes to Chapter 1 15
29 Accounts Presented to the House of Commons, from the East India Company, respect-
ing their Annual Revenues and Disbursements, Trade and Sales, &c. for Three Years
(London, 1808), p. 87. At sales by inch of candle, the buyers bid for a lot whilst
about an inch of wax candle is burning down. The winner is the last to make a
bid before the candle goes out.
30 Report relative to the Trade with the East Indies and China from the Select Committee of
the House of Lords (London, 1821), p. 151, Evidence of Francis Hastings Toone,
former Canton supercargo, 13 July 1820.
31 Ibid., p. 149, Evidence of William Simons, 13 July 1820.
32 Bowen, Business of Empire, p. 245. The Company recorded a loss on Indian
goods in 1807 and 1808.
33 The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time. Vol. XXIII Comprising
the period between the 5th of May and the Close of the Session, July 30, 1812 (London,
1812), p. 388, Petition from the Lord Mayor, aldermen and commons of the
City of London in favour of the renewal of the East India Company’s charter,
9 June 1812.
34 P. Bruce Buchan, ‘James Mill and the Examiner’s Office (Towards Managerial
Capitalism)’, Administrative Sciences Association of Canada Proceedings, Business
History Division 17:24 (1996), p. 31.
35 Bowen, Business of Empire, pp. 7–19.
36 Ibid., p. 15.
37 Ibid., p. 132.
38 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, pp. 322–3.
39 Nick Robins, The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company
Shaped the Modern Multinational (London, 2006), pp. xi, 16.
40 Ibid., p. 7.
41 Ibid., p. 10.
42 Bowen, Business of Empire, p. ix.
43 Ibid., p. x.
44 Examples of work on the London administration of the East India Company
are: Philips, East India Company; William Foster, The East India House – Its History
and Associations (London, 1924); William Foster, John Company (London,
1926); H. M. Boot, ‘Real Incomes of the British Middle Class, 1760–1850:
The Experience of Clerks at the East India Company’, Economic History Review
second series 52:4 (1999), pp. 638–68.
45 Hoh-cheung Mui and Lorna H. Mui, The Management of Monopoly: A Study of
the English East India Company’s Conduct of its Tea Trade, 1784–1833 (Vancouver,
1984).
46 Anthony R. Henderson and Sarah Palmer, ‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port
of London: Management and Labour in Three Dock Companies, 1800–1825’,
in Management, Finance and Industrial Relations in Maritime Industries: Essays in
International Maritime and Business History, ed. Simon P. Ville and David M.
Williams (St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1994), pp. 31–50.
47 Tim Hitchcock, Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London (London, 2004), p.
233.
48 Ibid., p. 238.
49 BL, IOR: L/F/2, Finance and Home Committee home correspondence.
50 Charles C. Ragin, Constructing Social Research (California, 1994), pp. 43–5.
51 See, for example, BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, p. 284, Finance and Home Committee
4 February 1835, authorizing the destruction of custom and freight notes, pri-
vate trade papers, weighing notes, and brokers’ declarations accumulated up
to end of year 1828.
52 George Birdwood, Report on the Old Records of the India Office, with Supplementary
Note and Appendices (London, 1891), p. 71.
53 For a description of the whole collection, see Martin Moir, A General Guide to
the India Office Records (London, 1988).
54 BL, IOR: B.
55 BL, IOR: L/AG.
56 BL, IOR: L/MIL.
57 Principally in the series BL, IOR: L/AG/21, 30 and 35.
58 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485, Register of Royal East India Volunteer soldiers
1820–32.
59 BL, IOR: L/F/1 and L/F/2.
60 D. F. Harding, Smallarms of the East India Company, 1600–1856, 4 vols (London,
1997–9).
61 BL, IOR: D and BL, IOR: F.
62 BL, IOR: H.
63 BL, IOR: L/L/2.
64 BL, IOR: L/MAR.
65 BL, IOR: L/PARL and BL, IOR: V.
66 BL, IOPP and BL, IOR: H.
67 MID: Records of the East and West India Dock Companies, St Katharine Dock
Company, and London Dock Company.
68 BOE: E18, E20, E22, E24, E30, E41, E46 and E48.
69 TNA: CUST 30/285; T64/154; PRO 61/254; HO 44/3 no. 165; WO 13/4458;
HO and RG census returns; PROB 11.
70 The whole proceedings of the Sessions of the Peace, and Oyer and Terminer for the City
of London and County of Middlesex (London, 1730–1824); continued as Sessions’
Paper … held at the Justice Hall, in the Old Bailey (London, 1825–34); continued
as Central Criminal Court Minutes, taken in short-hand by H. Buckler (London,
1835–47). Also online: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ (hereafter Old Bailey
Proceedings).
71 GRO: D421/X9/4-7, Lydney Park Estate archives; NRO: WLS/XLVIII/12/
426x1 and x3, Walsingham correspondence.
Two
THE EAST INDIA COMPANY WAREHOUSES
THE MERCHANTS of the East India Company began trading in 1600

from a room at the Nag’s Head Inn in Bishopsgate Street, London.1
Two hundred years later, the Company’s extensive commercial and im-
perial functions were managed from a large range of buildings in the
City and the surrounding area: administrative and commercial offices,
warehouses, almshouses with a chapel, a military recruitment centre, a
mint and an inspection room for firearms. The peak period for prop-
erty accumulation and development was the late eighteenth century,
prompted in part by the need to store the greatly increased amount of
tea shipped from China.
In 1800, Company operations were directed from East India House
in Leadenhall Street which had been reconstructed on an extended site
in the late 1790s to create an elegant building with a wide impressive
frontage in keeping with the Company’s importance and power.2 By
this date, the Company had also acquired extensive warehousing near
its headquarters to store not only goods shipped to London from India,
China and Southeast Asia, but also woollen cloth and military stores
for export to Asia, and passengers’ baggage. Extant evidence suggests
that metals such as lead, iron, tin and copper exported to Asia by the
Company were not stored in the main warehouses: there was a separate
export warehouse situated at Botolph Wharf near Thames Street. Since
East India ships were too large to come up the Thames as far as the legal
quays supervised by the Custom House, their cargoes were taken off at
Blackwall and transhipped by hoy. On arrival at the quays, the goods
were removed from the hoys under the watchful eye of the revenue of-
ficials and taken by road to the Company’s up-town bonded warehouses
situated north of the Thames to be sorted, stored and sold.
Throughout the Company’s earliest days, warehouse space was

rented as and when it was needed. For instance, the directors hired
the Royal Exchange vault in Cornhill when the Ascension returned from
Sumatra in June 1603 laden with pepper, cloves, cinnamon and gumlac
(a dark-red resin used as a dye). Storage room in the City continued to
be leased even after the Company constructed a dockyard at Blackwall
in 1614. No warehouses for imported goods were provided at Blackwall
because the directors considered the isolated dockyard too insecure
even though it was surrounded by a wall twelve feet in height.3
In 1683, the Company purchased ground adjoining the garden of
East India House in order to erect a warehouse to store cloth and tea.4
In the same year, an agreement was signed between the Company and
Joseph Lem, tiler and bricklayer, for the construction of a new cloth
warehouse at St Helen’s, not far from Leadenhall Street. The contract
laid down strict instructions about the dimensions of the warehouse
and the type and quality of materials to be used for walls, windows, shut-
ters, doors, gates and cranes for moving goods.5
During the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
the Company commissioned many more purpose-built warehouses in-
tended to handle particular classes of goods, although the directors
did continue to lease property, sometimes on the south bank of the
Thames, for example, a tea warehouse at the eastern end of Montague
Close, Southwark acquired in September 1794 by purchasing the resi-
due of a lease.6 Instead of relying entirely on the services of bricklayers
such as Joseph Lem, the Company began to employ architects such as
Richard Jupp, Henry Holland and Samuel Cockerell to create well-de-
signed substantial buildings made from good quality materials which
protected the high value goods stored within whilst at the same time en-
hancing the status of the Company by their impressive appearance. The
warehouses were built to last: Sir Joseph Broodbank inspected those in
Cutler Street in 1921 and reported that the brickwork and timbers were
still in excellent condition.7
Properties were acquired piecemeal and the accumulation of a
sufficient number of adjacent sites for demolition in order to form a
warehouse complex often took several years as the Company had to
negotiate with different owners and leaseholders.8 Many of the ware-
houses were built in more than one stage. As Christopher Evans has
remarked, ‘the serial extension of warehouse complexes was “organic”,
and building often progressed simultaneously on a number of separate
sites’.9
The first part of the Fenchurch Street tea and drug warehouse devel-
opment was erected during the years 1734–6.10 A detailed specification
The East India Company warehouses 19
of the work required was prepared by the Company, with separate sets
of instructions for the bricklayer, carpenter, mason, smith, plumber,
glazier, painter and tinman to ensure strong, secure and waterproof
premises.11 A warehouse for private trade goods was then constructed in
a number of stages between the years 1752 and 1766 using several sites
in Leadenhall Street, Billiter Street and Sugar Loaf Court.12 This ware-
house received the restricted range of commodities which the Company
allowed its servants to import for personal gain, such as precious stones,
ambergris, musk, carpets, and certain spices and textiles.
The late 1760s and early 1770s saw a quickening in the pace of build-
ing to reflect the rapid increase in the volume of goods imported by
the Company. The acquisition in 1765 of the diwani brought about
unprecedented levels of investment in Indian and Chinese goods,
many of which could not be sold immediately and therefore had to
be stored in London. More warehouses for tea and drugs were con-
structed near Tower Hill at Haydon Square13 and Cooper’s Row.14 The
Bengal Warehouse in New Street was built to store raw silk, piece goods
and textiles from Bengal,15 and the Leadenhall Street pepper and spice
warehouse was constructed nearly opposite East India House in 1771.16
Saltpetre warehouses were built at Ratcliff in 1775, deliberately sited
well away from the City because of the inflammable nature of the crys-
tals which were used as the chief constituent of gunpowder. The Ratcliff
warehouses were destroyed by fire in July 1794 when a pitch kettle
boiled over at the premises of a barge builder. The flames spread to a
barge laden with saltpetre and other stores:
The blowing-up of the salt-petre from the barge, occasioned large flakes
of fire to fall on the warehouses belonging to the East-India Company,
from whence the salt-petre was removing to the Tower (20 tons of which
had been fortunately taken the preceding day). The flames soon caught
the warehouses, and here the scene became dreadful; the whole of these
buildings were consumed, with all their contents, to a great amount.17
The naval store warehouse leased by the Company at Stone Stairs Ratcliff
was also burned in the fire. Both properties were rebuilt in 1795–6 with
the Company taking the opportunity to buy the copyhold of the naval
store and to enlarge the saltpetre warehouse and construct an adjoin-
ing embankment on the Thames.18
After the completion of the first saltpetre warehouse, there was a
break in the Company’s building activities until the mid-1780s. Faced
with near bankruptcy in 1772 and 1782, the directors were in no posi-
tion to make large capital outlays, and warehouse space was probably
sufficient because of the recent expansion. An analysis of the London
warehouse establishment made in 1785 listed the following: the Bengal

warehouse dealing with the Company’s cargoes of piece goods and raw
silk, and private trade white piece goods; the Coast and Surat ware-
house handling the Company’s cargoes of piece goods from Fort St
George and Bombay, China wrought silks and nankeen cloth, and all
private trade prohibited piece goods;19 the tea and drug warehouses
taking in the Company’s cargoes of coffee, tea, Carmania wool, drugs,
china, earthen and lacquer ware, arrangoes,20 cotton and cotton yarn;
the private trade warehouse taking care of goods brought home by com-
manders and officers; the warehouses at Botolph Wharf and Cock Hill
which transacted the waterside business, weighing lead, iron, copper,
and steel, and shipping these and all other Company and private trade
goods for export; the pepper warehouse which sifted and prepared
for sale all pepper imported by Company; and the baggage warehouse
which received and took account of all luggage and clearing stores be-
longing to passengers and to Company captains and officers.21
The situation changed after the passage of the Commutation Act in
1784 when the reduction of duty on tea from 119 per cent to 12½ per
cent ad valorem brought about a steep increase in the amount of tea
imported legally from Canton and sold in London for domestic con-
sumption or for re-export. 22 Sales of tea at East India House rose from
just under 10 million lb in 1784 to nearly 15 million lb in 1785, reaching
20 million lb in 1795.23 The Act obliged the Company to keep in stock
at least one year’s worth of domestic tea consumption. Additional stor-
age facilities became essential, and in 1785 work started on a new tea
and drug warehouse at French Ordinary Court, which communicated
with the Fenchurch Street warehouse.24 This was quickly followed by the
construction of the first stage of the Crutched Friars tea and drug ware-
house in 1787.25 During the 1790s, the Company bought ready-built
warehouses to store private trade goods: Rumball’s Warehouse on the
south side of Haydon Square,26 and another in Seething Lane.27 It also
commissioned the second stages of the Fenchurch Street and Crutched
Friars warehouses,28 the Jewry Street tea and drug warehouse,29 and a
complex of warehouses in New Street and Cutler Street for textiles, raw
silk, piece goods, tea, indigo, spices and drugs.30 The New Street devel-
opment swept away ‘several very mean streets and some hundreds of
poor habitations’,31 contributing to the steep decline in the population
of the parish of St Botolph Aldgate from 24,600 in 1710–11 to 8700 in
1801.32 Offices and warehouses came to dominate the City rather than
homes. By 1850, the replacement of dwellings by commercial prem-
ises had become so widespread that the author and literary critic Peter
Cunningham was prompted to write: ‘No one thinks of lodging or living
in the City. The great City merchants live at the West-end, or a little
Figure 1: Plan of East India Company London properties in 1806
1 East India House: offices and stationery 10 Crutched Friars: Company’s mint
warehouse 11 Crutched Friars: Tea and drug
2 St Helen’s: Private trade, baggage and warehouses
cloth warehouses 12 Seething Lane: Tea and drug
3 New Street and Cutler Street: Tea, warehouses
drug, Bengal, Coast and Surat warehouses 13 Somers and Lyons Quay: Wharfs
4 Leadenhall Street: Coast and Surat and export warehouse
warehouse 14 Haydon Square: Tea and drug
5 Billiter Lane: Private trade warehouse warehouses
6 Lime Street Square: Military Fund 15 Haydon Square: Tea and drug
Office warehouses
7 Fenchurch Street: Tea and drug 16 Cooper’s Row: Tea and drug
warehouses warehouses
8 Jewry Street: Tea and drug warehouses A Leadenhall Street
9 French Ordinary Court: Tea and drug B Fenchurch Street
warehouses C Bishopsgate
The Ratcliff saltpetre and naval store warehouses were further east along the north bank
of the Thames, outside the area shown here.
Source: BL, IOR: H/763A, pp. 7–8, adapted for Journal of the Families in British India
Society, 12 (2004).33
way out of town, and leave their counting-houses and warehouses to

the keeping of their porters; even their clerks, for the most part, have
suburban cottages.’34
After 1800, when the East India Company was sending out an average
of forty-two ships every year from London, the existing warehouses con-
tinued to be expanded and new properties were added to the portfolio.35
Figure 1 shows the location of the Company’s London properties in
1806 which were in the vicinity of East India House. The New Street and
Cutler Street development was completed in the 1820s, becoming the
largest of the Company’s London warehouse sites covering five acres.36
It comprised twenty-five stacks of warehouses, six storeys high, contain-
ing about 143 rooms as well as ‘unusually lofty’ cellars, with separate
accommodation for silk and piece goods, tea, indigo, spices and drugs.
The capacity for stowage was 36,011 tons of general merchandise, or
650,000 chests of tea in stack pile.37 Table 2 lists the extensive and varied
range of goods stored in the Company bonded warehouses in 1819.
Table 2: Imports stored in the East India Company bonded warehouses in 1819
acorns madder (used in medicine or

agates as dye)
alkali mangoes
aloes manna (gum used as a laxative)
alum maps and charts
amber medals
annotto (red dye) mother of pearl counters and
aquafortis (dilute nitric acid) shells
arrangoes (beads) munjeet (root used as source
baggage for red dye)
barks musk
beads myrrh
bones nutmeg
books nux vomica (poisonous seeds
borax used in medicine)
calicoes ochre
camphor oils
canes orange water
Carmania wool orchal (dye prepared from
carmine lichens)
carpets otto of roses (or attar – essential
cashew (gum) oil)
cassia buds, both fistula and lignea paintings
(used in medicine, especially as a laxative) paper hangings
China root (similar to sarsaparilla, used in pearls
medicine) pepper
cinnamon pictures
cloves piece goods (textile fabrics
cochineal woven in standard lengths)
coco or cocoa nuts plants and shrubs

coculus indicus (dried berries plate
used to increase strength of rattans
beer and porter) red and white saunders wood
columbo root (used as a drug) (sandalwood, used in dyeing
coral and coral beads and in medicine as an
cotton astringent and tonic)
cotton wool saffron
cowries sago
cubebs (berries used in sal ammoniac (crystalline salt
medicine and cookery) used in pharmacy)
earthenware salep (dried tubers used as a
elephants’ teeth drug)
emeralds sassafras (dried bark of tree
feathers used medicinally)
fossils scammony (gum-resin used as
galls (used in dyeing and medicine as well as medicinal purgative)
in ink manufacture) seeds
gamboges (gum-resin used as pigment and shawls
as a medicinal purgative) skins
ginger specimens of minerals, fossils
ginseng and ores
gum succades (sweetmeats of
hair candied fruit or vegetables)
hemp sugar
hides talc
horns tamarinds (used in medicine)
indigo tea
iris root (for medicine and thrown silk
perfumes) tortoiseshell
japanned ware turmeric (used as condiment, dye,
jewels and in medicines)
lacquered wares vermicelli
lapis of all varieties (minerals and vermillion
gems) waste or floss silk
mace wrought silks
Source: An Epitome of Customs and Excise on the Importation, and Drawback on the
Exportation of Foreign Articles with the Places where they may be Deposited (London, 1819).
Much of the Company’s building activity in the early nineteenth cen-

tury was focused upon Blackwall as a result of the opening in 1806 of
the East India Docks, a system of closed wet import and export docks
next to the chief Thames shipbuilding and repair yards, and less than
three miles from the up-town warehouses via the newly constructed
Commercial and East India Dock Roads. Although the East India Dock
Company was responsible for the new development, the East India
Company was closely involved in the planning and had the power to
nominate four out of the eleven Dock Company directors.38 The ships
employed by the East India Company were much larger than other
merchant vessels, with many nearly comparable in size to Royal Navy
ships of the line, and the system of discharging and loading them in the
Thames impeded navigation in the river.39 An inscription at the Docks
set out the rationale for the scheme: ‘This great undertaking originat-
ed in the laudable endeavours of the managing owners of ships in the
Company’s service and the important national objects of increased secu-
rity to property and revenue combined with improved accommodation,
economy, and dispatch….’40 Once the East India Docks were operation-
al, Company ships were prohibited by law from unloading elsewhere,
except partially in Long Reach further along the Thames to lessen the
draught of water. In 1807, the East India Company purchased land at
Blackwall from the East India Dock Company in order to build a shed
for the caravans used to transport goods up-town, as well as warehouses
to store bulky goods of small value which were uneconomic to move by
road to the City, mainly pepper, but also sugar, saltpetre, cotton, arse-
nic, hides and wood. Building work took place between 1808 and 1820,
and a boundary wall eighteen feet high was constructed.41
The loss of the Company’s monopoly of the trade to India in 1813 and
the subsequent cessation of its commercial exports to the subcontinent
did not cause warehouse capacity to be reduced. The Company still
handled millions of pounds of tea imported from China;42 the volume
of exports to China was as large as ever; and the quantity of military
stores sent to India had increased.43 The disruption of trade caused by
the French Wars meant that the Company retained an unusually large
number of goods in storage whilst waiting for the market to settle.44 As
the directors had remarked in 1788, the Company was always anxious
to procure the best prices for its goods: ‘The idea of profit is never
lost sight of.’45 London tea dealers customarily left their purchases in
the Company warehouses and removed the chests according to current
demand. In the 1820s over 25 per cent of quarterly tea purchases re-
mained in Company storage.46 The stock of tea in May 1824 amounted
to 50 million lb, including between 3 million lb and 4 million lb which
belonged to dealers but was not yet taken out of the warehouses.47 In
July 1820 William Simons, supplying evidence to a House of Lords
Select Committee, gave another reason for the Company warehouses
being well-stocked: the captains and officers of the Company ships were
bringing nankeen cloth to London in such quantities that not all of
these private trade goods could be sold. Simons remarked:
All the world can trade in China raw silk, nankeens, and every thing but
tea, so that the trade cannot possibly be more open than it is, in those ar-
ticles. London is at this time entirely overstocked with China raw silk and
nankeens; they cannot be sold at all; there are 800,000 pieces of nankeen
cloths at this time in the Company’s warehouses.48
The high levels of business and the large stocks of goods, both the
Company’s own and those of private individuals, were the reasons used
by the East India Company to justify to its critics the continued main-
tenance of the most extensive commercial property held in London by
one organization until the Charter Act of 1833 forced the sale of all but
two of the warehouses.49
The City of London was changed for ever by the construction of the
East India Company warehouses. The large complexes of commercial
buildings dominated their surroundings, alleyways were altered and
new streets were opened to suit the Company’s needs. The Company
intended to impress Londoners by using the warehouse buildings as
well as East India House to be its public ‘face’. Elegant stylistic flourishes
embellished the street-front elevations of their early eighteenth-century
City warehouses, for example, at Fenchurch Street.50
Figure 2: Elevation of the front of Fenchurch Street warehouse, 1806

Source: BL, IOR: H/763B f. 7.
Even the remote Ratcliff saltpetre warehouse was constructed ‘with

a classical dignity and style that would not normally be associated with
such a store’.51 By way of contrast, the austere Cutler Street warehouses
made a visual impact with their fortress-like sheer bulk emanating ‘a
sublime power and dignity’.52 Contemporaries were moved to record
their impressions of the imposing warehouses. John Feltham wrote in
1806: ‘As the stranger turns from the India-house, and casts his eyes
over the warehouses of the company (which are daily swallowing up
the sites of many hundreds of houses), he enlarges his idea of the com-
merce that fills them, till he imagines that he has almost exaggerated its
bulk.’53 In 1826, The Original Picture of London enthused:
The principal Warehouses of this Company, which are of a great size and
substantial construction, are well worthy of inspection, both from the
immense value of their merchandise, and from the excellence of their in-
ternal arrangements. Those between Devonshire Square and New Street,
Bishopsgate Street, are very extensive, and have fronts of several hundred
feet in length … The great height of these buildings, the multitude of
windows, and of cranes for hoisting up goods, combine to create admira-
tion and surprise.54
The warehouses and their contents were considered so impressive that

dignitaries were given tours: in 1814 the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg
visited the Bengal warehouse with the Chairman and several other di-
rectors and was presented with ten pieces of superfine muslin from the
Company’s stock.55
The Company believed that their warehouses were ‘supplied with
every requisite for carrying on a Business of the first magnitude’.56 The
warehouses were commonly arranged in stacks around securely gated
courtyards which were large enough for the reception of cargoes and
the delivery of sold merchandise to buyers. The caravans bringing the
loads from East India Docks ‘according to preconcerted measures are
secured even from the drivers of them on their passage’.57 Although
the caravans were owned by the Company, the teams of horses to draw
them and the drivers were provided by a contractor who operated
under strict regulations laid down in an annual contract. The Company
even specified the speed at which the horses should move: the caravans
were to be driven at a rate of about two and a half miles an hour, and
the horses were not to trot or gallop, ‘or at any time wilfully stop on the
Road during a trip or Journey excepting once only … for a period not
exceeding five minutes at the half way house to water the horses’. The
contractor, William Sumner, was to pay the Company damages of 20s
every time the horses broke into a trot or gallop, and 5s every time a
caravan wilfully stopped.58
The goods were taken out of the caravans by the Company labourers
and hoisted by crane up through the vertical doors called loopholes
which opened onto the various floors of the warehouses. Some loop-
holes were also fitted with ‘delivery machines’ for removing goods. In
1799, David Hardie, a Company warehouse officer, patented his design
for a new type of walking-wheel crane which he claimed was safer and
more efficient, with men walking on the outside of the wheel, instead of
the inside of the rim.59 Hardie incorporated a safety brake mechanism
for the wheel as well as a ‘lowering regulator’ to prevent the men and
horses in the yard below from being injured by falling goods.60 Five of
the cranes were installed at the warehouses, the Company no doubt
hoping for fulfilment of Hardie’s promise of ‘dispatch of business, saving
of labour, and prevention of dangerous accidents’.61 However, some of
the cranes were removed after the warehouse managers discovered that
labourers were often bruised when working the wheel and serious inju-
ries occurred: Edward Doe broke his leg, Joseph Eames was badly hurt
and was unable to work for some weeks, whilst Dennis Leary had to
be pensioned after his accident. It appears from a report by Company
warehouse managers that the walking-wheel at the Bengal warehouse
was still in use in 1823 because the part of the building which it served
did not have any other crane.62
The warehouse interiors consisted of ‘lofty and well ventilated Ware-
rooms’ where tea chests were stacked or other merchandise stored.63
The rooms at Billiter Street warehouse varied in height between ten
feet six inches on the third storey to eleven feet eight inches on the
first.64 Floors were supported by stout storey posts or strong iron col-
umns placed at distances which allowed ease of work and stowage, whilst
still capable of bearing heavy loads.65 Under the Building Act of 1774,
a limit was put on the area covered by the ground plan of warehouses
as a fire prevention measure.66 However, the Company won exemption
from this Act by arguing that its business requirements could only be
met by having undivided warehouse spaces of dimensions which ex-
ceeded the regulations.67 The Company instead guarded against fire
and theft by constructing with brick and stone; by using thick partition
walls to divide the warehouses into large communicating rooms entered
by heavy iron doors; and by acquiring and demolishing adjacent prop-
erties to create open space around its buildings. In 1822 the Company
purchased Highlord’s Court in Crutched Friars as a means of protecting
the Fenchurch Street warehouse from fire, having first attempted to do
so in 1793.68 Fire engines were maintained at the warehouses and regu-
larly ‘exercised’ to ensure that the apparatus was kept in good repair.69
Since the street-facing elevations of the warehouses were often win-
dowless for security, those on the courtyard side had plenty of windows
to let in the daylight. This was essential as there was no fixed source of
artificial light in the storage rooms before the advent of gas and elec-
tricity, and lighted candles were only allowed when absolutely necessary
and then only if carried in a lantern fastened with a padlock.70 Part of
the Cutler Street warehouses was reserved especially for the storage of
indigo because it provided the particular light best for ascertaining the
quality of that product.71
The business of the Company warehouses was supervised by both
Crown and East India Company officials. The Company enjoyed many
concessions in customs matters and procedures, such as the deferment
of duty on imported goods and the right to conduct its own sales where
the prices were used to establish the ad valorem duty to be paid. Over
500 customs and excise officials dealt directly with the Company’s af-
fairs, from the arrival of the ships in the Downs (off the coast of Kent)
to the delivery of the goods from the warehouses.72 A discrete staff of
government officials was assigned to each warehouse working alongside
and overseeing the Company servants: a warehouse-keeper, a surveyor,
lockers and clerks.73 They watched over the movement and storage of
cargoes, attended the sales and recorded the prices, supervised the de-
livery of goods from the warehouses, and ensured that duties were paid
correctly.74 However, the government side of the management of the
East India trade was severely criticized in 1819 by the commissioners ap-
pointed to enquire into the departments of Customs and Excise:
The great facilities … afforded for the custody and management of the
whole of this valuable class of merchandize, by the large and well-regu-
lated establishments of the Company, were of great importance to the
public service, and were evidently the cause of its being conducted with
efficiency in general for the purpose of Trade, and of safety for the ob-
jects of the Revenue, notwithstanding the imperfectly organized and
ill-regulated department of officers and clerks, by which we have found it
to have been administered on the part of the Crown.75
The commissioners found that the Crown warehouse-keepers had not

hitherto been in the habit of visiting the warehouses, instead occupying
themselves from a distance with the books of account which were ‘very
imperfectly’ maintained. Amongst other reforms, the commissioners
proposed that the keepers should be present in the warehouses every
day to attend personally to the receipt, stowage, taring,76 examination,
custody and delivery of goods.
The Company warehouse management praised by the Customs
commission was headed by the directors who sat on the Committee of
Warehouses, and then from 1814 on the united Committee of Buying
and Warehouses. The Committee consisted of six members, together
with the Company’s Chairman and Deputy Chairman who attended
only when there were important matters to discuss. Fines were levied
for non-attendance. Meetings were usually held on days when the Court
of Directors sat, but the Committee also convened on other days as well
if there was a great deal of business to conduct. Committee member-
ship became much more demanding in the early nineteenth century:
whereas the Committee of Warehouses met on sixty-seven occasions in
1793, it met 118 times in 1813, and according to Robert Wissett, clerk
to the Committee of Warehouses, the nature of the business dealt with
had become far more demanding. Instead of meeting simply for ‘trivial
instances of minor detail’ such as authorizing the payment of trades-
men’s bills and rent on warehouse space, Wissett stated that by 1813 the
Committee’s labours were directed towards:
a firm and efficient superintendance and controul over the provision of

the whole of the Company’s India and China investments, in every inter-
mediate stage of operation, from the first issuing of Instructions as to the
quantity and quality of the goods to be provided, until their final delivery
to the buyers after the sales, as also the provision of a very considerable
quantity of the goods and stores that are exported.77
After 1814, the Committee of Buying and Warehouses superintended

the whole of the Company’s commercial affairs, and no tender was con-
sidered unless a representative of the supplier attended in person at East
India House to answer any questions the Committee might have.78 All
decisions were carefully minuted for use as precedents.79 Peter Auber
described the Committee’s duties thus:
arranging and suiting the orders sent abroad to the state of the markets
at home; the control of the servants employed in ascertaining that the
articles procured are of a proper quality, and obtained at fair rates of
cost; devising means for conveying these articles to England, providing
for landing and putting them in the warehouses, arranging the order
of sales, and collecting and digesting the opinions as to forming proper
future provision for the trade; providing and superintending the pur-
chase and export of military stores for service in India, as well as the
purchase of certain specified articles of export, such as lead, woollens,
&c. This committee settles contracts with the dyers, appoints tradesmen,
gives directions respecting cloth and long ells … It likewise issues orders
for the different goods being sent on board the several ships, audits the
tradesmen’s accounts, and directs and controls the extensive warehouse
establishments at home.80
The Committee supervised the work of the keepers who were respon-
sible for the daily running of the various warehouses aided by two sorts
of staff: those who moved goods and those who moved paper.81 Unlike
the Customs appointees, the Company warehouse-keepers did attend
the premises regularly; indeed many of the keepers lived in Company
dwelling houses attached to their warehouses. The purpose-built

warehouse-keeper’s residence at 55 Crutched Friars communicated
with the yards of the Fenchurch Street and French Ordinary Court
warehouses.82
The keepers oversaw everyday warehouse business, making proposals
to the directors about ways to improve efficiency, and were also in charge
of the management and welfare of the Company servants working under
them. Company employees were predominately male, although there
were female housekeepers at East India House as well as a team of char-
women who all received their wages from the clerk to the Committee of
Buying and Warehouses. In the first half of the nineteenth century most
were the wives or widows of warehouse labourers and commodores and
Company messengers; for example, housekeeper Elizabeth Tarrant and
her assistants Lucy Imeson and Jane Popoff, and charwomen Sarah Ann
Binks, Harriet Burls, Mary Fenwick, Lydia Hasker and Sarah Lawson.83
In the larger warehouses, the keepers had an assistant to help them
with their multifarious tasks. The warehouse-keepers were responsible
for organizing the reception of the cargoes of the annual fleet from Asia,
a short period of intense activity, as well as the continuous safeguarding
of goods and their delivery from the warehouse. Company ships sailed
from India each year in spring to take advantage of favourable winds
and several vessels travelled together as a fleet. Consequently the car-
goes of a number of ships had to be received into the warehouses at the
same time. Company cargoes arriving in London were eagerly awaited
by merchants and particulars of the goods were published in journals.
Table 3 shows the great quantity and variety of commodities which
were being processed in December 1808 after the arrival of seven East
Indiamen in the Thames: the Duke of Montrose, Walpole, Sarah Christiana
and Northampton from Bengal; the Worcester from Fort St George and
Bombay; and the Sir William Pulteney and Union from Bombay.
The keepers made arrangements for the Company sales, advising
the directors on the selection and quantity of goods to be offered, and
giving access to prospective buyers wishing to inspect and sample the
commodities.89 They generated and collated records of warehouse
transactions, and authorized a wide variety of disbursements includ-
ing payments for wages, cartage, hoy transport, postage, export duties,
crockery, breakfast for the clerks, chimney sweeping, padlocks, and
meat to feed the vital workforce of warehouse cats, which could number
as many as twenty in one building to keep down the mice and rats.
The post of warehouse-keeper carried with it great responsibilities
but was very lucrative. In the late eighteenth century, the princi-
pal warehouse officers were paid a modest salary from the Company
Table 3: Cargoes of East India ships arrived in London, December 1808
Bengal piece goods

Muslins, plain and stitched, various sorts 9296 pieces
Calicoes, plain and stitched, various sorts 12,123 pieces
Prohibited, plain and stitched, various sorts 3261 pieces
Madras piece goods

Calicoes, of various descriptions 68,400 pieces
Prohibited, of various descriptions 11,843 pieces
Company’s drugs, etc.

Raw silk (98 bales) 14,476 lb
Cochineal (28 chests) 5600 lb
Cotton (662 bales) 229,778 lb
Saltpetre (14,651 bags) 19683 cwt
Keemoo shells84 24 cwt
Sugar (9318 bags) 16,443 cwt
Hemp (166 bales) 520 cwt
Rice (3850 bags) 5439 cwt
Sunn (300 bales) 85
800 cwt
Privilege goods
Raw silk 10 bales
Indigo 4216 chests
Aniseed 100 chests
Madeira wine 24 pipes
Poppy oil 1 cask
Cotton 2052 bales
Hides 19 bags
Senna 11 chests
Tincal86 80 chests
Lacklake87 18 chests
Castor oil and dry ginger 117 jars
Gum Arabic 284 chests
Koossoon flower 88
60 bags
Shellac 2 chests
Gum olibanum 1 chest
Piece goods 3 bales
Plus several other parcels of goods not yet itemized
Source: The London Review, and Literary Journal (December 1808), p. 485.
cash, supplemented by generous emoluments derived from a range

of perquisites relating to the handling and storage of goods in the
warehouses. In 1803 the Court decided to place the officers on a salary
augmented by fixed allowances from a Contingent Fund financed
from buyers’ fees and the sale of packing materials previously con-
sidered to be perquisites. John Stockwell, the tea warehouse-keeper,
received total emoluments of £2600 in 1803.90 The Company direc-
tors expected a high standard of commitment in return and took a
dim view of any neglect of duty by the keepers. In 1815, Stockwell
was reprimanded and heavily fined for disobeying regulations by
allowing a junior officer, writer John Mason, to receive monies for
warehouse rent on goods stored at the Crutched Friars warehouse.91
Mason absconded after embezzling over £5000 between October 1807
and January 1815.92 Such cases were rare, however, and the Company
did attempt to guard against corruption and fraud. Warehouse officers
were obliged to execute bonds guaranteeing honesty: keepers and as-
sistant keepers, elders and assistant elders, and clerks had to name two
sureties for amounts varying between £500 and £2000 depending upon
the degree of responsibility attached to their post.93 For example, in
June 1810 George Mordaunt, keeper of the Coast and Surat warehouse,
gave the Company a bond for £2000, naming as his two sureties Thomas
Garrett Esquire of Ramsgate, Kent, and John Mordaunt, surgeon of
Hackney.94
Keepers and their assistants were usually men who had risen up
through the ranks of warehouse clerks by dint of long and reliable ser-
vice. The warehouse offices were staffed by established clerks, extra
clerks, and writers who processed the permits, financial accounts and
correspondence essential to the Company’s commercial business.
Warehouse writers were employed just in copying and were selected
‘solely on account of their being able to write a good and expeditious
hand’.95 They had to be at least fourteen years of age at appointment
but less than thirty-five.96 Henry Humphrey Goodhall joined the tea
warehouse as a writer in 1783 aged seventeen, and was promoted to
the position of junior clerk in 1786. He then progressed steadily up the
tea warehouse hierarchy, becoming head or first clerk in 1815, assistant
warehouse-keeper in 1820, and finally warehouse-keeper in place of
John Stockwell who retired in 1822.97
When a keeper retired, resigned or died, it was common practice for
the directors to promote his assistant to fill the vacancy. The first clerk
in the warehouse would then move up to be assistant keeper, and all the
other clerks would move up one level in the pecking order, provided
their conduct had been satisfactory. When Henry Dickinson retired as
keeper of the Bengal and Coast warehouse in 1826, he was succeeded

by his assistant Henry Johnson, and first clerk Edward Bolger was pro-
moted to become assistant keeper.98
A parallel chain of command dealing with the physical care and move-
ment of goods was headed by the elders (also known as elder porters)
who supervised the teams of assistant elders, deputy assistant elders,
commodores (foremen) and labourers.99 Elders were appointed by pro-
motion from the assistant elders and there was no restriction on age.100
According to William Simons, when supplying information to the Board
of Control in 1817, an elder was ‘considered a Gentleman’. Each elder
was expected to be present in his warehouse from the morning opening
until the buildings were locked up for the night, and was entrusted with
general superintendence of everyday operations: ‘it is the duty of every
person within the Warehouse to obey his orders implicitly’. Elders were
given the task of ensuring that all goods were correctly delivered ‘which
is no small responsibility’, and they were in charge of issuing wages.101
Assistant elders were either appointed from within the Company or
directly from outside. Candidates had to be less than forty years of age
unless they had been employed in the warehouses for six years, and
they needed to have a rudimentary education in writing and arithme-
tic. Their role was to take charge of a large division of a warehouse, to
be constantly among the men, superintending the commodores and
labourers to ensure that they performed their duties.102
Detailed evidence of the work expected of the Company’s assistant
elders in the early nineteenth century may be found in the papers
of James Finlayson who was appointed to the Coast and Surat ware-
house in April 1815 under the patronage of Company director William
Elphinstone.103 Finlayson was provided with a long list of thirty instruc-
tions signed by the keeper George Mordaunt and his assistant Robert
Barnard. These covered a wide range of duties including staff manage-
ment; keeping records and accounts; making payments; dealing with
damaged goods; supervising the showing, sampling, packing and deliv-
ery of goods; and locking the internal doors of the warehouse at close
of business. Finlayson received a fresh and even longer list of directions
when he was transferred to the Bengal warehouse in August 1820.104
One rung lower down the ladder stood the deputy assistant elders
who were promoted from the warehouse commodores and who were
‘in fact only considered as intelligent Commodores’.105 Then came the
commodores who were in the main chosen from ‘deserving’ labour-
ers and had the job of ensuring that their gang of men was fully and
properly employed. Senior commodores, if suitable, were eligible for
promotion to deputy assistant elder when vacancies occurred.106 Under
the commodores came the permanent established labourers, and then,

at the very bottom of the warehouse hierarchy, the junior and tempo-
rary or ‘extra’ labourers.
The labourers’ job was to handle a wide variety of commodities,
which were mainly high-value and dutiable, without loss, damage or
delay. They unloaded the caravans and hoisted the goods into the
warehouse through the loopholes. Once the packages were inside the
warehouse, the labourers moved and piled chests and bales using hand
trucks, hand-powered cranes, slings and hoists; mended broken chests;
sorted, weighed and tared goods; unpacked and sorted porcelain ac-
cording to pattern, and washed the china for sale; prepared goods for
show before sale; and assisted with the sampling for buyers. After the
sales, they dealt with the delivery of consignments from the warehouses,
packing and marking chests and bundles and removing them into the
yards for collection by the buyers.
***
The East India Company London warehouses were both numerous

and extensive. In order to ensure that they could function efficiently
and profitably, the Company developed a multi-layered management
structure, with each grade of employee having clearly defined respon-
sibilities. The operating method which evolved in the late eighteenth
century was able to cope with business on an unprecedented scale after
1800, with millions of pounds of tea and other valuable goods being
successfully shipped in, sorted, stored and sold.
The warehouse labourers’ efforts were fundamental to the working of
the system and it is therefore unsurprising that the Company took care
when appointing men to those posts. The next chapter will examine
how the labourers were selected for employment by a process combin-
ing patronage and strict admission regulations. It will also analyse the
composition of the workforce, looking at the men’s backgrounds and
previous occupations, and suggesting what might have motivated them
to seek and retain a job in the Company warehouses.
Notes
1 Charles Knight, Knight’s Cyclopaedia of London (London, 1851), p. 135.

2 This final reconstruction of East India House was designed by Richard Jupp,
replacing Theodore Jacobsen’s building which had been completed in 1729.
3 Stephen Porter (ed.), Survey of London, Vols 43 and 44 Poplar, Blackwall, and The
Isle of Dogs, the Parish of All Saints (London, 1994), p. 555.
4 Foster, East India House, pp. 46–7.

5 BL, IOR: L/L/2/936, Agreement for building warehouses between the East
India Company and Joseph Lem 20 June 1683, with plan annexed. The St
Helen’s warehouse came to be used to store baggage as well as woollens for
export.
6 BL, IOR: L/L/2/1295.
7 Joseph G. Broodbank, History of the Port of London (London, 1921), vol. 1, p. 122.
Four out of the seven original warehouses have been preserved in the Cutlers
Gardens development of offices and flats. Two of the Company saltpetre
warehouses still stand at Ratcliff as part of the Free Trade Wharf complex.
8 The Company’s gradual acquisition of properties for the various warehouse
sites may be traced through the collection of property records in BL, IOR:
L/L/2.
9 Christopher Evans, ‘“Power on Silt”: Towards an Archaeology of the East India
Company’, Antiquity 64:244 (1990), p. 653.
10 BL, IOR: L/L/2/304-77, Property deeds relating to the older part of the
Fenchurch Street warehouse.
11 An Account of the Works Required, to be Performed in the Warehouses Intended to be
Built in Fenchurch Street, for the Service of the East India Company (London, c.
1734).
12 BL, IOR: L/L/2/154-288, Property deeds relating to the private trade ware-
house in Leadenhall Street and Billiter Street.
13 BL, IOR: L/L/2/661-96, Property deeds relating to Haydon Square
warehouse.
14 BL, IOR: L/L/2/1253-70, Property deeds relating to Cooper’s Row
warehouse.
15 BL, IOR: L/L/2/712-34, Property deeds relating to Old Bengal warehouse.
16 BL, IOR: L/L/2/146-53, Property deeds relating to the Leadenhall spice and
pepper warehouse.
17 The Times, 25 July 1794, p. 2d.
18 BL, IOR: L/L/2/969-1170, Property deeds relating to the Ratcliff saltpetre
warehouse; BL, IOR: L/L/2/1171-80, Property deeds relating to the Ratcliff
naval store warehouse.
19 Textiles prohibited for home consumption which had to be re-exported.
20 Rough carnelian beads imported for use in the African slave trade.
21 BL, IOR; H/362, pp. 51-66, Warehouse establishments 1785.
22 24 Geo. 3 c. 38.
24 BL, IOR: L/L/2/431-48, Property deeds relating to French Ordinary Court
warehouse.
25 BL, IOR: L/L/2/523-79, Property deeds relating to Crutched Friars
warehouse.
26 BL, IOR: L/L/2/697-701, Property deeds relating to Rumball’s warehouse.
27 BL, IOR: L/L/2/778-993, Property deeds relating to Seething Lane
warehouse.
28 BL, IOR: L/L/2/378-430, Property deeds relating to the later part of the
Fenchurch Street warehouse; BL, IOR: L/L/2/523-79, Property deeds relating
to Crutched Friars warehouse.
29 BL, IOR: L/L/2/475-522, Property deeds relating to Jewry Street warehouse.

30 BL, IOR: L/L/2/735-77, Property deeds relating to New Street and Cutler
Street warehouses.
31 J. Britton, The Original Picture of London (London, 1826), p. 146.
32 Penelope Hunting, Cutlers Gardens (London, 1984), p. 66.
33 I am very grateful to Alan Clibbery for creating an enhanced image for my ar-
ticle in the Journal, and to David Blake and the Families in British India Society
for permission to use the plan here.
34 Peter Cunningham, Handbook of London (London, 1850), p. xix.
35 Between 1600 and 1833, the Company mounted about 4600 voyages from
London. Sailings averaged eight a year 1620–1700. Individual vessels had a
much higher tonnage by 1800. See Farrington, Trading Places, p. 23.
36 For descriptions and plans of the site, see Hunting, Cutlers Gardens, and Evans,
‘Power on Silt’.
37 BL, IOR: H/763A pp. 29–34, Sale particulars for Bengal, private trade and
tea warehouses and former military stores in Cutler Street, New Street, and
Devonshire Square Bishopsgate, March 1836.
38 Porter, Survey of London, vol. 44, pp. 575–92.
39 43 Geo. 3 c. 126, An Act for the Further Improvement of the Port of London, by
Making Docks and other Works at Blackwall, for the Accommodation of the East
India Shipping in the said Port, 1803 (Copy in BL, IOR: L/MAR/C/899).
40 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur D 1131/13.
41 BL, IOR: L/L/2/645-53, Property deeds relating to Blackwall; Porter, Survey of
London vol. 44, pp. 585–91.
42 In 1814, the Company sold 29,578,997 lb of tea in London; in 1833, 32,913,840
lb. See Mui, Management of Monopoly, pp. 146–7.
43 IOR: V/4 Session 1831–2, vol. 9, Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select
Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company, p. 483, Digest of evidence
from William Simons, clerk to the Committee of Buying and Warehouses.
44 Evans, ‘Power on Silt’, p. 652.
45 BL, IOR: B/107 pp. 216–25, Court Minutes 19 June 1788, Report from Open
Committee of Warehouses 19 June 1788 regarding the propositions made by
the calico and muslin manufacturers of England and Scotland.
46 Mui, Management of Monopoly, pp. 18, 83.
47 Figures given in a letter from East India Company Chairman and Deputy to
William Huskisson at the Board of Trade, 29 May 1824, quoted in Asiatic Journal
and Monthly Register Vol. 18 (1824), p. 56.
48 Report relative to the Trade with the East Indies and China, p. 147, Evidence of
William Simons 13 July 1820.
49 3 & 4 Will. 4 c. 85. See Chapter 8.
50 Evans, ‘Power on Silt’, p. 653.
51 Edgar Jones, Industrial Architecture in Britain 1750–1939 (London, 1985), p. 42.
52 Ibid. For a photograph of the Cutler Street warehouse in the 1960s, see BL,
APAC: Photo 374/38.
53 John Feltham, The Picture of London for 1806 (London, 1806), p. 52.
54 Britton, Original Picture of London, p. 146.
55 BL, IOR: H/67 pp. 205–8, Committee of Buying and Warehouses 17 March
1815.
56 BL, IOR: L/L/2/470, Sale particulars of Fenchurch Street and French

Ordinary Court tea warehouses July 1835.
57 Edward Wedlake Brayley, London and Middlesex, vol. 2 (London, 1814), p. 771.
58 BL, IOR: L/AG/32/2/13, no. 541 and 542, Bond and contract 1 January 1834
for William Sumner to furnish horses to convey the goods of the East India
Company in caravans from the East India Docks at Blackwall to different ware-
houses from 1 January to 31 December 1834.
59 David Hardie, Specification – Cranes, British Patent 2300 of 1799 (London,
1856).
60 Olinthus Gregory, A Treatise of Mechanics, Theoretical, Practical, and Descriptive
(London, 1815), vol. 2, pp. 166–71.
61 Hardie, Specification.
62 John Cox Hippisley, Prison Labour (London, 1823), pp. 9–10.
63 BL, IOR: L/L/2/470. See BL, APAC: Photo 374/116 for a photograph of the
interior of Crutched Friars warehouse in 1913.
64 BL, IOR: L/L/2/287, Sale particulars of the Billiter Street private trade ware-
houses April 1835.
65 BL, IOR: L/L/2/695, Sale particulars of Haydon Square tea warehouses
December 1835.
66 14 Geo. 3 c. 78.
67 27 Geo. 3 c. 48: Act passed in 1787 to free the East India Company from the
1774 regulations.
68 BL, IOR: L/L/2/580-608, and BL, IOR: B/173, p. 133, Court Minutes 30 May
1821.
69 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur E 283/14, General duties of an assistant elder at the Bengal
warehouse, August 1820.
70 Ibid.
71 BL, IOR: H/763A, p. 30.
72 Graham Smith, Something to Declare – 1000 Years of Customs and Excise (London,
1980), pp. 64–5.
73 TNA: PRO 61/254, Instructions for Government officers working in the East
India Docks and East India Company London warehouses, 1822.
74 Mui, Management of Monopoly, p. 14.
75 Sixth Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Departments of Customs
& Excise (London, 1820), p. 43.
76 The calculation of the net weight by deducting the weight of the packaging.
77 Proceedings of the Select Committee Appointed by the General Court of Proprietors, on
the 6th October 1813, to Consider and Report upon the Expediency of Augmenting
the Allowances to the Directors for their Attendance upon the Business of the Company
(London, 1814), pp. 37, 167, Evidence of Robert Wissett.
78 Proceedings of the Select Committee Appointed by the General Court of Proprietors,
pp. 71–2, Evidence of William Simons, assistant clerk to the Committee of
Warehouses. For examples of the tendering process see BL: ORB.30/4585,
East India Company, Invitation to Tender for Contract to Supply Worleys, 8 January
1819 (London, 1819), and BL, IOR: L/F/2 Finance and Home Committee
home correspondence.
79 Few Committee records survive, except some copy minutes principally in BL,
IOR: H/67 and BL, IOR: L/F/2 passim.
80 Peter Auber, An Analysis of the Constitution of the East-India Company (London,

1826), p. 186. Auber was Assistant Secretary to the Court of Directors at the
time of writing the book, and rose to be Secretary.
81 Sarah Palmer has pointed out the need for both manual and clerical labour
in her study of the nineteenth-century port: ‘Port Economics in an Historical
Context: The Nineteenth-Century Port of London’, International Journal of
Maritime History 15:1 (2003), p. 49.
82 BL, IOR: L/L/2/470: precise details of the size and layout of the premises are
provided.
83 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/68, pp. 494–8; L/AG/30/9 (not foliated); L/F/1/2, p.
112; L/F/1/4, pp. 478–9, 566; L/F/1/6, pp. 567, 615. Their husbands were
James Tarrant, George Imeson, James Popoff, Samuel Binks, John Burls,
William Fenwick, Thomas Hasker and James Lawson. For more about
Tarrant, Imeson and Hasker, see Chapter 3; for more about the Lawsons, see
Chapter 7.
84 Very large white shells, three to four feet in diameter.
85 India hemp.
86 Crude borax.
87 Lac dye.
88 Perhaps the flowers used to prepare the drug koosoo or kousso.
89 Details of East India Company cargoes arriving in London and of goods de-
clared for sale were advertised in the Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register.
90 BL, IOR: B/135, pp. 1503–5, Court Minutes 6 April 1803.
91 Buyers were required to pay warehouse rent for teas remaining in the ware-
house six months after the prompt day (i.e. the date that payment for the
goods had fallen due). See Auber, Analysis, p. 618.
92 BL, IOR: B/160, pp. 948–50, Court Minutes 1 February 1815.
93 BL, IOR: D/261, Precedent book, Secretary’s Office, c. 1822.
94 BL, IOR: Z/O/6, no. 221.
95 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/7, Special Committee on the Home Establishment,
1831. For the names of warehouse writers appointed 1802–19, see BL, IOR:
L/AG/30/5.
96 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/2/5.
97 Obituary for Goodhall in The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1836, p. 326.
98 BL, IOR: B/178, pp. 722–3, Court Minutes 22 March 1826.
99 The Dutch origin of the term ‘commodore’ is explained by George Birdwood
in Relics of the Honourable East India Company, William Griggs (London, 1909),
p. 54.
100 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/2/5.
101 BL, IOR: F/5/18, p. 124, Board of Control patronage book: evidence on ware-
houses supplied by William Simons, 1 January 1817.
102 Ibid. See also BL, IOR: L/AG/30/3, Establishments of East India House and
the warehouses.
103 R. Barnes, ‘The Assistant Elder’, Port of London Authority Monthly 38 (1963), pp.
255–8.
104 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur E 283, Commissions and papers of James Finlayson, assis-
tant elder at the Coast and Surat warehouse 1815–20 and the Bengal warehouse
1820–9, with official lists of his duties.
105 BL, IOR: F/5/18, p. 124.

106 Ibid.
Three
THE WAREHOUSE LABOURERS
AT THE peak of its commercial activities in the early nineteenth cen-

tury, the East India Company employed more than 3000 labourers in its
London warehouses, the largest single body of civilian manual workers
in London at that time. This was a marked increase from the establish-
ment maintained in 1785 when the total permanent workforce in the
warehouses amounted to 1393, of whom 1252 were labourers and sev-
enty were commodores and writers.1 By 1793, the number of daily paid
workers, comprising the deputy assistant elders, commodores, writers
and labourers, had increased to 1800,2 and in May 1798, with more
warehouses in use and the legal obligation to keep a stock of at least
one year’s worth of domestic tea consumption, there were 2784 per-
sons employed in the warehouses.3 By May 1817, the full complement of
warehouse staff had risen to seven keepers; four assistant keepers; fifty
clerks; two extra clerks; eighteen elders; thirty-seven assistant elders;
thirty deputy assistant elders; 125 writers; and 3123 labourers, com-
modores, gatekeepers and messengers; together with a staff of 123 at
East India Wharf.4 By 1827, the number of labourers had increased to
3320,5 but it then began to fall once a programme of retrenchment
began in 1828: in April 1832 there were 2415 warehouse men including
twenty-four messengers and twenty-eight boys serving as drummers in
the Royal East India Volunteers.6
The number of new Company servants recruited to maintain the
warehouse establishment varied greatly from year to year depend-
ing on the state of trade and on how many employees had been lost
through death, retirement, resignation or dismissal. Labourer appoint-
ments were made on an individual basis, contrasting with the way in
The Warehouse labourers 41
which the Company’s Dutch counterpart, the Verenigde Oostindische

Compagnie, operated in Amsterdam. All Amsterdam merchants were
obliged by local government regulations to have their goods transport-
ed in the city by co-operatives of weigh-house porters, known as the
vemen, and the VOC often chose to use the same groups of men for
warehouse storage tasks.7
The annual distribution of 4600 entries for new permanent labourers
recorded in the East India Company warehouse register for each year
between June 1801 and November 1832 is shown in Figure 3. The values
in the chart have been calculated using the Company’s administrative
year which started and ended with the annual election of directors on
a varying date in April. Admissions to the warehouses made on the day
a new Court was chosen have been counted with those of the previous
year.
The pattern of labourer recruitment needs to be viewed in the con-
text of the Company’s trade and of the British economy in general,
bearing in mind particularly the effects of the long years of war at the
start of the period under examination. After the resumption of the war
against France in 1803, the Company’s re-export of Indian cotton tex-
tiles to Europe collapsed, and consequently shipments of cottons to
England were reduced. The sales of cottons, tea, silk, sugar and drugs
in London were lower than expected in 1804–05 and profits only mod-
erate.8 In January 1807, the Committee of Warehouses recommended
to the Court of Directors that, in view of the stagnation of trade and the
insufficiency of work in the warehouses for the men currently on the
establishment, no new labourers should be received on the outstanding
nominations until the arrival of the next fleet from India or China.9 As
a result, only thirty-nine permanent men were appointed between April
1807 and April 1808. The dramatic fall in recruitment of established
labourers in the years 1828 to 1832, with just forty-five appointments
in total, reflects the Company’s realization that it needed to retrench
in the face of the attack on its monopoly of the trade to China. The
Court decided that it must take measures so that the Company could
compete with rivals in its terms for storing and managing private mer-
chandise, and ensure ‘a continuance of employment to the Company’s
Warehouse establishments’.10 It was perceived that competition would
be felt most directly at Blackwall, and the establishment of labourers
there was reduced in 1828 by transferring men to the up-town ware-
houses in three stages. First, volunteers were called for; then, on the
arrival of China ships in the spring of 1828, those Blackwall labourers
living to the west of Whitechapel were transferred to the tea warehous-
es as and when their services were required; lastly, the remainder of
Figure 3: Warehouse labourer recruitment, June 1801–November 1832

Source: BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5.
the permanent Blackwall labourers were transferred to the up-town

warehouses by degrees as additional men were needed. No permanent
labourer was engaged thereafter for Blackwall, all work being done by
as many temporary men as were needed on a lower daily wage.11
The turnover of a group of warehouse labourers in a ten-year
period from 1823 was collated for a book of evidence submitted by
the Committee of Buying and Warehouses to the Factories Inquiry
Commission in 1833. Of the cohort of 2461 labourers who were in
Company employment in April 1823, 952 were removed from the books
by 1833: 496 died in service, 248 were pensioned, and 208 left their
jobs or were dismissed, a total turnover of just under 39 per cent.12 In
the same period, 1048 new labourers were recorded in the admissions
register, with 939 of these (nearly 90 per cent) recruited between April
1823 and April 1827.13
The warehouse admissions register does not, however, tell the whole
story. The establishment lists and pension records reveal the existence
of a number of men who were recruited after June 1801 and whose
names are not included in the register. Those who served as junior la-
bourers and drummers in the Royal East India Volunteers from an age
as young as ten or eleven years, do not appear. For example, John Rice
was appointed on 19 August 1813 and retired aged thirty-two on 3 June
1835, having thus served since he was ten or eleven years of age.14 John
Coe’s pension record shows that he was appointed on 27 January 1802
and retired on 29 October 1834 aged forty-five, indicating that he had
joined the Company when aged twelve or thirteen years.15
It was agreed in May 1822 that the men serving in the Company’s
Volunteers were to be allowed to offer their sons as drummers. The boys
were taken into the warehouses as junior labourers until they reached
the age of eighteen, when they were admitted to the full pay and ad-
vantages of an established labourer if the warehouse-keeper judged
their conduct to be satisfactory.16 Edward Ratherbee, a labourer at the
Private Trade warehouse who enlisted in the Grenadier Company of
the Volunteers in January 1822, saw two of his sons appointed as drum-
mers at the age of fourteen: Charles in 1826 and Edward in 1829. Both
boys worked in the Bengal warehouse as junior labourers.17 The pen-
sion record of Edward junior states that he was admitted to the full pay
of labourer in September 1833, shortly after his eighteenth birthday.18
‘Extra’ labourers were also employed as needed but very little
evidence about these men has survived.19 It has not been possible to
establish from extant records exactly how the Company recruited
temporary labourers, although the patronage of directors does seem
to have played a part: a petition from a number of extra labourers in
1836 stated that the men were ‘patronised by your honors’ at the time
they entered the Company service.20 They were paid 2s 6d per day, 3d
less than the established labourers, and were not entitled to share in
the warehouse welfare schemes. However, they seem to have enjoyed
regular employment by the Company as long as their conduct was con-
sidered to be good. In December 1836, there were 120 extra men on
the Company books, ‘a privilege many have enjoyed for upwards of 20
years, averaging 10 months employment in each year’.21 A few extra
men succeeded in making the transition to permanent labourers, for
example, William Ward, John Nott and John Roberts in 1816; William
Prosser in 1818; John Watts in 1821; John Shaw in 1823; and William
Heaver in 1825.22
The East India Company was selective in its appointment of labour-
ers. Some men were given warehouse jobs by the Court of Directors or
the Committee of Warehouses as a reward for service elsewhere in the
Company. Jeremiah Leonard was thrown from the main top sail mast
in a gale off the Cape of Good Hope outward bound in the Stafford
and lost his right arm. The Court ordered that he should be appointed
a permanent labourer in the counting house of one of the Company
warehouses where his writing skills might be put to good use.23 William
Whiteway went to sea as gunner’s boy in the East Indiaman Fortitude,
but was captured in 1782 and held prisoner for ten years in India under
Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan. After his release, Whiteway was appointed
as a midshipman by the Company in 1792 and was then given a job as a
warehouse labourer in 1812 by way of compensation for his past suffer-
ings.24 Edward Sheehan was admitted to the tea warehouse in 1808 after
being detained by the Chinese at Canton whilst serving as a Company
mariner.25 William Gregg served the Company for sixteen years as a
sailor and in the garrison at St Helena before entering the tea ware-
houses on his return to England.26 James Cooper served as a private
soldier on the Company’s military establishment at Madras from 1791
to 1806 and was then given a job in the warehouses where he stayed
until his retirement in 1835.27 More rarely, the Committee made a ware-
house appointment to secure a particular skill. In August 1803 William
Allen, a thirty-eight-year-old musician, entered the Bengal warehouse as
a labourer because Mr Irvine of the Custom House had recommended
him for the Company’s Volunteer band.28
Most labourer appointments were made through nomination by
individual directors. Whereas in the early eighteenth century, the ware-
house-keepers were empowered to hire labourers they believed were
‘duly qualifyed for the service they are employed in’,29 by 1800 the ap-
pointment of warehouse labourers fell within the personal patronage
of the Company directors in the same fashion as the lucrative military

cadet and civilian writer positions overseas. In order to secure a post as
a permanent labourer, it was necessary to be given a card of nomination
by a director.30 Company warehouse posts were considered desirable,
and applications for admission always greatly exceeded the number of
vacancies.31 Unsolicited petitions to the Court of Directors were rou-
tinely rejected.32 When Charles Embery appeared at the Old Bailey in
1790 accused of stealing chintz belonging to the Company, witnesses
at his trial stated that two men had given evidence against him in the
expectation of receiving a place in one of its warehouses as a reward. As
William Stanton reported:
I said, I expect you will have a bit of a place; why, says Baldwin, in my old
age I shall have something done for me, I hope; Baldwin said that as well
as Jones; I said, it is in the East India warehouse; says I, that is a pretty
thing for you; says he, I desire no more.33
Regulations were adopted in May 1797 to prevent improper practices

in the admissions procedure. Two employees at the tea and drug ware-
houses, William Bragg, commodore, and Henry Butler, labourer, were
dismissed in September 1799 and barred for ever from Company ser-
vice as punishment for selling a nomination card to Charles Shuler.34
If the number of labourers to be appointed in any one year was only
small, nominations were limited to directors serving on the Committee
of Warehouses, together with the Company Chairman and his Deputy.
Otherwise the patronage was divided amongst the Court in general
but weighted in favour of the Chairman, Deputy and members of the
Committee of Warehouses, as is evident from Table 4 which shows the
patronage distribution of the 4600 successful labourer nominations
made between June 1801 and November 1832.
Campbell Marjoribanks was patron to the largest group of men (203),
which reflects the fact that between the years 1801/02 and 1832/33 he
served two years as Chairman, three years as Deputy, and seven years as
a member of the Committee of Warehouses. Some cards issued during
the lifespan of one Court must have been presented at East India House
the following year: at least five of the directors had nominations cred-
ited to them in the year after their deaths.35
Several of the men given a card were known personally to the direc-
tors who put their names forward. John Bebb nominated his coachman
George Weaklin, his butler Henry Hunt, and five of his servants: James
Wood, Charles Stewart, John Woodhouse, William Hardy, and John
Dyer.36 William Wigram gave appointment cards to his own servant
Benjamin Westcott, and to servants of members of his family, namely
Table 4: Directors who nominated warehouse labourers and the numbers of men
appointed on their cards, June 1801–November 1832
Henry Alexander 3 †* Campbell Marjoribanks 203

† Josias du Pré Alexander 36 † John Masterman 10
Alexander Allan 14 † Thomas Theophilus Metcalfe 69
†* William Astell (formerly Thornton) 159 † George Millet 47
† John Baillie 11 †* Charles Mills 120
† John Alexander Bannerman 41 † Charles Mills junior 15
Francis Baring 18 William Taylor Money 13
†* John Bebb 108 † John Morris 110
William Bensley 23 John Petty Muspratt 6
* Jacob Bosanquet 143 †* Edward Parry 123
John Smith Burges 9 Richard Parry 2
†* Robert Campbell 88 Thomas Parry 25
† William Stanley Clarke 103 †* James Pattison 160
Robert Clerk 4 † Richard Chicheley Plowden 81
† Joseph Cotton 58 † Charles Elton Prescott 17
† James Daniell 98 † George Raikes 73
Lionel Darrell 11 † John Goldsborough Ravenshaw 52
† Samuel Davis 29 †* Thomas Reid 169
William Devaynes 13 † Abraham Robarts 104
† Neil Benjamin Edmonstone 35 * John Roberts 136
†* William Fullarton Elphinstone 165 †* George Abercrombie Robinson 172
Robert Townsend Farquhar 3 * David Scott 24
† Simon Fraser 68 † David Scott junior 15
†* Charles Grant 153 †* George Smith 107
† John Hudleston 81 † James Stuart 3
John Hunter 9 George Tatem 8
†* Hugh Inglis 101 † John Bladen Taylor 34
†* John Inglis 84 † George Woodford Thelusson 43
† John Jackson 55 † John Thornhill 97
William Adair Jackson 9 †* Robert Thornton 131
† Paul Le Mesurier 64 † Sweny Toone 112
†* Hugh Lindsay 124 † John Travers 79
†* John Loch 35 Henry St George Tucker 3
John Lumsden 2 † Richard Twining 32
Stephen Lushington 12 †* William Wigram 129
John Manship 19 Robert Williams 9
Stephen Williams 18
By order of the Committee of
Warehouses/Buying and 61
Warehouses
† Served as member of Committee of Warehouses/Committee of Buying and Warehouses for one or

more years during the period 1801–32.
* Chairman or Deputy Chairman for one or more years during the period 1801–32.
Source: BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, BL, IOR: B.
Benjamin Hope and Thomas Morrish who worked for Sir Robert and
Lady Wigram.37 Other such examples may be found in the warehouse
register and there are probably far more hidden amongst the hundreds
of men whose previous occupation is described merely as ‘servant’.
Director David Scott’s patronage book records three nomination cards
given to men who ventured to approach him directly: James Hickes and
Mathew Briggs who called at Scott’s London house in Harley Street,

and Thomas Stockton Hatfield, a shoemaker with a wife and two chil-
dren who was living in Jewin Street in the City.38
In other cases, the application to the director came from a third party,
and here networks of mutual dependence and social influence came
into play. Lord Walsingham, a former member of the Board of Control,
appears to have used his East India Company connections in London
to obtain a labourer’s post in spring 1801 for Thomas Lacey, the son
of the housekeeper at Walsingham’s mansion at Merton in Norfolk.39
Joseph Hume commented thus on the operation of patronage by the
East India Company directors:
No individual can command within themselves every thing they may re-
quire, and if, for favours in their power to grant, they can procure favours
in return, their patronage may be often more valuable to them than
money, as they will often obtain, in exchange for patronage, what, by the
laws of the country, money cannot command.40
The personal papers of David Scott give an interesting insight both

into the patronage networks spread across Britain and the widespread
attraction that labourer posts held. Scott had so many contacts applying
on behalf of men they wished to see placed in the Company warehouses
that he maintained a waiting list, with sometimes twenty names on it.41
Scott also ‘borrowed’ nominations from other directors: in June 1801
he was approached by Sir John William Anderson for a labourer’s place
for John Leaworthy, who entered the warehouse the following month
on a nomination card issued by Paul le Mesurier.42 Since Scott had a
considerable political power base in Scotland, one might expect a pro-
portion of his nominees to be Scottish. In April 1796, he wrote to Hugh
Lyon of Wester Ogil in Angus: ‘I am favored with the perusal of yours
to Mr Lennox. The first appointment of Laborers that takes place John
Jack shall certainly have one.’43
Similar provincial links for labourer recruitment must have oper-
ated for other Company directors, meaning that the men were drawn
from a far wider catchment area than London itself. According to evi-
dence gathered in the 1830s the majority of the labourers came ‘from
the country’ rather than from the City of London and the surround-
ing parishes, although some were Irish44 (for example, William Burke,
Dennis Flinn, George Burgoyne and Michael Green).45 This relocation
from country to town was a feature of labour mobility in the first half
of the nineteenth century: first-generation town dwellers accounted
for nearly two-thirds of all the adult inhabitants of English towns in
1851.46 There is evidence to confirm the labourers were indeed born
in many parts of England: for example, Elijah Kerley was baptized at

Great Coxwell, Berkshire on 20 January 1780;47 William Peat Newington
was born on 26 December 1805 in Brighton, Sussex;48 William Bishop
Legg was baptized on 4 January 1810 in Burton Bradstock, Dorset;49
Henry Gould Hayward was baptized on 12 February 1778 at Tetbury,
Gloucestershire;50 Thomas Collibear was baptized on 23 May 1783 in
Ashcott, Somerset;51 John Wotton came from Devon;52 William Deller
was a native of Hertfordshire;53 Jenkin Morgan was born in Cornwall;54
and John Hudson came from Yorkshire.55 Some men were born even
further afield: William Caldwell and Peter Wright in Scotland;56 Philip
Saunders in Wales;57 Charles Abraham Megevan in Switzerland,58 and
Richard Lane in America.59 Lane is one of two black labourers identi-
fied in the Company records. Described as ‘a man of Colour’, Lane
was admitted to the Bengal warehouse in March 1820, having been a
servant to Mr Wood.60 James Inglis, a ‘Negro’ who was admitted to the
assistant private trade warehouse in April 1820 aged thirty-three, had
previously been employed as servant to Mr D. Inglis.61
However, the task of investigating the background of thousands of
labourers, discovering, if possible, where each man was born and where
he was living when given a warehouse nomination card, is daunting,
even aided by the useful tools of the International Genealogical Index
and online census and biographical records. Within the context of
this study, it is only feasible to give a few illustrations of what can be
discovered.
Hugh James Drake appears to have moved to the metropolis before
receiving a nomination. He was born on 31 October 1800 in Salisbury,
Wiltshire, but married Ann Lane in St Marylebone in London on 17
September 1821. After receiving a card from Neil Benjamin Edmonstone,
Drake was appointed to the tea warehouses on 5 March 1823 whilst he
was living at 26 Dorset Street, Gloucester Place, St Marylebone, and
when he is described as having ‘no trade’.62
Robert Hall Price was born in Fairford, Gloucestershire on 29
August 1794. He married Mary Giles on 6 November 1814 at St James
Clerkenwell in London, over four years before he was appointed to the
Private Trade warehouse on 12 March 1819 after recommendation by
Campbell Marjoribanks and whilst working as a watchmaker.63
From 1796 until his death in 1816, Abraham Robarts was the Member
of Parliament for Worcester, a major centre of the glove making indus-
try. Out of 103 labourer nominations made by Robarts as a Company
director in the years 1801–15, seventeen were for men whose previ-
ous occupation was glover. One might therefore suspect that some
of Robarts’s labourers were given a nomination card through local
patronage in Worcester. Benjamin Johnson, glover, was nominated by

Robarts and appointed to the Private Trade warehouse on 1 July 1801.
Company pension records show that Johnson was living in Bury St
Edmunds in Suffolk and then moved to Worcester before his death on
6 January 1866, whilst the 1861 census for Elmswell in Suffolk confirms
that Johnson was born in Worcestershire.64 Although this seems to tie
him into a Worcester patronage network, it still does not prove whether
Johnson was given his card whilst working as a glover in Worcester or
whether he came to London and managed to gain Robarts’s patronage
there.
Holding a nomination card did not guarantee automatic entry to
the warehouse, and the directors were not free to appoint as labour-
ers anyone who came to their attention. In December 1782, the Court
repealed twenty-two orders for regulating warehouse labourers dated
between November 1709 and August 1782 as these were now ‘insuf-
ficient’ to answer the Company’s purpose. Amongst the new orders
instituted were four governing recruitment: in future, no person was
to be employed as a labourer in any Company warehouse except by ap-
pointment from the Committee of Warehouses; every director who had
nomination of any labourers was obliged to recommend them through
the Committee of Warehouses; no infirm man was to be admitted, nor
anyone aged over forty-five years; nobody was to be admitted without
first being called before the Committee of Warehouses, when, if ap-
proved, his name was to be registered in a book kept for that purpose.65
The age limit was reduced to forty years in June 1786.66
In February 1797, the Court of Directors approved fresh regulations
for the future admission of labourers.67 All new entrants were to be fit
and willing to serve in the Company’s Volunteer regiment, and hence-
forward no man was to be admitted as a labourer if he was aged more
than thirty-five years or if his height was under five feet four inches.
David Scott offered a nomination card to John Murray of Clement’s Inn
Passage in 1799 but then had to rescind it when he discovered that the
man was too short for military duty in the Volunteers.68 Before being
called before the Committee of Warehouses for approval, a candidate
had to produce four documents: an entry from a parish register, if re-
quired, or other acceptable proof of age; a surgeon’s report that no
injury or illness rendered him unfit for service; a certificate from one
of the Volunteers’ adjutants that his height was five feet four inches or
more; and a satisfactory character reference from a respectable person.
The regulations governing the appointment of the labourers changed
little in the early nineteenth century, but from information given to the
Board of Control in 1816 and 1817, it appears that the minimum height
requirement was increased to five feet five inches.69 Applicants were to

be told that it was a condition of employment that they were to give up
the whole of their time to the Company’s service if necessary, and that
they were expected to reside as near to the Company’s premises as was
convenient.
The existing evidence of labourers’ residential addresses shows that
although a substantial number were scattered throughout the inner
parishes of the City of London, the largest concentration was found in
areas on the eastern and north-eastern fringes of the City: Shoreditch,
Stepney, Mile End, Bethnal Green and St George in the East.70 This
pattern of residence typifies the trend which had been gathering pace
during the eighteenth century whereby the workers moved to accom-
modation outside the City and commercial premises took the place of
homes within the City itself. The City housed less than one in six of the
inhabitants of greater London in 1801, and less than one in twenty by
1851.71 Table 5 analyses 1679 addresses for labourers enlisting in the
Royal East India Volunteers between 1820 and 1831.72
Table 5: Analysis of the location of residential addresses provided by labourers,

1820–31
Area Number of labourers Area Number of labourers
Shoreditch 174 Islington 18

Stepney and Mile End 165 Bromley St Leonard and St Mary le Bow 17
City and Tower Liberty 162 St Martin in the Fields 15
Bethnal Green 142 St George Bloomsbury 12
St George in the East 129 Camberwell 8
Newington 85 St Clement Dane 8
St Pancras 82 Chelsea 7
Southwark 82 Shadwell 6
Whitechapel 70 Wapping 5
Lambeth 63 Deptford 3
St Luke Old Street 58 Pentonville 3
St Marylebone 55 Rotherhithe 3
Bermondsey 42 Kensington 2
Clerkenwell 36 St George Hanover Square 2
Hackney 36 Walthamstow 2
Holborn 32 Battersea 1
Westminster 32 Clapham 1
Poplar and Blackwall 28 Greenwich 1
Spitalfields 25 Lewisham 1
Blackfriars and Christchurch Surrey 22 St Ann Soho 1
St Giles in the Fields 22 Stockwell 1
Limehouse 20 Total 1679
Source: BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485.

Few Company labourers can have lived as close to their work as James
Tarrant and George Imeson, who were resident in East India House
because their wives were employed there. Elizabeth Tarrant was house-
keeper to the Company earning £100 per annum, whilst Lucy Imeson
was one of her assistants on a salary of £50 per annum. Both women
were provided with accommodation for their family, coals, candles,
tea, bread and butter – benefits which were valued at another £50 per
annum. George and Lucy Imeson occupied rooms at the top of East
India House with their children and do not appear to have disturbed
officials by their presence.73 The Tarrants on the other hand experi-
enced ‘Domestic differences and little broils’ and the Committee of
Warehouses felt compelled to intervene to remove James Tarrant from
East India House. He spent some time in an asylum for the insane and
was eventually dismissed by the Company in 1826.74
The Company’s regulations provided a filter through which those
wishing to work as warehouse labourers had to pass, and meant that
the men recruited were not necessarily representative of the working
classes in London as a whole. This was recognized by Lewis Leese junior,
one of the Company warehouse surgeons who examined all the ware-
house writers and labourers nominated for admission.75 As part of his
evidence to the Factories Inquiry Commission in 1833, Leese stated:
The emoluments and regular employment, with advantages in cases of

sickness or superannuation, have always been such as to render the situ-
ation of a labourer in the Company’s service desirable; hence there has
always been a much greater number of applicants than could be em-
ployed, and the Company has thus been able to select from them such
as from health and constitution appeared most efficient, and to decline
the rest.76
Men seeking posts were only nominated conditionally, subject to a sat-

isfactory medical report: ‘Upon their appearance before the surgeon
they undressed, and underwent precisely the same scrutiny as recruits
on entering the army.’ Thus all labourers joining the warehouses were
those who on examination appeared to be of ‘sound health and consti-
tution’ and who would be able to serve as soldiers in the Royal East India
Volunteers and not be a drain on the Company’s resources through sick-
ness. Leese believed that the labourers at admission would, as a group,
be healthier than an equal number of men taken indiscriminately from
journeymen and labourers outside the warehouses.77 Between 1808 and
1822, between 7 and 8 per cent of the applicants examined each year
by the Company surgeons were rejected, chiefly for hernia and varicose
veins.78 For example, Abraham Thornton was given a nomination card
by David Scott in 1801 but was rejected because he was ruptured.79

Table 6 shows the age distribution of new labourers entered in the
warehouse register during the years 1801–32.
Table 6: Age distribution of warehouse labourers on appointment, 1801–32
Age range Number of labourers %
16–19 253 5.50

20–4 910 19.77
25–9 1082 23.51
30–4 2301 50.00
35–9 18 0.40
40 and above 1 0.02
Unspecified 35 0.80
Total 4600 100.00
Exactly 50 per cent of the men admitted were aged thirty to thirty-four,
with a further 23 per cent aged twenty-five to twenty-nine. Thus the
Company was appointing a greater proportion of mature men in pref-
erence to those who were younger and less experienced. The small
number of entrants over the age of thirty-five (0.42 per cent) should
have been ineligible, but they ‘obtained admission by special favour’.80
The men who successfully passed through the admission process
were drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds. One was Sir Richard
Corbett, whose family was described by The Annual Register as ‘reduced
to such indigence, that the present baronet, although heir to some of
the best estates in the kingdom, is in an inferior station in the East India
warehouses’.81 Although Corbett is exceptional, there are other perhaps
unexpected entries amongst over 350 different former occupations
listed in the warehouse register: architect, attorney, bookseller, botani-
cal flower colourer, broker, chemist, mathematical instrument maker,
surgical instrument maker, schoolmaster, silversmith, wine merchant.82
The relative size of the fifty occupational groups from which the
largest numbers of labourers were recruited between 1801 and 1832
is shown in Table 7. Servants, labourers, shoemakers and the intrigu-
ingly vague ‘no trade’ stand out above the bakers, butchers, carpenters,
clerks, farmers, gardeners, hairdressers, porters, seafarers, soldiers, tai-
lors and weavers. A further eighty-six men in the admissions register have
a blank against their name in the column which lists previous occupa-
tion. Although it is tempting to try to link the peak years of recruitment
for each occupation with difficulties and downturns faced by that trade
or employment, especially in the London area, this is fraught with dif-
ficulty since, as has been demonstrated, it is difficult to ascertain from
the records exactly where the men were living or working when nomi-
nated for Company employment, and it would be essential to take into
account regional and local economic variations.
Table 7: Fifty largest occupational groups for labourers admitted to the East India
Company warehouses, June 1801–November 1832
Servant 784 Cooper 20

Labourer 500 Shopkeeper 20
‘No trade’ 441 Calico glazer/printer 19
Shoemaker/shoe heel maker 398 Gun makers and allied trades 19
Porter 171 Coachman 19
Weaver 126 Stay maker 18
Mariner 121 Turner 18
Tailor 112 Waiter 18
Gardener 94 Greengrocer 17
Baker 83 Publican 17
Carpenter 76 Miller/millwright 16
Soldier 71 Saddler 16
Clerk 70 Boot maker/boot closer 15
Butcher/pork butcher 69 Bricklayer 15
Farmer 63 Musician 14
Hairdresser 52 Shopman 14
Watch making trades 44 Hatter 12
Tallow chandler 38 Jeweller 12
Painter & painter/glazier 37 Wheelwright 12
Grocer 33 Printer 11
Glover 32 School master/assistant 11
Cheesemonger 29 Dyer 10
Cabinet maker 25 Milkman 10
Linen draper 22 Paper maker 10
Smith 21 Sawyer 10
Total (out of 4600 labourer 3885
admissions 1801–1832)
Given the system of nomination by director, it is unsurprising that

servants predominate, accounting for 784 out of 4600 newly appointed
labourers (17 per cent). Servants would have had greater opportunity
for personal contact with those whose social standing put them in a
position to be able to lobby Company directors for favours. Records of
applications and appointments for positions as porters and messengers
at the Bank of England in the nineteenth century also show a large
proportion of recommendations for servants to the nobility, gentry and
Bank directors.83 Numerous other Company labourers were tradesmen
or skilled artisans moving into the semi-skilled world of the warehouse,
where they would in general be performing a limited range of manual
tasks which could be picked up in a matter of weeks or months.84 There

are parallels which can be drawn to the recruitment of private soldiers
for the East India Company armies, where, compared to the King’s
troops, ‘the Company’s service attracted a “superior” grade of recruit,
with higher proportions of artisans and clerks and a smaller proportion
of simple labourers’.85 The East India Company London district mili-
tary recruitment registers reveal a range of former occupations similar
to that found in the warehouse registers.86 In periods of high unemploy-
ment, recruits for India included not only artisans and agricultural and
unskilled urban labourers but also ‘members of what might be styled the
working class aristocracy, petty clerks, failed printers, low-grade teachers
and the like’.87 Since the quotas for enlisting soldiers were fairly low, the
Company’s military recruiting parties could afford to be selective: just
as in the warehouses, ‘the Company accepted and was sought by many
who saw in it not simply a refuge from poverty but a route to prosperity
and even respectability’.88
Whilst it is unwise to try to ascribe motives to individuals without firm
documentary evidence, it is possible to suggest some reasons why a job
in the Company warehouses was sought by such a diverse collection of
men. One was security of employment: the East India Company did not
operate the two-tier system of permanent and less secure ‘preferable’
labourers found in the London docks. In October 1822, for example,
the West India Dock Company selected 140 men as ‘preferable labour-
ers’ who were issued with numbered cards renewable every year. In a
slack season, the West India Dock Company would post the next day’s
labour requirements at the end of each working day. Preferable labour-
ers were to be given a fair and equal turn of work and be employed
before any extra labourers were called.89 In contrast the East India
Company employed all its labourers, apart from extra men, on a perma-
nent basis, which was an important benefit in early nineteenth-century
London. Whilst even the permanent warehouse labourers could expect
periods of unemployment when trade was slack, the Company did its
best to lessen the impact by ruling that men previously employed were
to be taken back before any new men were recruited.90 After 1799, when
a benefit scheme for labourers was established by the Company, any
subscriber laid off because the Company had no employment for him
was entitled to 1s per day during the time of his discharge.91
A second attraction was that the labourers received an agreed, regular,
reasonable wage for fixed hours working in a clean and dry environ-
ment, and they had the assurance that they would be paid punctually
at the end of each week by a well-organized and reliable administra-
tive machine. By the early nineteenth century, the permanent labourers
were paid 2s 6d per day and this was increased to 2s 9d in May 1810.92
The labourers’ wage rate did not vary according to length of service.
Junior labourers received 2s per day.93 This arrangement was by no
means typical for the working classes at that time. As Leonard Schwarz
has observed in his study of London 1700–1850: ‘the concept of remu-
neration by a reasonably predictable money wage, and only a money
wage, was by no means universal for much of this period’.94 Workers in
the Royal Dockyards in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
were paid months in arrears and relied in part on payment in kind in
the form of perquisites such as wood chips.95
The labourers’ working week was from Monday to Saturday and the
warehouses were closed on Sundays, Good Friday and Christmas Day. An
ordinary day’s work in the Company warehouses lasted six hours, with a
thirty-minute rest mid-morning for breakfast. Before February 1829 the
labourers worked between 8.00 a.m. and 2.00 p.m.96 Normal warehouse
business hours were then altered so that the labourers were required to
work from 9.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m.97 Working days of ten or twelve hours
were common for other occupational groups at that period. The stan-
dard day in the Royal Dockyards was 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. (5.00 p.m.
on Saturdays) with a break of one hour at noon.98 According to a report
published by Parliament in 1840, permanent labourers employed by the
St Katharine Dock Company earned a basic wage of 2s 8d for working
nine hours in summer and eight hours in winter ‘with little intermis-
sion’ during the day. Bricklayers’ labourers were paid in the region of 2s
9d and 3s for a ten-hour day from 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. with breaks of
thirty minutes each for breakfast and tea and an hour for dinner.99
There were often opportunities for the Company labourers to work
longer days with overtime pay. When business required it, the ware-
houses opened an hour or two early, and labourers were paid an hourly
supplement of 3d for ‘extra time’ worked before or after their stan-
dard working day.100 It may appear that the Company was opening itself
to criticism for being inefficient by employing a large number of men
for short hours when fewer men could have been employed for longer
hours to achieve the same amount of work. One explanation might be
that the Company was continuing a long-established pre-industrial pat-
tern of working which had been determined by daylight rather than
the clock.101 Limiting work to hours of natural light also had the benefit
of avoiding the need for candles and lanterns which were a fire risk in
the warehouses. Another factor to be taken into account is that bonded
warehouses under the supervision of the Board of Customs had their
working hours set by law, although these were somewhat longer than the
Company labourers’ standard day, being 7.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. March
to October and 8.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. November to February.102
The Company warehouse labourers’ comparatively short regular

working day allowed the men to have other jobs in the afternoon or
evening. Having more than one source of income was nothing out of
the ordinary in the early nineteenth century. Analysis of Londoners’
occupations by Schwarz showed that ‘multiple occupations were com-
monplace and necessary’, with a very limited number of workers
specializing in a single job throughout the year.103 A few warehouse la-
bourers held a second post within the Company as watchmen, and most
of the night watchmen employed by the Bank of England in the 1790s
were Company labourers who arranged to finish their work before
8.00 a.m. so that they could get away to their work at the Company
warehouses.104 Theatres were another source of evening employment:
John Hayward was a scene shifter at Sadler’s Wells, earning an extra
8s a week to help maintain his large family,105 whilst William Cussans
also worked at Sadler’s Wells as a dresser.106 Some Company labourers
were shopkeepers with their families; for example, Thomas Eland kept
a chandler’s shop in Union Street, Whitechapel with his wife Sarah.107
Many continued their previous occupation. In 1804 George Gibb stated
when giving evidence at the Old Bailey: ‘I am a tailor by trade, and a
labourer in the East-India Company’s warehouses.’108 John Hooper was
a shoemaker when he was appointed a labourer in March 1820; ten
years later he was still making boots and shoes whilst working in the
Company warehouses.109 A wide variety of other additional jobs can be
traced: William Middleton kept an evening school;110 John Cruft taught
music;111 Leonard Collins was a wholesale butcher and pastry cook;112
Luke Coleman was a coffee-house keeper and ginger-beer maker;113
James Rowe was a baker at night;114 John Gallaway and Hugh Hughes
were milkmen;115 John Lincoln served as a Bow Street patrol;116 and
Henry Hobart was a dealer in second-hand clothes and ‘occasionally
Waiter in Private Families’.117 Some of the labourers pursued a succes-
sion of widely differing second occupations in an attempt to boost their
incomes. For example, Abraham Ball of Bethnal Green was a journey-
man weaver and later a dealer in glass whilst also working in a Company
warehouse;118 and George Richard Batt combined his labourer duties
with dealing first in perfumery and combs, then in tripe, and subse-
quently in coals, glass, earthenware and china.119
The opportunity to earn a second wage on top of their Company
pay should have helped to elevate the financial status of many of the
Company warehouse workers within the London labourer hierarchy. A
number of the men did indeed have sufficient wealth and property to
warrant making a will. Robert Timson, whose will was proved in 1835
shortly after he retired with thirty years’ service, bequeathed £250 in
new 3½ per cent Bank of England stock.120 Charles Abraham Megevan

and John Robnett were both able to make cash bequests of sums over
£100.121 In 1804 John Peirce bequeathed to his stepson and daughter
the income from his leasehold interest in the victualling house in Park
Place, Walworth known as the Huntsman and Hounds and the adjacent
tenement and piece of land.122 John Evans held a property called Little
Downfield in Rushock, Herefordshire which he settled on his broth-
er and nephew in 1826.123 In 1831 William Henry Troke left his wife
five leasehold properties in Banner Street in the parish of St Luke,
Middlesex.124 Henry John Kirkman owned the freehold of his dwelling
in West Street, Stepney and of the house next door, both of which he
left in trust for the benefit of his wife and children when he died in
1850, having retired on a Company pension in 1846.125
One labourer in the tea warehouse supplemented his income with
receipts from his scholarly endeavour. Samson Richards spent his free
time ‘inventing’ and compiling The Royal Perpetual Almanack which was
first published in 1831.126 He sent the Company directors several copies
of the prospectus and asked that he might be allowed occasionally to be
absent from work during the ‘progress’ of the Almanack.127 The Court
subscribed for forty copies of Richards’s work for use by its officers.128
The Almanack comprised a wide variety of information from the prac-
tical (General Post Office regulations, public office holidays) to the
obscure (for example, a table showing the time at which, if the projec-
tile forces of all the planets were destroyed at their mean distance from
the Sun, their gravities would bring them down).
Whilst it is doubtful whether many of Richards’s fellow labourers
would have had the erudition, or inclination, to ‘invent’ such an alma-
nac, the majority appear to have enjoyed at least a basic level of literacy.
When the Company warehouses were closed in the 1830s, subscribers to
the labourers’ benefit fund had to execute a deed of release. Eighteen
such deeds are extant: 1653 men signed their names, with most signa-
tures well-formed and clearly written; three signatures were made on
behalf of named labourers; and the remaining ninety-one men made
their mark rather than sign. Thus nearly 95 per cent of this group of
labourers was able to write their name, providing some evidence of lit-
eracy, however basic.129 This figure contrasts markedly with John Field’s
estimate of the literacy rate of workers at the Portsmouth Dockyard,
where only ten per cent of semi-skilled and five per cent of unskilled
labourers were able to sign their names in the pension books 1825–9.130
It also far exceeds the male literacy rate of 67.3 per cent published for
1841 by the Registrar General.131 Moreover, there are surviving letters
and petitions from the labourers to the Company which appear to have
been written by the men themselves,132 and it is clear that the Company
expected that the majority of men would have a basic ability to read and
write. All regulations which the labourers needed to know, as well as the
names of men discharged for malpractice, were printed and affixed in
the most conspicuous parts of the warehouses, and the labourers were
required to set down in their own handwriting against their names in a
receipt book of wages the number of days in each week they had been
employed and the sums of money received by them.133 Some of the jobs
entrusted to the labourers were non-manual, needing numeracy as well
as literacy skills, and were sometimes accorded extra pay: counting,
weighing and taring merchandise; checking the warrants before deliv-
ering goods; ticket writing; book-keeping.
Another lure of employment as a Company labourer was the possibil-
ity of promotion with increased wages. Able warehouse labourers could
progress to the rank of commodore and thence to deputy assistant elder,
or be appointed as a messenger or warehouse writer. Commodores were
paid between 3s 10d and 4s 4d per day depending upon their length of
service but were not eligible for any payment for hours worked beyond
the standard six hours.134 Deputy assistant elders had a pay scale starting
from £70 per annum. Messengers received 3s 3d for a regular six hour
day and then 6d per hour of extra time.135 Writers were paid on a rising
scale according to length of service starting at 4s 6d for a six hour day
with 9d per hour for overtime.136 Temporary ‘extra’ writers received 3s
9d for an ordinary day, and 3d per hour for extra time.137
George Shipway was appointed as a labourer in July 1815 and promoted
to be a messenger at East India House in April 1820, and then in March
1831 to commodore of messengers for which his salary was £110 per
annum plus £10 in lieu of clothing.138 By the time of the 1851 census, he
was a door-keeper at East India House living in Shoreditch with his wife and
daughter, and he could afford to employ a female household servant.139
Thomas Hasker, husband of Company charwoman Lydia Hasker,
joined the tea warehouse in June 1807 and was promoted to a mes-
senger post at East India House in January 1817 at a salary of £80 per
annum with clothing provided. His son Thomas John Hasker secured a
post as a messenger and then as a clerk at East India House, building on
his father’s achievement to rise further in social status.140
Patronage could play a part in promotion. David Scott had his atten-
tion drawn to labourer William Caldwell who was very anxious to be
appointed a commodore: ‘He is an honest and industrious man who
came some years ago from Renfrewshire and if you should find his char-
acter sobriety and attention such as have been represented to me, I
flatter myself you will with your usual goodness promote him when an
opportunity offers.’141 Tea warehouse-keeper John Stockwell wrote to

Scott in June 1801 reporting on five men that the director had par-
ticularly recommended to him for advancement: John Watson; James
Wise (patron Sir Richard King); John Bunn (patron Lord Spencer);
Peter Brymer; and Stephen Rooke (patron the Duke of Buccleugh).
Stockwell was finding it difficult to fulfil Scott’s ‘particular wish’ of ad-
vancing Watson as there were very few things he was fit for on account
of his age, but Wise had been promoted to commodore and Brymer
was employed as a writer. The keeper doubted whether Bunn would be
capable of the duties of a commodore and so intended to give him the
first vacant gate-keeper post which would bring the same amount of
additional pay. Stockwell thought that he would also be able to favour
Rooke by doing something for his son who was one of the drummer
boys in the Company’s Volunteers.142
An extraordinary opportunity to work abroad with an enhanced rate
of pay was given to three labourers in 1825. Legislation had been passed
the previous year enabling the East India Company to ship tea and
other goods direct from China to the British Colonies in North America
in an attempt to reduce smuggling from the United States.143 Forsyth,
Richardson and Co. were appointed as the Company’s agent in Quebec.
John Bradshaw, Richard Field and Absalom Pratt were sent to Montreal
on a salary of £100 per annum because of their ‘good character and
specified abilities in the management of teas’.144 Their mission was to
train the manual workers employed by the Canadian agents and to run
daily operations in the Montreal tea warehouse. Although their mas-
ters in London regarded them as labourers, the three men described
themselves as ‘Inspector of Teas’ for the East India Company.145 It was
originally intended that they should stay in Canada for two years, but
Bradshaw stayed until 1829 and Field and Pratt worked for the Company
in Montreal for over ten years.
Sometimes the labourers’ careers were advanced when the Company
took advantage of the skills which the men had garnered in the jobs
they held before joining the warehouses. William Arberry was a cooper
by trade and he was occasionally employed as such in the warehouses.146
Stephen Newman Terry, who was appointed to the assistant private trade
warehouse in March 1820 at the age of twenty-six, had been trained as a
military tailor.147 He was soon commandeered to assist in the inspection
of clothing at the Military Store Department, and in August 1820 he
was placed there on three months’ probation as an examiner of cloth-
ing with a salary of £100 per annum.148 Unfortunately a deficiency was
discovered in the clothing in Terry’s charge in 1823, and he resigned
under suspicion of theft.149
***
In spite of the need to maintain a workforce of thousands of labourers

to enable the warehouses to function in the early nineteenth century,
the East India Company operated a strict admissions strategy, albeit
one based upon patronage. Potential labourers from a diverse range
of backgrounds were carefully vetted for suitability before appointment
to ensure that they would be both willing and able to perform a range
of military as well as civilian duties for the Company. Having gained a
permanent post in the warehouses, a large proportion of the labour-
ers elected to serve the Company for a great number of years, just as
higher ranking Company officials did.150 Service of thirty years of more
was not unusual and some men were employed for considerably longer.
Labourer Thomas Needham had completed nearly forty-nine years’
service when he was made redundant from the tea warehouses in the
spring of 1835 at the age of seventy-six.151 William Roberts left his post
as commodore in the Private Trade warehouse in March 1835 at the age
of eighty-three having served since July 1800, and only then because
the warehouse was closing down and he too was compulsorily retired.152
Fathers and sons such as the Ratherbees and sets of brothers like
Thomas and William Stoakes worked in the warehouses.153 Labourers’
families intermarried; for example, George Wellard was married to the
daughter of fellow labourer Josiah Jackson.154 Men resigned and then
applied for re-admission: Benjamin Johnson left to enter the East India
Company marine service on 4 December 1804; returned to warehouse
duty on 26 September 1808; quit Company employment again on 10
October 1810; and was re-admitted a second time by a new card on 15
January 1812.155
To gauge whether the labourers’ longevity of service was perhaps mo-
tivated to some degree by loyalty to the Company rather than simply by
dependence upon it, the next two chapters will consider the Company’s
strategies for managing the men chosen by the directors to work in the
warehouses. Chapter 4 will consider the part played by incentives, re-
wards and benevolence, whilst Chapter 5 will examine the disciplinary
elements in the Company’s treatment of the labourers.
Notes
1 BL, IOR: H/362, pp. 51–66, Warehouse establishment.

2 Proceedings of the Select Committee Appointed by the General Court of Proprietors,
p. 119, Appendix 15, Account of the Home Establishment of the Company,
Regular and Extra in 1793 and 1812–13.
3 BL, IOR: B/127, p. 96, Court Minutes 9 May 1798.

4 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/6.
5 Alexander’s East India and Colonial Magazine, Vol. 9 (1835), p. 415.
6 BL, IOR: B/186, pp. 762–3, Court Minutes 9 October 1833.
7 Hugo Van Driel, Henk Volberda and Sjoerd Eikelboom, ‘Longevity in Services:
The Case of the Dutch Warehousing Companies 1600–2000’, paper delivered
at the 8th European Business History Association Conference, Barcelona,
September 2004.
8 François Crouzet, ‘America and the Crisis of the British Imperial Economy,
1803–1807’, in The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, ed. John J. McCusker and
Kenneth Morgan (Cambridge, 2001), p. 300.
9 BL, IOR: B/144, pp. 1135–6, Court Minutes 16 January 1807.
10 BL, IOR: B/180 (not paginated), Court Minutes 16 January 1828, Report from
the Committee of Buying and Warehouses.
11 Ibid.
12 Royal Commission on the Employment of Children in Factories, Supplementary
Report, Part 1, Parliamentary Papers, 19 (1834) (hereafter Mitchell Report).
It has not proved possible to trace the original book containing a detailed and
accurate health record of 2461 labourers.
13 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5.
14 BL, IOR: L/AG/10/2/9.
15 Ibid.
16 BL, IOR: L/F/2/29, no. 47 of April 1838, with an extract from a minute of the
Committee of Warehouses dated 8 May 1822.
17 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485.
18 BL, IOR: L/AG/10/2/9. Edward William Ratherbee’s date of birth is given
as 3 September 1815 in the record of his baptism at the parish church of St
Marylebone in October 1817: http://www.ancestry.co.uk, accessed September
2009.
19 Brief details of some are recorded in the warehouse establishment book from
1830 (BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4). Others appear as petitioners, mainly in BL, IOR:
B Court Minutes and in BL, IOR: L/F/1 and L/F/2 Papers of the Finance and
Home Committee starting in 1834.
20 BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 152 of December 1836, Petition of extra labourers for
compensation for loss of employment.
21 Ibid.
22 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 2714, 2715, 2729, 2844, 3288, 3664, and 4015.
24 Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 (London, 2002),
pp. 321–3; memoirs of William Whiteway in The Captivity, Sufferings, and Escape
of James Scurry, who was Detained a Prisoner during Ten Years, in the Dominions
of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib, James Scurry (London, 1831), pp. 271–376; BL,
IOR: B/116, p. 796, Court Minutes 27 December 1792; BL, IOR: B/173, p. 86,
Court Minutes 16 May 1821.
25 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 1606.
26 BL, IOR: L/F/2/16, no. 203 of March 1837.
27 BL, IOR: L/F/2/22, no. 23 of September 1837.
28 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 770. For more about the Company’s band, see
Chapter 6.
29 BL, IOR: B/49, pp. 835–6, Court Minutes 14 December 1709.
30 An example of a nomination card may be found in director Jacob Bosanquet’s
family papers from Hertfordshire, HA: DE/Bb/O2. The card has survived be-
cause the blank verso was used as a label for a bundle of documents.
31 Report by J. Mitchell on wages on the metropolis in The Sessional Papers Printed
by Order of the House of Lords, 37 Reports from Commissioners: Hand-loom
Weavers (London, 1840), p. 283.
32 BL, IOR: B Court Minutes and BL, IOR: E/1 Miscellaneous letters received,
passim.
33 Old Bailey Proceedings, 15 September 1790, Trial of Charles Embery.
34 BL, IOR: B/129, p. 540, Court Minutes 4 September 1799.
35 James Daniell (d. 1824), one nomination 1825/26; Hugh Inglis (d. 1812),
two nominations 1813/14; John Roberts (d. 1808), two nominations 1809/10;
George Tatem (d. 1801), five nominations 1802/03; John Bladen Taylor (d.
1819), three nominations 1820/21.
36 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 3135, 3852, 2764, 2992, 3497, 3615 and 3861.
37 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 3884, 3598 and 3844.
38 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur D 1087, Patronage book of David Scott 1788–1801, pp. 11, 18.
39 NRO: WLS/XLVIII/12/426x1 and x3, Walsingham correspondence, 1801,
1816–17.
40 Proceedings of the Select Committee Appointed by the General Court of Proprietors, p.
186, Minute by Joseph Hume.
41 BL, IOR: H/729, p. 43, letter from Scott to William Windham, 19 February
1797.
42 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur D 1087, p. 18; see also BL, IOR: H/728, pp. 514–15, letter
from Scott to Sir Stephen Lushington, 28 August 1796. Sir John William
Anderson was MP for London 1793–1806, and also served as Alderman,
Sheriff, and Lord Mayor of London.
43 BL, IOR: H/728, p. 335, Scott to Lyon 10 April 1796. Hugh Lyon had served
as an officer in the Bengal Army 1771–84.
44 William Farr, ‘Vital Statistics or the Statistics of Health, Sickness, Diseases and
Death’ (1837), reprinted in Mortality in Mid 19th Century Britain, Richard Wall
(Farnborough, 1974).
45 BL, IOR: L/F/1/4, pp. 177–8; BL, IOR: L/F/2/11, no. 79 of October 1836;
BL, IOR: L/F/2/18, no. 329 of May 1837.
46 John Burnett (ed.), Useful Toil - Autobiographies of Working People from the 1820s to
the 1920s (London, 1974), p. 28.
47 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 474: http://www.familysearch.org, accessed June
2009.
48 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 4275: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
British Isles Vital Records Index CD-ROM.
49 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 4649: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
British Isles Vital Records Index CD-ROM.
2009.
2009.

53 BL, IOR: L/F/2/27, no. 241 of February 1838.
55 BL, IOR: L/F/2/20, no. 104 of July 1835.
56 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur D 534, Letter books of David Scott: letter to Scott from
William McDowall 3 August 1800; BL, IOR: L/F/2/17, no. 127 of April 1837.
57 BL, IOR: L/F/2/19, no. 229 of June 1837.
58 TNA: PROB 11/1786, Will of Charles Abraham Megevan 11 June 1831. This
document and other pre-1858 wills for Company labourers have been traced
through TNA Documents Online: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/docu-
mentsonline, accessed June 2009.
60 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485; L/AG/30/5, no. 3075.
61 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485; L/AG/30/5, no. 3092.
62 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 3557; BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485; http://www.ances-
try.co.uk, accessed September 2009.
63 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 2955; http://www.familysearch.org, accessed June
2009.
64 BL, IOR: L/AG/10/2/9; TNA: RG 9/1144, f. 31, Census return April 1861.
66 BL, IOR: B/103, p. 198, Court Minutes 14 June 1786.
67 BL, IOR: B/124, pp. 1205-6, Court Minutes 22 February 1797.
68 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur D 1087, p. 11.
69 BL, IOR: F/5/18, p. 136. The average height of the 3446 men whose stat-
ure was recorded in the appointment register between September 1804 and
November 1832 was five feet seven inches (calculated from data in BL, IOR:
L/AG/30/5).
70 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485.
71 Roland Quinault, ‘From National to World Metropolis: Governing London,
1750–1850’, London Journal 26:1 (2001), pp. 38–46.
72 Not all entries in the register give a residential address. Where a man left the
Volunteers and was later re-admitted, or where a change of address has been
noted, only the area location of the earliest residence shown for an individual
has been included for analysis in Table 5.
73 BL, IOR: B/167, pp. 401–2, Court Minutes 8 July 1818; BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485;
BL, IOR: L/AG/30/9 (not foliated). Four children were born during the 1820s
whilst the family was living in East India House, although one daughter died in
infancy (baptism and burial records for the parish of St Andrew Undershaft:
http://www.ancestry.co.uk, accessed September 2009). George Imeson died
in August 1830: BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4. Lucy Imeson retired at Midsummer
1834 on a pension of £50 per annum when the housekeeper establishment was
reduced: BL, IOR L/F/1/53, no. 146, Finance and Home Committee 18 June
1834.
74 BL, IOR: L/F/2/14, no. 58 of January 1837, Petition of James Tarrant for a
pension, with accompanying documents detailing his misdemeanours whilst
employed by the Company. See also BL, IOR: L/F/1/4, p. 931, Finance and
Home Committee 1 March 1836; BL, IOR: L/F/2/27 (unnumbered letter
before no. 111 of February 1838). Elizabeth Tarrant was retired at Midsummer
1834 on a pension of £50 per annum: BL, IOR: L/F/2/57, no. 65 of March
1841.
75 Leese was the son of Lewis Leese who was appointed warehouse surgeon in
1808. Leese junior said in 1833 that he had been assisting his father for seven-
teen years.
76 Mitchell Report, p. 52.
77 Ibid.
78 Farr, ‘Vital Statistics’, p. 579.
79 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur D 1087, p. 18.
81 The Annual Register (1809), p. 629. One other titled warehouse servant was
Sir Arthur Clarke Baronet who served as a Company elder in the late eigh-
teenth century, resigning his post in 1789. See BL, IOR: B/108, p. 1190, Court
Minutes 3 April 1789.
82 See BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5 for a full list of previous occupations.
83 BOE: E48/1-2.
84 For a discussion of the nature of semi-skilled work, see Charles More, Skill and
the English Working Class, 1870–1914 (London, 1980).
85 Peter Stanley, White Mutiny – British Military Culture in India, 1825–1875
(London, 1998), p. 12.
86 BL, IOR: L/MIL/9/1-8, 1817–60.
87 Linda Colley, Another Making of the English Working Class: The Lash and the
Imperial Soldiery, Socialist History Occasional Papers Series 17 (London, 2003),
p. 6.
88 Stanley, White Mutiny, p. 13.
89 Chris Ellmers and Andrew Clark, Warehouse No. 1 West India Quay Building
History & Conservation Plan – Report for the Heritage Lottery Fund (London, 1998),
p. 50.
91 Rules & Regulations for the Establishment and Management of a Fund to be Provided
for the Benefit of the Commodores, Writers, & Laborers in the Service of the United
Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, in Cases of Sickness,
Infirmity, and Misfortune (London, 1816), pp. 9–10. The Company welfare
system for the labourers is examined in detail in Chapter 4.
93 BL, IOR: L/F/1/53, no. 39, Finance and Home Committee 30 April 1834.
94 L. D. Schwarz, London in the Age of Industrialisation: Entrepreneurs, Labour Force
and Living Conditions, 1700–1850 (Cambridge, 1992), p. 158.
95 Roger Morriss, The Royal Dockyards during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
(Leicester, 1983).
96 BL, IOR: B/178, p. 281, Court Minutes 17 August 1825.
97 BL, IOR: B/181 [not paginated], Court Minutes 21 January 1829.
98 Daniel A. Baugh, British Naval Administration in the Age of Walpole (New Jersey,
1965), p. 310.
99 The Sessional Papers Printed by Order of the House of Lords, 37, pp. 279, 283–4.
100 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/9; BL, IOR: B/178, p. 281, Court Minutes 17 August 1825;
BL, IOR: B/181 [not paginated], Court Minutes 21 January 1829. For a short
period August 1825 to February 1829, the labourers were paid 5d per hour for
extra time.
101 Jürgen Kocka, Industrial Culture and Bourgeois Society: Business, Labor, and
Bureaucracy in Modern Germany (New York, 1999), p. 8.
102 TNA: PRO 61/254.
103 Schwarz, London in the Age of Industrialisation, p. 48.
104 W. Marston Acres, The Bank of England from Within 1694–1900 (London, 1931),
vol. 1, p. 249, Bank committee of enquiry in 1790. This secondary occupation
was banned by the East India Company in 1815 (see p. 108).
105 Old Bailey Proceedings, 16 September 1812, Trial of John Hayward.
106 The Law Advertiser, 5 August 1830, p. 318.
107 Old Bailey Proceedings, 9 December 1789, Trial of Solomon Isaacs.
108 Old Bailey Proceedings, 24 October 1804, Trial of John Blair.
109 The Law Advertiser, 18 March 1830, p. 113.
110 Old Bailey Proceedings, 8 December 1825, Trial of Richard Goddard.
111 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485.
112 The Law Advertiser, 25 February 1830, p. 83.
113 The Law Advertiser, 28 January 1830, p. 36.
114 Old Bailey Proceedings, 17 February 1819, Trial of George Dodd and Daniel
Lynch.
115 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485.
116 Ibid.
117 The London Gazette, 12 February 1833, p. 319.
118 The Law Advertiser, 14 January 1830, p. 16.
119 The London Gazette, 21 January 1826, p. 149.
120 TNA: PROB 11/1852, ff. 192–2v.
121 TNA: PROB 11/1786, f. 344v (proved 1831); TNA: PROB 11/1676, f. 382v
(proved 1823).
122 TNA: PROB 11/1408, ff. 1–1v.
123 TNA: PROB 11/1718, ff. 229v–30v.
124 TNA: PROB 11/1787, ff. 118–18v.
125 TNA: PROB 11/2107, ff. 241v–42.
126 The Royal Perpetual Almanack Invented and Compiled by Samson Richards under
the Especial Patronage of His Majesty William IV and the Honourable East India
Company, 2nd edn (London, 1834?) held by the British Library. The Company
subscribed to forty copies in February 1831: see BL, IOR: L/F/1/3, pp. 360–
361, Finance and Home Committee 25 November 1835. For another example
of Richards’s published work, see Chapter 8.
127 BL, IOR: B/183, (not paginated), Court Minutes 6 April 1831.
128 BL, IOR: L/F/1/3, pp. 360–1, Finance and Home Committee 25 November
1835.
129 Many studies of literacy in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries
are based on the presence or absence of signatures in marriage registers.
130 John Field, ‘The Diary of a Portsmouth Dockyard Worker’, Portsmouth Archives
Review 3 (1978), pp. 40–66, includes an estimate of literacy from an examina-
tion of Portsmouth Yard Pensions Books 1825–29 (TNA: ADM 42/1478).
131 Cited in Michael Sanderson, Education, Economic Change and Society in England
1780–1870 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 12.
132 BL, IOR: L/F/2, Finance and Home Committee home correspondence.
134 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/9: 3s 10d per day for service of under five years; 4s 1d for
five to less than ten years; 4s 4d for ten years and over.
135 Ibid.
136 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
137 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1 pp. 491–2, Finance and Home Committee 30 July 1834.
138 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/9.
139 TNA: HO 107/1535 f. 381v.
140 TNA: HO 107/1065/3 f. 46; TNA: HO 107/1567 f. 145.
141 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur D 534, f. 59, Letter from William McDowall to Scott 3
August 1800.
142 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur D 1087, loose letter inserted in volume, Stockwell to Scott
13 June 1801.
143 5 Geo. 4 c. 88.
144 BL, IOR: L/F/2/5, no. 47 of February 1836, Petition of John Field. Field com-
plained that even this higher salary was insufficient to meet the extra living
costs incurred ‘in that desperate Climate’. There was also an agency at Halifax
awarded to Samuel Cunard.
145 Drouin Collection of Quebec Vital and Church Records at http://www.ances-
try.co.uk/, accessed June 2009. Bradshaw and Pratt described themselves as
inspectors of tea when they married in Montreal in 1827 and 1829 respectively.
Field was called an inspector at his son Elias’s baptism in 1833, having been
identified as a ‘gentleman’ at his marriage in 1826.
146 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
147 The assistant private trade warehouse was in Billiter Lane.
149 BL, IOR: B/176, p. 450, Court Minutes 1 October 1823.
151 BL, IOR: L/AG/21/6/2; BL, IOR: L/AG/10/2/9.
152 BL, IOR: L/AG/21/6/2. Roberts drew his pension of 14s 6d per week for just
over three years before his death on 10 May 1838: see BL, IOR: L/AG/35/27.
153 See p. 43 for the Ratherbee family, and p. 189 for the Stoakes family.
155 BL, IOR: L/AG/10/2/9; see p. 49.
Four
MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: INCENTIVES,

REWARDS AND BENEVOLENCE
IN ORDER to manage the very large body of labourers, the East India
Company operated a paternalistic ‘carrot and stick’ approach, with the
aim of keeping the warehouses functioning at an acceptable level of
efficiency and of guarding against transgression. The Company’s man-
agement ‘carrots’, which were offset by the ‘sticks’ described in the next
chapter, were positive incentives to encourage the formation of a stable
and committed workforce in the warehouses. Although Sidney Pollard
has written that it was only in about 1830 that ‘common humanity
began to combine with self-interest among the larger or more honour-
able employers’,1 this chapter will argue that the East India Company
was displaying this trait from a far earlier date, and it will also suggest
that the directors were not as parsimonious and mean spirited as many
of their contemporary critics asserted.
Some of the benefits and rewards offered by the Company in a bid
to retain the labourers it had selected have already been discussed
in Chapter 3: fair cash wages distributed regularly and reliably each
week; a short standard working day allowing the men to seek sources
of supplementary earnings; overtime payments; and promotion oppor-
tunities for ‘deserving’ labourers. There were no pay incentives for the
labourer grade based solely on longevity of service or efficiency. Apart
from the lower rate for junior labourers, pay was not related to age
or experience: a man in his forties was paid the same basic daily rate
as a twenty-year-old;2 nor was a man’s basic pay related to output or
performance. Rates were reviewed periodically; for example, the ware-
house labourers’ daily wages were increased in May 1810 from 2s 6d per
day to 2s 9d per day ‘during the pleasure of the Court’,3 and new pay
regulations were introduced in June 1818 for warehouse commodores

and writers. Commodores who had served in that capacity from five
to less than ten years were to receive 9d per day more than a labourer,
instead of the current rate of 6d. Commodores with ten years’ service
or more were to be paid 1s per day more than a labourer, instead of
6d. The new rates made promotion from labourer to commodore even
more desirable but were limited to commodores employed in the de-
livery or receipt of goods, or in superintending a gang of men, and
did not extend to commodores employed as messengers, gate-keepers,
door-keepers, office-keepers or watchmen.4
A number of labourers received supplementary pay. Labourers han-
dling indigo were eligible for an extra 6d per day, presumably because
this was a messy and unpleasant job. Those working at the Blackwall
warehouses were paid an additional 4d each day on account of the dis-
tance from the City (which is why the bonus was sometimes referred
to as ‘shoe money’), and because of the difficulty in getting lodgings
near Blackwall and the scarcity of markets for buying provisions. Some
other small allowances were made to certain men at particular times,
for example, when sifting pepper, sorting coffee, attending the sales,
or looking after carts in transit to the wharf with stores for shipment.
Labourers employed in cutting the marks, numbers and weights of the
teas on the chests and those engaged in calling over the numbers and
chops had ‘very laborious duties to perform, which are required to be
done with great accuracy’ and were paid an additional 6d per day whilst
so employed.5 Higher wages were earned by men selected for special
duties. In 1834 Daniel Brown and William Lovell, labourers at the tea
warehouses, worked as extra writers receiving 3s 9d per day plus 9d per
hour extra time.6 Labourers were sometimes given secondment to of-
fices in East India House, for example, to provide temporary cover for
staff: Edward Dunscombe reported to the auditor’s office during the
absence of one of the regular messengers in 1834 and was paid 28s per
week.7 Men were chosen to help move and arrange Company books for
enhanced pay: in 1835 labourers Edward Smith and Robert Disney were
each paid 28s per week whilst employed in the treasury at East India
House organizing books.8 In May 1836, seven labourers carried out the
destruction by fire of a large quantity of old records at Blackwall, with
6d per hour extra pay for their efficient performance of a ‘very tedious
& disagreeable duty’. Ten caravans full of documents were destroyed,
and the Company paid for 103 hours’ extra attendance for each man. 9
Special grants of pay were also made to the whole body of labourers.
The Court of Directors resolved unanimously in April 1800 that each
labourer would receive a gratuity of 6d per day in addition to his normal
Management Strategies: Incentives, Rewards and Benevolence 69
pay until 1 October to help meet the high cost of food in wartime. The
Company had considered setting up ‘soup shops’ to help the men and
their families, but decided instead to grant a cash sum.10 Although the
warehouses were closed on public holidays, it was resolved in 1819
that the labourers and others on daily wages would henceforward be
allowed their usual pay on Good Fridays and Christmas Days, except
when Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, and they were also paid an or-
dinary day’s wages on holidays appointed to celebrate the monarch’s
birthday.11 It has been pointed out by Henderson and Palmer that simi-
lar gestures made by the London dock companies cost relatively little
but were symbolic of caring management.12
Company wage rates for labourers in the first half of the nineteenth
century appear to have compared favourably with those enjoyed by
other similar groups of London manual workers, given that the ware-
house standard day was just six hours and the men were paid overtime.
In 1832 Sir John Hall, secretary to the St Katharine Dock Company,
gave evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Affairs of
the East India Company. He stated that:
the East India Company’s labourers are … better paid than the labour-
ers are in the St. Katharine’s Docks. The extent of pay in the dock for
permanent labourers for eight hours work is 2s. 8d. per day, and we gen-
erally get an additional half-hour, part at commencement and part at the
termination of the hours, making eight hours and a half, less a quarter of
an hour for refreshment; whereas the East India labourers for the same
time would at their rate of pay get 3s. 6d. per day … It is understood that
the expense of labour alone paid in one year by the East India Company
has been 160,000l.13
Permanent East India Company warehouse labourers were also paid

well in comparison with the labourers employed by the East India and
West India Dock Companies where the standard working day was eight
hours in summer (8.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.) and seven in winter (9.00
a.m. to 4.00 p.m.). The East India Dock Company reduced its workers’
wages in March 1816 to reflect lower bread prices after the restoration
of peace: henceforward labourers received 3s per day and foremen 3s
6d per day.14 In October 1822, the West India Dock Company reduced
the pay of its permanent labourers from 3s to 2s 6d per day in a restruc-
turing intended to maximize profits.15
Another benefit of working as a labourer for the East India Company
was the state of the warehouse buildings. Most of the warehouses were
purpose-built, well-constructed and well-maintained. It was in the inter-
ests of the Company to keep their properties in a good state of repair in
order to protect the valuable goods stored inside.16 In November 1836,
when the roof of the Bengal warehouse in New Street needed mending,
the Company Surveyor William Wilkins gave immediate orders to make
it waterproof, fearing that the weather might take them by surprise at
a time when the warehouse contained articles of much value.17 Since
many of the labourers lived in areas of slum housing without proper
drainage or sewers, working in the comparatively clean environment
of the Company warehouses should have been a pleasant contrast, al-
though the need to keep the valuable goods safe from the risk of fire
and damage from coal dust and smoke must have made the large stor-
age rooms very cold in the winter.
The rudimentary machinery at the warehouses used for the hoisting
and delivery of packages and chests was also kept in good order, presum-
ably with the dual motive of safeguarding the men operating it as well as
ensuring efficient working.18 Hand trucks were provided to facilitate the
movement of goods around the warehouse. In 1808 the directors issued
instructions to the Ratcliff warehouse to discontinue immediately the
practice whereby men carried saltpetre upon their backs: proper trucks
were to be provided as at all other warehouses. Although the change
was made on the grounds of efficiency because the current system was
considered an unnecessary waste of labour, the introduction of trucks
would have had the incidental benefit of lessening the likelihood of
spinal injuries in the saltpetre warehouse.19
Accidents in the Company warehouses were taken seriously, with de-
tails carefully noted in a book kept in each warehouse: men fell, tripped,
or strained themselves when moving heavy containers of goods; they
were hit by falling goods; they tore their hands on the lifting hooks; they
dropped cumbersome metal tools on their feet. The accident books
have not survived, but their contents are referred to in the papers of the
Finance and Home Committee when officials were considering claims
for compensation and relief for injuries. Medical assistance was quickly
sought in serious cases. Surviving evidence suggests that, although some
serious injuries did occur, there were few fatalities. Thomas Rogers
Forbes made an analysis of occupational deaths in London using the
coroners’ records of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centu-
ries, including fatal accidents when workers fell from lifts or through
trap doors or loopholes. He calculated that between 1788 and 1829,
forty-one men died in London whilst at work from falls from or in ware-
houses, lofts, shops or public buildings, giving an annual average of just
one fatality.20 Only one accidental fatality from a fall has been traced
amongst the East India Company labourers during that period: John
Edwards, aged fifty, was killed in September 1829 by fall of seventy to
eighty feet from one of the upper lofts of the Cutler Street warehouse.
He was helping to move some spice and tea chests when he grabbed at
the leather strap at the side of the loop hole so that he could lean out
and speak to some companions in the loft above him. His foot slipped
and he fell onto the stones of the yard where he lay ‘weltering in blood’
with a badly fractured skull, broken legs and arms, and other injuries.
Edwards was taken immediately to St Bartholomew’s Hospital where
he ‘lived in the greatest agony’ for two days before dying. Witnesses
confirmed that Edwards was sober when he fell and that the ‘awful oc-
currence’ was purely accidental: no criticism was made of Company
equipment or procedures.21 One other unfortunate death which oc-
curred at the New Street warehouses was the result of a fight between
labourers Thomas Hughes and Samuel Woolley. When Hughes col-
lapsed and died, Woolley was tried for murder at the Old Bailey, but was
found guilty of manslaughter, fined 1s and discharged.22
As well as monetary incentives and rewards and environmental bene-
fits, there were ‘carrots’ which stemmed from the ethos of benevolence
which underpinned the management of the warehouse labourers. The
East India Company had demonstrated benevolence in its treatment of
employees from its earliest days, both through ad hoc gifts to individu-
als who petitioned the Court and through formal schemes of assistance.
For example, financial help was given in March 1668 to Company ware-
house servants ‘severely visited in the time of the late pestilence’ and to
the families of those who died of the plague: a sum of £75 was distrib-
uted between twenty-nine people reported by the warehouse-keepers as
being in distress.23
In January 1626, the Court of Directors ordered that henceforward
2d in every pound should be levied upon all wages and salaries in order
to create the Poplar Fund to care for injured or aged seamen who had
served the Company, and in March 1628 Poplar Hospital, an almshouse
for mariners, admitted its first inmates.24 After the expansion of the
Company’s military forces in the mid-eighteenth century, soldiers as
well as seamen were given aid. An agreement made in April 1770 be-
tween Robert Clive and the Company established the Lord Clive Fund
which provided assistance to invalid European officers and soldiers of
the Company armies who could produce a certificate confirming that
they were ‘rendered incapable of further service in India’. The allow-
ance for non-commissioned officers and privates was generally 4¾d
per day, with the exception of sergeants and privates of artillery who
received 9d and 6d per day respectively.25 A military recruiting notice
placed in The Public Advertiser in December 1785 stated ‘It is well known
that the Honourable Company takes Care and are Tender of all Men
who are sick or lame in their Service, by supplying them with every
Necessary of Life.’26 In the late eighteenth century, the Company estab-

lished a programme of land grants in northern India for native soldiers,
both to the young who were wounded and to those who were no longer
fit to serve because of age or infirmity.27
By the 1720s, the Company was in the habit of helping incapacitated
employees on the home staff, either by excusing them from further
attendance whilst payment of their normal salary continued, or by award-
ing pensions for meritorious service or for compassionate reasons. The
East India Company, together with the Bank of England, was one of the
earliest institutions in England to introduce occupational pensions.28
All Company employees, both men and women, from high ranking of-
ficials to charwomen were eligible, and pensions were often granted to
distressed dependants, and sometimes even to families of dismissed ser-
vants.29 In December 1783, regulations were introduced for discharging
warehouse labourers who were no longer capable of performing their
duties because of age and infirmities and for conferring an allowance.30
Table 8 shows the new sliding scale of allowances which was substituted
in August 1804 based on length of service, ranging from 2s per week for
under five years to 7s per week for twenty or more years. Commodores
were paid an additional 1s per week, and discharged warehouse writers
who had been employed for ten years or more were given a pension of
10s 6d per week.31
Table 8: Scale of weekly pensions awarded to warehouse labourers and

commodores under the regulations of 15 August 1804
Length of service Labourers Commodores

20 years or more 7s 8s
15 years and less than 20 6s 7s
Less than 5 years 2s 3s
Source: BL, IOR: B/139, pp. 636–8.
Between 1823 and 1833, 248 labourers were pensioned at ages span-
ning twenty-seven to eighty-two years, with one hundred (40 per cent)
occurring between the ages of sixty-one and seventy-one.32 Pensions were
only ‘granted after much consideration & with extraordinary caution’,33
and never on grounds of age alone. Men were not placed on the pen-
sion list ‘except for incapacity for labour’,34 caused ‘by the mechanical
injury of a limb, some infirmity, or a slow but fatal disease’.35 This ‘busi-
ness-like principle’ meant that less than 5 per cent of all Company
warehouse labourers were on the pension list.36 John Samms was re-
fused a pension in 1828 and subsequently quit his job having been told
that he ‘must endeavour to attend his duty a little longer’ in spite of ill
health certified by the warehouse surgeon.37
In 1835, the Company was paying out nearly £5000 per annum to
225 former labourers for pensions which had been granted between
1797 and 1834 under the above rules. The smallest of these pensions
was £7 16s per annum and the largest £40 6s, with 55 per cent being
for amounts over £20.38 Some labourers drew their pension for a sur-
prisingly long time considering that they must have been debilitated to
have been removed from active service by the Company: Robert Wright
who was pensioned in 1798 died in February 1838, whilst William Thom
and John Fox who were allowed to retire in 1799 died in February 1840
and July 1841 respectively.39
The directors and senior Company officials actively sought to project
an image of paternal benevolence both in India and at home to coun-
teract any public criticism of their general modus operandi.40 Sir John
Kaye, a distinguished Company servant, wrote a nostalgic magazine
piece in 1860 after he had been transferred to the newly established
India Office, looking back fondly on the benevolent treatment of ser-
vants both at East India House and overseas.41 The constant reference to
all ranks of employees as ‘servants’ (and very occasionally as ‘children’)
helped to promote the concept of the Company as a family unit with
the directors as father figures controlling a body of loyal and deferential
dependants.42 This attitude reflected deep rooted notions of paternal-
ism in British society, and the Company’s propensity to benevolence
was bolstered in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by
a general consciousness that it was the duty of those wielding authority
to help, protect and guide those in need.43 The commitment to phi-
lanthropy of a large part of the merchant community of the City of
London has been described as ‘Christian mercantilism’, ‘a combination
of religious, humanitarian, patriotic, and commercial considerations’.44
Individual Company directors were active philanthropists, sometimes
assisted by large personal fortunes.45 For example, Paul Le Mesurier
served as a governor of the Eastern Dispensary, the Asylum for Female
Orphans and the London Huguenot Hospital;46 Thomas Reid was the
patron of a savings bank and charity and Sunday schools near his resi-
dence in Ewell, Surrey;47 Abraham Robarts, as Member of Parliament
for Worcester, presented ‘with his accustomed liberality’ half a guinea

each to 540 poor freemen of that city in 1803, and paid for the erec-
tion of a steam engine to supply Worcester with water in 1807;48 William
Devaynes played an active role in raising subscriptions amongst City
merchants and bankers to supply food to poor London workers and
their families during the French Wars; 49 whilst Charles Grant was a
member of the evangelical Clapham Sect which was active in promoting
the work of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor.50
The East India Company had collected money for charity in its poor
box since the seventeenth century,51 and the directors’ donation book
covering the years 1792–1858 reveals a large number of both regular and
one-off payments to a wide spectrum of beneficiaries. Annual disburse-
ments included donations to the London Hospital and to the Eastern
Dispensary; to charity schools in Whitechapel and in Lime Street and
Cornhill Wards; to the Marine Society, the Seamen’s Hospital, and the
Merchant Seamen’s Orphan Asylum. The directors sanctioned hun-
dreds of contributions to particular funds and causes at home and
abroad: to relieve distress in Ireland and Scotland; to aid destitute
weavers both in London and the provinces; to relieve the poor in the
metropolis, including support for the Spitalfields Soup Society and a
night shelter for the homeless; to help the families of British men killed
in the French Wars; to aid Russians suffering from the French invasion;
to provide for the victims of the Syrian earthquake in 1823; to build,
repair and enlarge a number of schools in London and Middlesex,
including a school room especially for girls in the parish of St Ann’s
Limehouse; and to establish Sunday schools, build new churches, and
promote religion amongst seamen.52 Some appeals for money specified
the benefits which the scheme would bring to Company employees and
their families. For example, in 1819 the ‘Bethnal Green Society for es-
tablishing daily and Sunday schools for the education of the children
of the poor in the principles of the established church’ solicited the
Court’s patronage because many of the Company labourers resided in
Bethnal Green and also because many local inhabitants were employed
in the manufacture of silk imported by the Company: the directors sub-
scribed £100.53 The Reverend Arthur Broome of the parish of Bromley
St Leonard, Middlesex wrote to the Court in December 1822 asking
for help in funding a third divine service on Sundays. An extra service
was needed because of an increase in the local population which in-
cluded many Company labourers. The Court expressed interest in this
‘laudable’ plan, believing that it would be of benefit to a considerable
number of Company warehouse employees.54
The East India Company gained a reputation for ‘accustomed liber-
ality’,55 thus attracting many petitions for assistance, but the directors
always weighed the merits of each case and were never a soft touch.
In February 1837 the Finance and Home Committee declined to vote
money to the Metropolitan Benefit Societies Asylum in spite of being
complimented on the Company’s ‘well known generosity towards the
distressed’,56 whilst in March 1840 the Committee refused to make
a donation towards an infirmary for the cure of club foot because it
‘did not consider the Institution to be of that nature which called for a
Contribution from the Funds at the disposal of the Company’.57
Whilst the pension scheme and the donations awarded to labourers
in cases of exceptional need might be considered as purely charitable,
other forms of Company benevolence towards the warehouse labourers
and their families were distinguished by their aim of encouraging and
supporting self-help. The East India Company introduced a contribu-
tory welfare fund and a subsidized savings bank, thereby exemplifying
the concept of the philosopher Maimonides that one should ‘anticipate
charity by preventing poverty’.58 The directors must have been aware
of the upsurge of the friendly society movement in the late eighteenth
century which promoted the ideology of ‘collective assistance’ for the
working classes.59 There were also industrial welfare schemes in exis-
tence which might have inspired the directors. The Crowley Ironworks
in County Durham had operated a wide-ranging social insurance
scheme from the late seventeenth century, with benefits for sickness,
unemployment, old age and death, together with educational and
medical provision.60 Matthew Boulton introduced a mutual insurance
society for his workers at the Soho works in Birmingham for which the
earliest set of surviving rules is dated 1792, although the society appears
to have been in operation by 1770.61
‘The Fund for the Benefit of the East India Company’s Laborers’
evolved from earlier regulations which made provision for labourers
hurt in the discharge of their duty to receive hospital treatment at the
Company’s expense.62 It was instituted in July 1799 to assist the newly ex-
panded warehouse workforce, and the rules were revised in June 1816.
The labourers’ fund was a comprehensive welfare scheme designed to
deal with the elements of ‘social risk’ later defined by Paul Johnson as:
health risks; life cycle risks, for example, the costs of childbirth; eco-
nomic risks such as fluctuating employment; and environmental risks
such as accidents or fire.63 Strict rules ensured that the fund worked ef-
ficiently and was not subject to abuse by those it sought to help in times
of need. It was open to all warehouse writers, commodores and labour-
ers currently in Company service and compulsory for all those joining
after June 1816. Subscribers were not allowed to be members of any
other friendly society or club and they were to withdraw if they already
belonged to one on pain of dismissal if they refused to comply.64 The
Company was not alone in introducing a compulsory fund: Boulton,

for example, required all his workers earning 2s 6d or more per week to
contribute to the Soho scheme.65 One contemporary commentator, Sir
Frederic Eden, disapproved of enforced membership: ‘There are great
objections to all compulsory schemes for erecting Friendly Societies:
whatever benefit is intended the Poor, obliging them to subscribe, is, in
effect, taxing them.’66
Writers contributed 6d per week from their wages whilst the com-
modores and labourers each paid 3d per week towards the fund, with
subscriptions suspended during any period of entitlement to benefits.
For as long as they were unable to work through sickness, lameness,
blindness, infirmity, or insanity, writers received 17s 6d per week, or 2s
6d per day including Sundays, and commodores and labourers 10s 6d
per week, or 1s 6d per day including Sundays. Payment was withheld
if the problem was caused by drunkenness, venereal disease, ‘fighting
any pitched Battle, or by Reason of any Hurt or Injury occasioned by
Idleness or voluntary Contests’.67 Subscribers were given medical at-
tention either by the Company surgeon or by a hospital in the case
of fracture. Thus the fund cushioned its members against the double
burden of poor health: lost earnings and medical fees.68
The fund was managed by committees of assistant elders and commo-
dores appointed for every department by the warehouse-keepers, who
retained the power to intervene in individual cases. The committees met
in their respective warehouses once a week, each with a president chosen
from amongst their members by the warehouse-keeper and a writer
acting as clerk to take formal minutes of all proceedings and orders.69
The committees and clerks were paid ‘a reasonable Compensation for
their Time and Trouble’ as were the commodores who were appointed
as visitors to go with the Company surgeons to subscribers’ homes to
assess the situation.70 The rule requiring subscribers to live within a cer-
tain area was intended to make this duty easier and the two warehouse
surgeons each had their own district allocated for visits. No person on
the sick list was allowed to leave his usual place of residence without
first obtaining permission, except to go for fresh air, medical or surgical
advice, or other urgent requirement. Men were struck off the sick list if
they broke the rules, refused to be examined, lied about state of their
health, or if they were guilty of drunkenness or debauchery while on
the sick list.
A labourer also received two guineas on the birth of each legitimate
child (including stillborn babies), five guineas on the death of his wife,
and two guineas on the death of every wholly dependent child born in
wedlock aged six months or more.71 On the death of a labourer, five
guineas were paid for funeral expenses, together with an additional two
guineas to his widow and one guinea to each legitimate child. The full
amount of loss by fire not exceeding five guineas was paid if not caused
by the subscriber’s misconduct or negligence. Any labourer discharged
because the Company had no employment for him was entitled to 7s
per week or 1s per day during the time of his discharge, which pro-
vided a financial safety net if warehouse operations were interrupted by
delays to shipping. Any subscriber imprisoned for debt ‘not contracted
by Vice or Extravagance’ and deemed worthy of assistance was allowed
3s 6d per week or 6d per day. Men who were granted pensions by the
Committee of Buying and Warehouses ceased to pay subscriptions and
lost any right to allowances for sickness or imprisonment but retained
entitlement to payments for births, deaths, and loss by fire.
Applications for allowances had to be made in writing to the ware-
house-keepers with a note of the claimant’s address and all claims were
verified by the surgeons and visitors before any payments were made.72
The penalty for attempting to defraud the fund was dismissal for ever
from Company service.73 Every subscriber signed his name on a copy
of the regulations retained at the warehouse and also received a copy
to keep so that no plea of ignorance of the contents would be counte-
nanced.74 The East India Company, with its large financial reserves, was
able to guarantee benefits to subscribers notwithstanding any deficien-
cies in the fund, whereas welfare payments made by smaller societies
were sometimes affected by the amount of money held in the stock. For
example, the benefit society of journeymen shoemakers and tailors near
the Tower of London had eighty members: sick benefit was 7s per week
when the stock was above £20, but only 4s per week when the stock was
under £20.75 Statistician and epidemiologist William Farr commented in
1856 that ‘it often happens in friendly societies that when men become
sick from infirmity, and remain sick long, they are in some way disposed
of; the club is not able to go on paying the ordinary sick allowance, and
they are either cut off or put on a small allowance’.76 The subsidies made
by the Company to meet shortfalls indicate that a far greater sum was
paid out for benefits than accumulated from the weekly contributions.
In 1815 the Committee of Buying and Warehouses described the fund
as being ‘in great part supported by the Company’.77 When in 1816 the
Accountant General Charles Cartwright was closing the General Books
to 30 April 1814, he calculated that a total of £37,279 18s 10½d had
been paid by the Company towards making good the deficiencies of
the benefit fund. The Committee of Buying and Warehouses ordered
the money to be written off as sanctioned by the Court of Directors’
order of 10 July 1799.78 The annual amounts spent from 1819 to 1834
on labourers’ wages, pensions, sick fund and medical attendance are

shown in Table 9. In the financial year 1828/29, these categories of
payment to the labourers accounted for 35 per cent of the Company’s
commercial operational costs.79
Table 9: Payments for labourers’ wages, pensions, sick fund and medical atten-
dance, May 1819–April 1834
Year Wages Pensions Sick fund Medical Total

ending attendance
and rupture
trusses
Apr 1820 £133,396 7s 1d £6923 15s 4d £5534 17s 2d £1101 11s 0d £146,956 10s 7d
Apr 1821 £138,111 12s 7d £7505 4s 9d £1665 1s 9½d £2286 4s 0d £149,568 3s 1½d
Apr 1822 £134,800 11s 7d £8119 16s 1d £1541 11s 2½d £2251 10s 6d £146,713 9s 4½d
Apr 1823 £133,947 2s 0½d £8397 19s 8½d £2151 6s 0d £2202 11s 0d £146,698 18s 9d
Apr 1824 £139,355 12s 6½d £8420 16s 2d £1653 6s 1½d £2386 16s 6d £151,816 11s 4d
Apr 1825 £149,766 19s 9d £8738 3s 7½d £1916 13 9½d £2366 16s 6d £162,788 13s 8d
Apr 1826 £159,792 0s 11d £8685 11s 10d £1862 12s 7d £2230 6s 6d £172,570 11s 10d
Apr 1827 £173,846 9s 3d £8684 14s 9d £2152 11s 8d £2391 18s 0d £187,075 13s 8d
Apr 1828 £174,768 12s 4d £8464 10s 8d £1866 18s 6d £2211 6s 0d £187,311 7s 6d
Apr 1829 £161,824 8s 4d £8196 16s 4d £2001 1s 5d £2373 19s 6d £174,396 5s 7d
Apr 1830 £136,552 11s 1d £7911 19s 3d £2403 9s 8d £2163 14s 6d £149,031 14s 6d
Apr 1831 £136,002 8s 1d £7409 6s 6d £1888 18s 11d £2229 14s 6d £147,530 8s 0d
Apr 1832 £127,838 2s 6d £6812 3s 10d £2116 12s 9d £1970 7s 6d £138,737 6s 7d
Apr 1833 £119,839 1s 3d £6670 10s 3d £2220 13s 7d £1902 1s 0d £130,632 6s 1
Apr 1834 £115,822 7s 4d £6489 4s 7d £2011 0s 5d £1813 7s 0d £126,135 19s 4d
Source: BL, IOR: L/AG/1/1/32, pp. 496, 693.
The Company’s policy of providing free and easily available medical

treatment to its warehouse labourers was praised by Dr James Mitchell
in his report to the Factories Inquiry Commission in 1833. Mitchell was
inspired to remark that ‘the policy of the East India Company in regard
to the medical treatment of the persons in their employment seems
to be as wise as it is humane, and is deserving of imitation by every
public body which employs a number of men’.80 Social reformer Edwin
Chadwick agreed: ‘All persons who employ large bodies of people
would at once study their own interest, and exert the most useful be-
nevolence, by imitating the East India Company, in providing medical
relief to their people.’81 After carefully screening the men for physical
defects on admission to the warehouses, the Company sought to main-
tain the labourers’ health. As surgeon Lewis Leese junior explained to
Mitchell:
Upon the slightest symptom of illness, aware that it will subject him to no
expence, the labourer or other person goes immediately to the surgeon,
in consequence of which it frequently happens that diseases are arrested

at their very commencement, and the serious, perhaps fatal, effects con-
sequent upon a full development of the disease prevented. Should the
malady be of a trifling nature, the person continues at his employment;
but if necessary, he remains at home until capable of resuming his duty,
upon the usual allowance granted to his class when ill; and in this latter
case he is visited by the surgeon, nor can he again attend his duty until the
surgeon give him permission.82
Since medical assistance was a condition of service, Leese believed that

the labourers were happy to claim it as their ‘feelings of independence’
were not violated. Consumption, pulmonary complaints and fever
were common, and whenever influenza and cholera were prevalent in
London forty or fifty men attended daily at the surgery for coughs and
bowel complaints, but in these and other ‘slight cases’ the labourers
continued at work, were favoured by the commodore with light duties
and not entered on the sick list.83 Trusses were supplied free of charge
by the Company to enable men suffering from hernia to continue work-
ing.84 Strong fit men undertook the heavy labour of piling and trucking
goods, leaving the older labourers and those who were unwell tasks re-
quiring less physical exertion such as nailing up chests, sorting goods,
and sewing bags. Many of the elderly men were given responsible situa-
tions not requiring great physical exertion, as messengers, gate-keepers,
and commodores.
Before the Charter Act of 1833 led to reductions in the home es-
tablishment, the average number of people who were entitled to free
medical assistance was 2800, mostly warehouse employees but also some
staff at East India House. The surgeons’ duties were to examine ware-
house writers and labourers prior to admission; to give professional
attendance and medicine to writers and labourers in all cases of illness
and accident; to submit daily and weekly reports to the principals of
the various departments regarding the health and ability of writers and
labourers; and to report on claims for pension on grounds of age or
infirmity. The surgeons were remunerated by a combination of a fixed
salary and payments depending upon the number of employees under
their care: from December 1830, Lewis Leese and James Hume Spry
were each paid a yearly sum of £150 and they shared the proceeds of a
payment of 12s per annum for each person entitled to attendance and
medicines. This arrangement generated annual earnings in the region
of £1000 each for Leese and Spry during the late 1820s.85 The surgeons
claimed that the remuneration for their professional services up to 1833
was no more than adequate since their duties required them to keep
up expensive establishments. They were liable to be called at all times
to the homes of labourers which were in difficult and remote places,

and had to neglect their private practices which had been considerable
when they were appointed.86
The case of William Poulson demonstrates that the Company took its
obligations about medical treatment seriously. Poulson was a journey-
man cloth drawer at the Military Store who died in 1838 of a pulmonary
complaint whilst under the care of James Hume Spry. Colonel John
George Bonner, superintendent of the Military Store, submitted a
report to the Finance and Home Committee:
Without presuming to imply that any human skill could have saved the
deceased it is my duty to bring to notice that he does not appear to have
received that prompt medical attendance during his illness which the
Honorable Court in their liberality expect should be extended to the
Laborers in their Employ.87
Spry’s own health was failing and he had sent a Mr Clutterbuck to visit his
patient. Clutterbuck’s inattention had forced Poulson to buy the leech-
es and castor oil prescribed as treatment, and the sick man had then
been obliged to pay for a consultation with a local doctor when his con-
dition worsened. After an enquiry, the Finance and Home Committee
resolved to inform Spry that it expected him to take measures in future
to secure prompt medical attention to Company servants.88
The East India Company’s provision of free medical advice and
treatment to its warehouse labourers has been described as ‘a pioneer
industrial medical service’.89 It certainly was exceptional, although not
unique: the Crowley Ironworks had operated a medical scheme for
its workers and their families since 1724, paying for ‘an able surgeon
and one who is also well skilled in physick with all proper medicines
and drugs … to constantly attend upon them in such indispositions’.90
However, most friendly societies in the late eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries had no regular arrangements for any sort of medical
attendance; it was gradually introduced from the 1830s, and by the
late 1850s it had come to be accepted as a normal benefit.91 Moreover,
Lewis Leese junior believed that the Company labourers received supe-
rior medical treatment from the surgeons appointed by a ‘great public
body’, who were better qualified than many of the doctors practising
in the poor neighbourhoods of the metropolis.92 Certainly Benjamin
Travers, Company warehouse surgeon between 1808 and 1814, had
a very distinguished subsequent career, specializing in surgery of the
eye and acting as surgeon to Queen Victoria from 1837.93 Leese senior
served with Travers as an official of the Hunterian Society which aimed
to further medical knowledge and learning. He was also a vice president
of the Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear in Soho founded to assist
the poor, one of the ‘professional persons of great celebrity’ who acted
as patrons to that institution.94
Mitchell’s comparison of the sickness statistics supplied by the
East India Company and the Highland Society of Scotland led Edwin
Chadwick to comment that Company’s health policy had produced
the ‘surprising’ result that ‘the experience of a body of men living in
London should be as favourable as that of the societies chiefly composed
of persons living in rural districts’.95 William Farr was less convinced
by Mitchell’s statistical analysis, but he did concede that ‘these men,
labouring in warehouses in the heart of the city, yet well provided for,
occupy, as regards health, a middle point between the worst classes and
the inhabitants of the cleaner and less crowded districts’.96
Benefits beyond the provisions laid down by the fund rules were
often sanctioned by the directors, especially when men were unable
to work through injuries sustained at work. In 1834 Dennis Flinn, a
labourer at the tea warehouse, suffered an accident in course of his
duty and was granted a sum of money equal to the difference between
the fund allowance and his ordinary pay for up to six weeks from the
time of the accident.97 In December 1836, Joseph Taylor, a labourer at
the Private Trade warehouse, petitioned the Company from his bed in
the London Hospital. Taylor had slipped and fallen whilst passing over
one of iron frames fixed between the warehouse doorways, suffering a
compound fracture to his leg. He asked to receive his regular pay rather
than the sick fund allowance. The warehouse-keeper William Johnson
reported that Taylor was a man of good character and observed that the
Committee had in similar cases allowed full daily pay until the labourer
returned to work. Taylor’s request was approved.98 Unfortunately the
leg did not mend and he was still unable to leave his house in July 1837.
When the Company surgeon certified Taylor as being permanently in-
capable of duty at the warehouse, the Committee decided to treat him
as a compassionate case, awarding a pension of 7s 6d per week.99 This
evidence demonstrates belief in a duty of care towards the warehouse
labourers and shows that the East India Company certainly did not
subscribe to the view which, according to Forbes, prevailed amongst
London employers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centu-
ry: ‘Sick, injured, or dead employees could easily be replaced from an
ample pool of the unemployed.’100
The directors made decisions about labourers’ welfare issues case by
case, requesting reports on individuals from the warehouse-keepers.
This must have been time-consuming but it demonstrates a continu-
ous commitment to the welfare of the Company employees and their
families. There are many instances in the Finance and Home Committee
papers of labourers petitioning for leave of absence from the warehous-
es, either with or without an allowance from the fund. Very few of the
grants made for reasons other than health note why the request was
made, although it was recorded that that Henry Haynes, a labourer in
the Private Trade warehouse, was given ten days’ leave of absence in
May 1835 to visit his friends in the country.101 Sometimes leave with an
allowance from the fund was authorized for servants to quit London
for a change of air on the recommendation of the Company surgeons
who appear to have been aware of the debilitating effects of the pollut-
ed atmosphere of the metropolis. John McLaren, a labourer at Cutler
Street, petitioned for leave in June 1837 as he had been in bad health
and under medical treatment for some time. Dr Leese reported that
McLaren was troubled with a glandular swelling and that living by the
sea for a month would benefit his health and enable him to return to
duty with more efficiency. Leave for one month with the fund allow-
ance was sanctioned and towards the end of July McLaren wrote to the
Company from Devonport requesting a further fortnight’s leave with an
allowance because, although the air had taken great effect on his first
arrival, his health was not sufficiently recovered. This request was also
granted.102
The families of Company servants who had fallen into financial dif-
ficulties were sometimes rescued by the benevolence of the directors
who made grants to be paid during the pleasure of the Court. Henry
Furneaux, a warehouse labourer who had been promoted to a post at
East India House, was struck off the list of messengers in July 1834 for
having conducted himself in a very violent manner when on duty as a
watchman. However, out of compassion for his wife and six children, the
Court resolved to allow Mrs Furneaux 8s per week.103 Thomas Samson,
an assistant elder at the Private Trade warehouse, was removed from the
service in October 1831 because of his absence caused by imprisonment
for debt. However, the Committee of Buying and Warehouses noted that
Samson had a wife and six children, and had served for twenty years as
a writer and assistant elder. It was resolved that one guinea per week
would be paid for the maintenance of Mrs Samson and her children. In
the same month, William Butler, a deputy assistant elder in the assistant
private trade warehouse, also lost his job through being in prison for
debt. He had a wife but no children and, as his conduct had been sat-
isfactory over a period of twenty-seven years in variety of capacities, an
allowance of £35 per annum was to be paid for Mrs Butler’s upkeep.104
In March 1818 the East India Company established its own Savings
Bank in an attempt to try to persuade its lower paid servants in London
to develop habits of thrift and to keep them out of the debtors’ prisons,
although cases such as those of Samson and Butler and the number of
warehouse staff listed as insolvent debtors in the publications such as
The London Gazette and The Law Advertiser might suggest that the initiative
did not meet with unqualified success.105 The initiative was prompted by
the passage of the ‘Act to encourage the establishment of banks for
savings in England’ in 1817, but the directors may have also have been
influenced by the views of one of their own distinguished servants.106
The political economist Thomas Robert Malthus, who taught at the East
India College, Haileybury, supported the institution of savings banks
and was in 1816 a manager of the ‘Provident Institution for Savings,
established in the western part of the metropolis’.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, reformers witness-
ing the ‘monetization’ of the wage system had promoted the setting
up of local savings banks by members of the social elite with the aim
of safeguarding cash earnings from loss or careless spending, whilst
rewarding investors with the payment of interest.107 At the outset, the
East India Company’s Savings Bank was intended to assist junior clerks
in East India House and the warehouses, and the warehouse elders,
extra clerks, deputy elders, writers, commodores, labourers and mes-
sengers.108 Its remit was extended in June 1818 to include pensioned
clerks and others who had retired from the home establishment, and
also the widows, children and other annuitants, who were relatives of
those who had been on the home establishment.109 The Times welcomed
the enterprise: ‘This example is worthy to be followed by all other public
bodies in this great metropolis, as tending to promote among their ser-
vants and dependents a general spirit of industry, economy, orderliness,
and morality.’110 By establishing its own savings bank, the Company had
gone a step further than the West India Dock Company which merely
encouraged its labourers to become members of the Poplar, Blackwall,
and Limehouse Savings Banks.111
The directors optimistically envisaged the Savings Bank as ‘ultimate-
ly having an important effect on the moral habits and conduct of all
persons who may deposit therein’.112 Sums as low as 3d per week or
1s per month were accepted ‘in order to give the poorest Laborer an
opportunity of Depositing’.113 Monies collected were invested with the
Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Interest was
paid at a rate of 4¼ per cent at first, although this had dropped to 2¼
per cent by 1834. Payments made by depositors were only known by
the trustees and the managers, ‘as the benefit to be derived from this
benevolent Institution to the Depositors depends much on the Secrecy
with which they can make their payments’.114 The Company subsidized
running costs by paying for stationery and printing and by helping with
clerical salaries, but it did not interfere with the management of the
Bank, nor supervise the accounts. Unfortunately the Company’s con-
siderable trust in Henry Sowden, clerk to the Savings Bank, proved to
be misplaced. In 1833, the Bank’s managers reported that the books
had fallen into arrears because Sowden had been ill for a long time.
Other Company servants were assigned to work on the books and they
uncovered fabricated accounts and a deficiency of £3693. Suspicion
fell squarely upon Sowden and, although the Company tried to recover
some of the lost money from him, the directors felt obliged to bear the
loss on behalf of the depositors.115
From 1819, a higher rate of pension was awarded to labourers and
commodores who made regular deposits with the aim of ‘encouraging
and rewarding every man who will assist himself by laying up in the time
of health and activity, a store for the infirmities of old age’. The pension
rates for subscribers to the Savings Bank are set out in Table 10.
Table 10: Scale of weekly pensions for labourers who were subscribers to the
Savings Bank under the regulations of 26 March 1819
Length of service Labourers Commodores

and warehouse
messengers
35 years and above 11s 6d 12s 6d

30 years and less than 35 11s 0d 12s 0d
Less than 2 years 3s 0d 4s 0d
There were strict rules governing the enhanced pensions. In order

to be eligible, a man had to deposit money in the Savings Bank at rate
of at least 3d per week or 1s per month, except when drawing on the
Sick Fund. A depositor was allowed to withdraw a part of his savings to
pay for an apprenticeship or otherwise provide for his children, or for
‘other necessary purposes’, but only if the remaining sum was equal
to 3d per week from the time he commenced saving, not taking into
account any time spent on the sick list. Otherwise, the subscription
with interest was to remain untouched until the man was pensioned,
when he could draw out the whole sum. Men voluntarily quitting the
Company’s service, or who were dismissed, forfeited all claim on the
Court for a pension, but were entitled to receive back all the money
they had paid into the Savings Bank.116 Although only regular deposi-
tors at the set minimum rate would be entitled to ask for the higher
rate of pension, the directors urged all labourers and commodores to
deposit any sums they could spare and assured them that their money
might be withdrawn from the Bank whenever they wanted.117 In 1822 it
was made a condition of appointment for new labourers that they make
deposits in the Savings Bank to the amount of 1s every four weeks.118
The trustees considered leaving a printed ‘friendly address’ at the homes
of all Company labourers to advertise the Bank, but decided instead that ‘the
greatest publicity be given to it throughout the House & Warehouses’.119 By
December 1819, nearly 2800 accounts had been opened.120 In 1829 there
were 2870 depositors, 84 per cent of whom held a balance which did not
exceed £20.121 The deposits held in the East India Company’s Savings Bank
1828–1829 are analysed in Table 11. All money was repaid as a lump sum
after the Company decided to close the Bank in 1834 because of the dis-
mantling of the warehouse organization.122
Table 11: Deposits held in the East India Company’s Savings Bank, 1828–9
Year ending 20 November 1828 Year ending 20 November 1829

Balances Number % of Total Number % of Total
(including of total amount of total amount
interest) accounts accounts
Not 2580 84.2 £17837 0s 10d 2420 84.3 £16397 2s 6d
exceeding
£20
Above £20 301 9.8 £10780 4s 3d 291 10.1 £10340 3s 9d
and not
exceeding
£50
Above £50 110 3.6 £9980 8s 5d 102 3.6 £9375 10s 6d
and not
exceeding
£100
Above £100 30 1.0 £4666 5s 2d 24 0.8 £3938 4s 10d
and not
exceeding
£150
Above £150 18 0.6 £3574 6s 9d 16 0.6 £3228 0s 1d
and not
exceeding
£200
Above £200 23 0.8 £8107 14s 0d 17 0.6 £6298 3s 1d
Total 3062 100.0 £54945 19s 5d 2870 100.0 £49577 4s 9d
Source: BL, IOR: L/AG/30/15/1, pp. 148–9, 154–7

Compared with other London institutions in the early nineteenth cen-

tury, the East India Company offered a far more comprehensive set of
benefits to its lower ranked staff. As Geoffrey Ffrench has commented:
‘Such an enlightened appreciation by an employer of the value of a
man’s health and the means taken both to preserve it and to support
him financially and medically when sick was unusual.’123 Contemporary
employers in the metropolis tended to provide only partial welfare
schemes or to deal with cases on an ad hoc basis: for example, the
Bank of England provided pensions for its porters and gave financial
aid to their widows;124 whilst the Royal Dockyards offered sick pay for
set time periods, and had only limited superannuation arrangements
which began to be expanded from the time of the Napoleonic Wars.125
The dock companies which began their operations in early nineteenth-
century London had the opportunity to adopt or adapt management
techniques already implemented by the East India Company, such as
the idea of paying pensions to individuals adjudged to be deserving
cases. The London Dock Company, however, decided in 1833 to take
this privilege away from new labourers: a statement was printed on the
cards of appointment that if a man became incapable of performing
his duties efficiently, no superannuation allowance would be granted.126
Dock labourers were sometimes given financial aid when unable to
work, even if their absence was not caused by an injury sustained at
work. However, such assistance was not enshrined in a code of practice
like the East India Company’s fund regulations and might be withheld
at any time. The St Katharine Dock Company voted in 1829 to follow
the practice of the London Dock Company which made no allowance
to labourers absent because of sickness unless it was caused by an ac-
cident whilst on duty.127 The East India Dock Company perhaps came
closest to the East India Company in its approach to welfare, which is
unsurprising given the close links between the two, with four directors
serving both businesses. In 1815 the East India Dock Company decided
to call upon the labourers to form a friendly society and constitute a
fund to provide maintenance for casualties or illness with regulations
drawn up by the Dock Master.128
Embedded within the East India Company management incentives
were elements of control and compulsion which in effect placed limits
on the extent of the directors’ benevolence. By restricting the labourers
to an ‘in-house’ welfare fund, the Company could assert its authority
over the men by having the power to determine whether sickness and
other benefits should be granted under the regulations. The labour-
ers’ dependence on the Company was thus increased as they had no
easy recourse to alternative sources of assistance. Warehouse labourer
Joseph Oliver was recommended in 1802 to the Freemasons’ Modern

Grand Lodge Committee of Charity in London by the Angel Lodge in
Colchester, Essex as he reported that age and illness were leaving him
unable to work, but very few of the Company labourers are likely to have
been members of the Freemasons and therefore eligible for this kind of
help.129 Since any member of the ‘Fund for the Benefit of the East India
Company’s Laborers’ who resigned, deserted, or was dismissed ceased
to be a subscriber and was no longer entitled to any fund benefits, it was
in the labourers’ financial interest to stay in Company service in order
to reap some return on their weekly payments. Men leaving voluntarily
or by dismissal also lost all claim to a pension, which was another reason
for labourers to seek to retain their positions: ‘I think that as they are
in regular employment, and their wages good, that they remain in the
employment till they are actually incapacitated.’130 Anyone attempting
to defraud a friendly society ran the risk of expulsion; anyone attempt-
ing to defraud the Company fund also ran the risk of losing his job.
Whereas friendly societies were mutual organizations run by members,
the Company welfare scheme was tightly controlled by the warehouse
managers who in turn were answerable to the directors. No meetings
of the Company fund subscribers were required to transact business
and thus the labourers did not enjoy the social element which was
an important part of the friendly society movement. The next chap-
ter will examine in detail the formal systems of internal control in the
Company warehouses which operated alongside the ‘carrots’ offered to
the labourers.
Notes
1 Sidney Pollard, The Genesis of Modern Management (Aldershot, 1993; reprint of

1965 publication), p. 207.
2 This contrasts with the pay structure for East India Company clerks which was
linked to the number of years served. See Boot, ‘Real Incomes’.
4 BL, IOR: B/167, p. 339, Court Minutes 24 June 1818.
5 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, p. 654, Finance and Home Committee 1 May 1835. A chop
was a number of chests of tea of the same type and quality of leaf.
6 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 874, Finance and Home Committee 25 November
1834.
7 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 828, Finance and Home Committee 12 November
1834.
8 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, p. 404, Finance and Home Committee 4 March 1835.
9 BL: IOR: L/F/1/4, pp. 93–4, Finance and Home Committee 25 May 1836; BL,
IOR: L/F/2/6, no. 117 of May 1836, Petition of labourers at Blackwall.
10 BL IOR: B/131, p. 60, Court Minutes 23 April 1800. The directors of the Bank
of England had voted a gratuity in 1795 to employees with a salary not exceed-
ing £100 per annum to help them cope with the high cost of provisions. See
Acres, Bank of England, vol. 2, p. 351.
11 BL, IOR: B/168, p. 1392, Court Minutes 8 April 1819; BL, IOR: L/F/1/4, p. 93,
Finance and Home Committee 25 May 1836, arrangements for the King’s
birthday celebrations on 28 May 1836.
12 Henderson and Palmer, ‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of London’, p. 47,
commenting on the London Dock Company’s practice of paying its perma-
nent labourers for public holidays.
13 BL, IOR: V/4 Session 1831–2, volume 10, part 1, p. 211, Minutes of Evidence
taken before the Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company.
For the East India Company’s wage bill for warehouse labourers 1819–34, see
Table 9. The highest annual bill in that period was £174,768 12s 4d for the year
ending April 1828.
14 MID: East India Dock Company Book F, pp. 357–8, Minutes 22 March 1816.
15 Ellmers and Clark, Warehouse No. 1, p. 50.
16 The frequent payments made to tradesmen for repairs are recorded in the
General Cash Journals in the series BL, IOR: L/AG/1/5.
17 BL, IOR: L/F/2/12, no. 16 of November 1836.
18 See, for example, BL, IOR: L/F/1/5, p. 709, Finance and Home Committee
14 December 1836.
19 BL, IOR: B/148, Court Minutes 26 October 1808, pp. 722–3.
20 Thomas Rogers Forbes, ‘Crowner’s Quest’, Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society 68:1 (1978), pp. 13–14.
21 Inquest reported in The Times, 1 October 1829, p. 3a.
22 Old Bailey Proceedings, 19 February 1800.
23 BL, IOR: B/30, p. 403, Court Minutes 2 March 1668. A full list of names is
provided, with individual grants ranging from £6 to £1 10s. I am indebted to
Richard Morel for showing me this entry.
24 For details of the history and administration of the Poplar Fund, see Ian A.
Baxter, ‘Records of the Poplar Pension Fund’, East London Record 8 (1985),
pp. 30–3; for the history of Poplar Hospital, see Foster, John Company, pp. 153–70.
25 The East-India Register and Directory gives the admission regulations and pen-
sion rates for officers, non-commissioned officers and privates. Officers had to
undergo a means test before any payment could be authorized. See also Ian
A. Baxter, ‘Records of the Lord Clive Pension Fund’, Journal of the Families in
British India Society 5 (2001), pp. 32–4. Service pensions were introduced for
regular military officers in 1796.
26 Quoted in Notes and Queries 9:181 (October 1921), pp. 276–7.
27 Seema Alavi, The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern
India 1770–1830 (Oxford, 1995); Durba Ghosh, ‘Making and Un-making Loyal
Subjects: Pensioning Widows and Orphans in Early Colonial India’, Journal of
Imperial and Commonwealth History 31:1 (2003), pp. 1–28.
28 See Acres, Bank of England, passim.
29 BL, IOR: L/AG/10/2/9, pp. 133–49; see also the introduction to L/AG/21/6
in the India Office Records catalogue of the Accountant General’s records.
The Charter Act of 1813 gave the Company specific authority to grant pensions
and compensations (53 Geo. 3 c. 155).

30 BL, IOR: B/99, p. 677, Court Minutes 12 December 1783: the scale of allow-
ances adopted was not copied into the Court Book from the report of the
Committee of Warehouses and the original report does not appear to have
survived.
31 BL, IOR: B/139, pp. 636–8, Court Minutes 15 August 1804.
33 BL, IOR: L/F/2/30, no. 333 of May 1838.
36 Report from the Select Committee on Civil Service Superannuation (London,
1856), p. 190, Evidence of William Farr.
37 BL, IOR: L/F/2/30, no. 333 of May 1838.
38 BL, IOR: L/AG/10/2/9, pp. 97–132.
39 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24.
40 For the image of benevolence projected by the Company in India, see Alavi,
Sepoys, and Ghosh, ‘Making and Un-Making Loyal Subjects’.
41 J. W. Kaye, ‘The House that John Built’, Cornhill Magazine 2 (1860), pp. 113–21.
42 The Company ethos appears to be very similar to the Bank of England where
employees were also known as servants. See Acres, Bank of England.
43 See David Roberts, Paternalism in Early Victorian England (London, 1979) and F.
David Roberts, The Social Conscience of the Early Victorians (Stanford, CA, 2002).
44 James Stephen Taylor, Jonas Hanway, Founder of the Marine Society: Charity and
Policy in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London, 1985), p. 60.
45 Several of the East India Company directors appear in William D. Rubinstein,
Who Were the Rich? A Biographical Dictionary of British Wealth-Holders, volume one,
1809–1839 (London, 2009). Inclusion in this book is limited to those who
left personal estates of at least £100,000, the equivalent of about £8 million in
2009. Amongst the directors who are included are William Devaynes (£175,000
in 1809); Abraham Robarts (£350,000 in 1816); Sir Thomas Reid (£300,000 in
1824); Charles Mills (£120,000 in 1826); and Jacob Bosanquet (£100,000 in
1828).
46 W. R. Meyer, ‘Le Mesurier, Paul (1755–1805)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography (Oxford, 2004).
47 John Mayne, The Siller Gun (London, 1836), pp. 218–20.
48 T. C. Turberville, Worcestershire in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1852), pp. 224,
230.
49 R. G. Thorne, The House of Commons, 1790–1820 (London, 1986), vol. 3, pp.
592–3; TNA: HO 42/34/18, Letter from Devaynes concerning a plan to mobi-
lize voluntary assistance for the poor, 12 January 1795; TNA: HO 42/34/179,
Note from Devaynes enclosing resolutions passed by the Committee for taking
into Consideration the high prices of Provisions, 28 May 1795.
50 John Marriott, The Other Empire: Metropolis, India and Progress in the Colonial
Imagination (Manchester, 2003), p. 224.
51 A contribution to the poor box was often required from those admitted as
freemen of the Company or from directors who broke the rules governing
their attendance: see Foster, East India House, pp. 8, 93–4. I am indebted to
Anthony Farrington for drawing this to my attention. The Russia Company also
maintained a poor box where entry fees from freemen were deposited. The
box was opened in February of each year by the Governor, who then distrib-
uted the money to charities of his choice. See, for example, GL: Ms. 11741/9,
Minutes of the Court of Assistants of the Russia Company, 1793–1804. The
Bank of England used the contents of its poor box to assist needy employees.
See Acres, Bank of England, vol. 2, p. 600.
52 BL, IOR: H/740, Donations granted by the East India Company Court of
Directors and by the Secretary of State for India 1792–1859. The Bank of
England directors contributed to many of the same causes. See Acres, Bank of
England, vol. 2, pp. 600–3.
53 BL, IOR: B/168, p. 969, Court Minutes 13 January 1819. Similar petitions were
received by the East India Dock Company, for example, in December 1811
from a committee wishing to establish a school in Limehouse to educate poor
boys in the habits of industry and proper religious principles. The committee
pointed out that many of the boys would be the children of Dock employees
who in turn would be Dock labourers: fifty guineas were subscribed. See MID:
No. 280, East India Dock Company Book E, pp. 62–3, Minutes 20 December
1811.
54 BL, IOR: B/175, pp. 744, 783, Court Minutes 27 December 1822 and 3 January
1823.
55 BL, IOR: L/F/2/22, no. 141 of September 1837, Petition for a donation from
the City of London School of Instruction and Industry.
57 BL, IOR: L/F/1/11, p. 619.
58 For comment on the writings of Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), see Solomon
Fabricant, ‘An Economist’s View of Philanthropy’, in Philanthropy and Public
Policy, ed. Frank G. Dickinson (New York, 1962), pp. 1–9.
59 P. H. J. H. Gosden, The Friendly Societies in England, 1815–1875 (Manchester,
1961), pp. 2–5; Martin Daunton, ‘Introduction’, in Charity, Self-Interest and
Welfare in the English Past, ed. Martin Daunton (London, 1996), pp. 1–22.
60 M. W. Flinn (ed.), The Law Book of the Crowley Ironworks (Durham, 1957).
61 Erich Roll, An Early Experiment in Industrial Organisation, being a History of the
Firm of Boulton & Watt, 1755–1805 (London, 1930), pp. 223–8; Joan Lane,
A Social History of Medicine: Health, Healing and Disease in England, 1750–1950
(London, 2001), p. 74.
62 The labourers’ fund thus pre-dated by some years the contributory funds for
the benefit of widows and children of more senior home servants, such as the
Regular Widows’ and the Elders’ Widows’ Funds which were introduced in
1816.
63 Paul Johnson, ‘Risk, Redistribution and Social Welfare in Britain from the
Poor Law to Beveridge’, in Charity, ed. Daunton, pp. 225–48.
64 Many friendly societies had rules excluding members of another society. See
Lane, Social History of Medicine, p. 72.
65 Samuel Smiles, Lives of Boulton and Watt (London, 1865), pp. 480–1; Lane,
Social History of Medicine, p. 74.
66 Frederic Morton Eden, The State of the Poor (London, 1966: facsimile of 1797
edn), vol. 1, p. 605.
67 Rules and Regulations for the Establishment and Management of a Fund, p. 9. This
exclusion clause was a typical element of friendly society rules. See Lane, Social
History of Medicine, p. 72. Many of the Company fund rules suggest the concept
of the ‘deserving poor’ which was a tenet of Poor Law administrators.
68 Johnson, ‘Risk, Redistribution and Social Welfare’, p. 232.
69 No longer extant.
70 Rules and Regulations for the Establishment and Management of a Fund, p. 7.
71 See BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4 for examples of payments made for stillbirths.
72 Payments from the fund after 1830 are noted in BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
73 A greater penalty than was exacted from those who broke the rules of friendly
societies, which at worst was the denial of benefits or expulsion. See Michael
Hechter, Principles of Group Solidarity (London, 1987), p. 117.
74 The copy of the Rules and Regulations for the Establishment and Management of a
Fund acquired in 2002 by the British Library appears to have been issued to
Thomas Andrew who was appointed as a labourer on 17 September 1816. See
BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 2811.
75 Eden, State of the Poor, vol. 1, p. 621.
76 Report from the Select Committee on Civil Service Superannuation, p. 192.
77 BL, IOR: L/AG/9/8/1, no. 223.
78 BL, IOR: L/AG/29/1/6, Accountant’s Office Letter Book April 1816–March
1817, pp. 28–33, 120–4.
79 BL, IOR:V/4 Session 1830 vol. 5, Paper 644, Appendix to the First Report of
the Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company, pp. 108–9,
‘Charges General’ in the account of the Commercial Branch 1828/29.
81 Edwin Chadwick, An Essay on the Means of Insurance against the Casualties of
Sickness, Decrepitude, and Mortality (London, 1836), p. 46.
83 Farr, ‘Vital Statistics’, p. 579, Supplementary evidence from Dr Leese.
84 See, for example, the payments for labourers’ trusses made by the Company
to Salmon, Ody & Co and to Evans & Co in BL, IOR: L/AG/1/5/31, General
Cash Journal, May 1820–April 1824. The Company also paid an annual sub-
scription of ten guineas to the City of London Truss Society. For each guinea
subscribed, the Company could nominate every year either three patients for
single trusses or one for a double and one for a single. See City of London Truss
Society for the Relief of the Ruptured Poor throughout the Kingdom, Plans,
Laws and Regulations (London, 1818) and A List of the Governors, Governesses,
and Donors (London, 1822). However, since the subscription to the Society
was begun on the recommendation of the Committee of Shipping in 1819, it
appears that the Company nominations might have been used for its afflicted
seamen rather than the warehouse labourers (BL, IOR: B/169, p. 19, Court
Minutes 20 April 1819).
85 BL, IOR: L/F/2/21, no. 52 of August 1837.
86 Ibid. Leese and Spry each had responsibility for a demarcated geographical
area.
89 P. Froggatt, ‘The East India Company (London Establishment): An Early
Domiciliary Industrial Medical Service’, Transactions of the Society of Occupational
Medicine 18 (1968), pp. 111–13.

90 Flinn, Crowley Ironworks, pp. 165–7.
91 Gosden, Friendly Societies, pp. 138–45.
93 D. A. Power, ‘Travers, Benjamin (1783–1858)’, rev. Anita McConnell, Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography. Travers and Lewis Leese senior were appointed
as surgeons to the Company warehouses and Volunteer regiment in March
1808 following the resignation of James Bureau (died 1811). See The Morning
Chronicle, 28 March 1808, p. 3d (http://www.bl.uk, accessed October 2009)
94 A Report of the Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear, Dean Street, Soho Square, from
1817 to 1832 (London, 1832), p. 1.
95 Chadwick, An Essay on the Means of Insurance, p. 45.
97 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 352, Finance and Home Committee 25 June 1834.
98 BL, IOR: L/F/1/5, pp. 707-8, Finance and Home Committee 14 December
1836; BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 45 of December 1836.
99 BL, IOR: L/F/1/6, p. 419, Finance and Home Committee 28 July 1837; BL,
IOR: L/F/2/20, no. 217 of July 1837. Taylor had been admitted to the ware-
houses on 24 February 1824 and was now aged forty-five.
100 Forbes, ‘Crowner’s Quest’, p. 22.
101 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, p. 718, Finance and Home Committee 13 May 1835.
102 BL, IOR: L/F/1/6, pp. 298, 420, Finance and Home Committee 28 June and
28 July 1837; BL, IOR: L/F/2/19, no. 228 of June 1837; BL, IOR: L/F/2/20,
letter not numbered (bound between 217 and 218 of July 1837).
103 BL, IOR: L/F/1/53, No.182, Finance and Home Committee 2 July 1834.
104 BL, IOR: B/184 (not paginated), Court Minutes 5 October 1831.
105 BL, IOR: B/166, p. 1197, Court Minutes 18 March 1818.
106 57 Geo. 3 c. 130. The Act was cited by the directors when setting up the Savings
Bank.
107 Beverly Lemire, ‘Savers in Training: Education, Savings Banks and the
Nineteenth-Century English Working Class’, paper delivered at the European
Business History Association Conference, Barcelona, September 2004.
109 BL, IOR: B/167, pp. 278–80, Court Minutes 10 June 1818.
110 The Times, 2 April 1818, p. 2e.
113 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/15/1, pp. 1–2, Savings Bank Trustees’ Minutes 16 February
1819.
114 BL, IOR: B/167, pp. 278–80, Court Minutes 10 June 1818. The trustees were
the Secretary, the Accountant General, the Clerk to Committee of Buying and
Warehouses, and the Treasurer; the managers were the clerks in the Accountant
General’s Office for depositors at East India House, and the warehouse-keep-
ers and assistant warehouse-keepers for Warehouse Department depositors.
115 See BL, IOR: L/AG/30/15/1, pp. 169–71, Trustees’ Minutes 31 October 1833;
BL, IOR: L/MAR/C/687, ff. 160–93v, Savings Bank papers 1834; BL, IOR:
B/187 pp. 420, 629–30, Court Minutes 12 February and 2 April 1834; and BL,
IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 784, Finance and Home Committee 29 October 1834.
117 BL, IOR: B/175, p. 645, Court Minutes 20 November 1822.
118 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/15/1, pp. 28–39, Trustees’ Minutes 14 February 1822.
119 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/15/1, pp. 1–2, Trustees’ Minutes 16 February 1819.
120 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/15/1, pp. 4–6, Trustees’ Minutes 30 December 1819.
121 John Tidd Pratt calculated that the average savings in the East India Company
Savings Bank amounted to £17 5s 5¾d in 1829, but this masks the fact that de-
positors’ holdings varied from a few shillings to hundreds of pounds. See John
Tidd Pratt, The History of Savings Banks in England, Wales, and Ireland (London,
1830).
122 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/15/2, Balances paid to East India Company Savings Bank
depositors 1834–40.
123 Geoffrey Ffrench, ‘The Influence of Industrial Medicine on Economic
Geography’, Transactions of the Society of Occupational Medicine 22 (1972), pp.
109–15.
124 BOE: E46/1 Pensions; E18/3 Directors’ Fund.
125 When superannuation was introduced for all workmen in the naval dockyards
in 1771, only 2.5 per cent of the total number of men could be superannuated
each year. See James M. Haas, ‘The Royal Dockyards: The Earliest Visitations
and Reform 1749–1778’, Historical Journal 13:2 (1970), pp. 191–215, and R. J.
B. Knight, ‘The Royal Dockyards in England at the Time of the American War
of Independence’ (unpublished PhD thesis, London University, 1972).
126 MID: London Dock Company Court of Directors Book 1832–6, p. 72, Minutes
3 September 1833.
127 MID: St Katharine Dock Company Dock Committee 1828–3, p. 20, Minutes 22
January 1829.
128 MID: East India Dock Company Book F, p. 185, Minutes 10 March 1815.
129 LMF: GBR 1991 HC 12/C/106, List of petitioners to the Moderns Grand
Lodge Committee of Charity, 2 April 1802.
130 Report from the Select Committee on Civil Service Superannuation, p. 328, Evidence
of Peter Hardy.
Five
MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: SYSTEMS OF

INTERNAL CONTROL
THE EAST India Company’s ability to manage its warehouse labour-

ers was assessed by Sir John Hall, Secretary to the St Katharine Dock
Company, in his evidence to a Select Committee of Parliament in 1832.
Hall’s statement makes interesting reading:
The men of the East India Company are constantly loitering away their
time; our officers sometimes take the liberty of pointing this out to the
elders, &c. of the East India Company, but they say that they have a dif-
ficulty in enforcing discipline. I have seen the East India Company’s
labourers at times asleep in the corners of the floors; their superiors have
been told of the circumstance, but there is a want of discipline insepa-
rable from a system, which there is not in ours, arising, I conceive, from
the evils of patronage and influence in appointments.1
The East India Company did seek to control and discipline its ware-
house labourers, although, if Sir John Hall is to be believed, its efforts
may not always have been wholly successful. In order to enjoy the ben-
efits described in the previous chapter, the labourers were subjected
to restrictions and regulations imposed on them by the Company. As
Bowen has written of the Company’s regime in general: ‘a ruthless
streak of authoritarianism always coexisted alongside a governing ideol-
ogy that in many ways was liberal in tone’.2
The sheer scale of the East India Company commercial operations
in London in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries meant
that the directors were faced with the task of managing a warehouse
workforce of between two and three thousand men at a time when the
capital’s economic activity was mainly based on small enterprises with a
Management Strategies: Systems of Internal Control 95
master and a perhaps a handful of employees. Apart from the London

dock companies and the Royal Dockyards, other large establishments
tended to be found in provincial manufactories; for example, Matthew
Boulton’s Soho Works at Birmingham employed approximately 700
workers in 1776.3 The London dock companies had far smaller perma-
nent labourer establishments, but relied on large numbers of casual
workers at peak times who perhaps posed a greater disciplinary problem
because of their temporary status. In 1806 the East India Dock Company
approved the employment of about 130 permanent men, plus 100 ‘oc-
casional men’.4 The suggested number of permanent labourers needed
by the West India Dock Company in January 1805 was 285,5 but a far
greater number of temporary men were also taken on as required.6
Whereas workshop masters could supervise operations personally,
employers such as Boulton, the East India Company and the London
dock companies needed to develop systems of internal control to ensure
that objectives were being achieved. The Company had the advantage
of being able to manage these controls through a highly developed
bureaucratic organization, whereby official activities were governed
by rules, graded authority, distributed duties and responsibilities, and
comprehensive and continuous documentation.7 The Company’s in-
ternal control systems for its London operations had been developed
over time to meet current needs, not only in the warehouses but in the
various administrative offices in East India House. Procedures were put
in place to direct, supervise, monitor and report on operations, func-
tions and activities with the aim of achieving economy, efficiency and
effectiveness.8 These procedures were constantly under review: the new
set of orders to regulate the labourers agreed in December 1782 were
amended and refined from time to time as was deemed necessary for
greater efficiency.9
The maintenance of an up-to-date, relevant set of rules governing the
labourers’ working practices illustrates the fact that careful documen-
tation was one of the Company’s most important tools for managing
the warehouse labourers in the early nineteenth century. This perhaps
might be expected in an enterprise which was at that time conducting
‘an empire in writing’.10 In the same way as the Company maintained
registers of its private soldiers,11 data about the men employed in the
warehouses were collected and presented in tabular form so that there
was an easily understood control record. On admission to the ware-
houses, the full name of each labourer was entered in a book. The
surviving admissions register for 1801–32 also records the date of ap-
pointment; the name of the nominating director; the labourer’s age;
his height (noted from September 1804); his previous occupation; and
the warehouse to which he was assigned. The annotations in the regis-

ter to update or expand the information entered at admission clearly
demonstrate that the register was used as a management tool to keep
track of the labourers on the Company roll. Men found to have given
false names were struck off: William Rice, appointed to the Bengal ware-
house in May 1804, was dismissed as his real name was Newland, and
John Skinner Baker, admitted to the Coast warehouse in June 1804, was
fired because he had given an incorrect last name.12 Notes were made of
transfers between warehouses; re-employment of men who had quit the
service; dismissals; and service in the Royal East India Volunteers.13
The register which survives for the Volunteers between 1820 and
1834 is even more informative as it records residential addresses and
dates of death, and provides dates and reasons for discharges from the
regiments. It was clearly a book which was in constant use at East India
House, being regularly updated with changes of address and cramped
annotations which are hard to decipher.14
Another regularly revised management record for the labourers was
an establishment book commencing in 1830 covering all the warehouses,
the only such book to survive. This supplies very brief details for tem-
porary labourers and a career outline for each permanent labourer
who was serving in or after February 1830. The data entered include
details of appointment; the warehouses in which the man served with
transfer dates; promotion to commodore or messenger; the date of and
reason for dismissal; information about resignation, pension or death;
payments made to the man or his family from the labourers’ welfare
fund.15 The Company’s record keeping about its labourers as evidenced
by these registers and the warehouse pension records was reasonably
accurate, and it is certainly possible to track individual labourers quite
easily through the records which survive, although there are discrepan-
cies in ages and in the exact dates of entry to the warehouses and some
inconsistency in the spelling of names.
Company officials created a number of other documentary con-
trols for the warehouses which were presumably destroyed in the
mid-nineteenth-century cull of commercial papers. Punctuality and at-
tendance were carefully monitored: the time discipline in the Company
warehouses was very like that in Josiah Wedgwood’s pottery factory, with
the length of day determined by the employer rather than the workers
and enforced by a wage system.16 The duties of the assistant elders in-
cluded the preparation of a written report to the warehouse-keeper at
the end of each day of how many men had been employed; the submis-
sion of weekly accounts of wages owed to labourers, commodores and
writers; a record of the tickets issued to labourers for leave of absence
for urgent reasons, stating the time granted and marked with the precise
time of return.17 The assistant elders also maintained a list of labourers
for roll call at the start and end of the working day: those who did not
answer their name when called at a set hour for the morning muster
were not employed that day. The keepers had orders to report to the
Committee of Warehouses every week the number of men employed in
each warehouse, and when they passed their disbursements they had to
lay before the Committee of Warehouses a list of labourers’ names, the
persons by whom the men had been recommended, and how long they
had been employed. Each warehouse had an attendance book which
recorded if labourers were present or absent.18 The Company allowed
two days absence per month apart from sick leave. Detailed records of
sickness for each labourer were maintained and in 1833 the Committee
of Buying and Warehouses was able to supply comprehensive informa-
tion from these to the Royal Commission appointed to enquire into the
labour of children in factories.19
The Committee of Warehouses kept records of matters referred by
the Court and of the decisions reached. These have also been destroyed,
but the papers of the Finance and Home Committee, which took over
responsibility for the warehouses in the administrative reorganization
of 1834, give a good indication of the very full management informa-
tion about individual labourers which was logged. Extracts from the
pre-1834 Committee papers were copied into the Finance and Home
Committee books as evidence of previous decisions and thus it is possi-
ble to discern that these earlier records were similarly structured and as
detailed as those that are extant.20 Accurate and comprehensive records
about the warehouses were referred to as precedents, for example, in
judging the merits of petitions. In November 1836, John Eales, aged
seventy-three, petitioned the Company for financial relief because of
his distressed situation. He claimed to have worked for over twenty years
in the Cooper’s Row and Bengal warehouses before being discharged
in about 1816. The Finance and Home Committee consulted two of the
Company warehouse-keepers. Henry Johnson at the Bengal warehouse
reported that according to the records Eales had been employed there
as a temporary labourer during a few weeks only in 1802 and 1813, and
commented that he was not aware that any applications of a similar kind
had ever been considered by the Committee. William Johnson at the
Private Trade warehouse confirmed that Eales was formerly employed
at Cooper’s Row and at other warehouses, but agreed with Johnson that
there was no reason for the Company to act in this case.21
Written reports about infringements of regulations were an impor-
tant part of the process of disciplining labourers and there appear to
have been orders obliging the warehouse-keepers to refer serious cases

to the directors.22 The Company could wield its authority directly over
the labourers by virtue of employing them for wages on an individual
basis rather than operating a task-based subcontracting system. All types
and levels of payment to the men were decided by the directors.23 The
threat of dismissal was held out as the ultimate sanction for all Company
employees from the highest ranking Council members in Asia to the
most junior of warehouse labourers. Each commodore had the duty
of seeing that the labourers employed in his gang kept constantly to
their business all day, and if men were slacking, the commodore was
to report them to the warehouse-keeper. If a commodore neglected
to do so, he was liable to be sacked. If a commodore or labourer was
addicted to liquor, neglectful of his duty, or misbehaved, the warehouse-
keeper was authorized to dismiss him, giving notice to the Committee
of Warehouses on the next Court day. Labourers who were discovered
asking buyers for money at Christmas or at any other time were to lose
their jobs.24 To discourage swindling, written records were kept of the
sums received on the delivery of goods, noting the reason the money
had been paid and from whom it had been received.25
The management strategy adopted by the East India Company
avoided the ‘impersonality of large organisations’ which can encour-
age employee misconduct.26 The Chairman of the Committee of
Warehouses was obliged by the regulations to inspect the warehouses
and the business transacted therein at least once a month and to report
back his findings.27 There were separate managerial hierarchies within
each warehouse, where the workers were known personally to the man-
agers, and therefore unusual or unacceptable behaviour could be dealt
with more quickly and easily. Since men were transferred between ware-
houses if manning levels needed to be changed or if they had useful
skills appropriate to a particular operation, it seems likely that transfers
were also used for disciplinary purposes, perhaps to break up groups of
men colluding in theft. The physical organization of the warehouses was
also designed to facilitate control. Warehouses had numbered floors di-
vided into compartments distinguished by letters, with different goods
stored in separate areas. The men worked in gangs under a supervising
commodore on specified tasks in designated parts of the warehouse
and thus it was easier to detect men acting suspiciously. In December
1836, John Smith was caught pilfering two ounces of tea from one of
the chests in the Cutler Street warehouse. The tea warehouse-keeper
Henry Seally observed that although Smith was a ‘useful’ labourer of
sober and industrious habits, he had been suspected of pilfering be-
cause he was occasionally found in parts of the warehouse where he had
no business. Smith was dismissed from Company employment, but the

Committee of Warehouses granted his wife £5 in March 1837 as she was
in a ‘state of destitution’ because her husband had forfeited his pension
through his misconduct.28
Pilfering was the most common reason for the dismissal of labourers
from the Company warehouses. Various measures were adopted to try
to prevent theft. The assistant elders kept a book of items being taken
out of the warehouse yard with permission.29 Labourers could only leave
the warehouses with the permission of the keepers or elders, and beer
was brought in twice a day to avoid the need for the men to go out to
buy refreshment. At Crutched Friars, a publican brought breakfast into
the warehouse yard for 10.00 a.m. and the men had a thirty-minute
break to eat sitting on the tea chests.30 Whenever the labourers left the
warehouses during working hours or at the end of the day, they had to
undergo a body search known as ‘rubbing down’ by the Crown officers
and the elders, and a search might be carried out at any other time if
pilfering was suspected. When prosecuted for theft from the Company
in 1790, Joseph Lightfoot spoke in his own defence and claimed that
the certainty of being searched meant that he would not have attempted
to steal from the warehouse: ‘it was impossible I could expect to go out
without being stopped; for when I have had a bit of bread and cheese
extraordinary, I have been obliged to take it out of my pocket, and shew
it’. The jury found Lightfoot guilty of stealing the fifteen porcelain sau-
cers and three porcelain cups which had been found in his pocket, and
sentenced him to be whipped in public.31
Yet other evidence suggests that ‘rubbing down’ could be merely per-
functory unless a man was under suspicion. King’s locker John Burgess
searched Benjamin Clarke following a tip off, and after searching for
ten minutes or more, he found a packet containing about two ounces of
tea concealed in Clarke’s breeches pocket. Burgess stated: ‘If we were to
search every man as I searched him, it would take us from eight o’clock
in the morning till night; we search them as quick as we can.’32
In the early eighteenth century the Company had allowed warehouse
workers to take home a couple of yards of calico from the wrappers
around bales of cloth to make into an apron or a night cap, viewing
this as a legitimate perquisite. However, the practice was abused and
whole pieces were taken out. It was claimed in October 1731 that the
Company had lost 30,000 yards of cloth in the last sale. An order ban-
ning the taking of wrappers was therefore printed and hung up in the
warehouse.33 Wrappers, other packaging, waste and damaged materials
were sold rather than given away, with part of the profits being allocated
to the Fee Fund which was used to augment the income of warehouse
officers. Whilst it seems highly likely that a blind eye was sometimes
turned by managers to the removal of very small quantities of waste
gleaned as perquisites, action was taken against those who overstepped
acceptable limits.34 In 1814, the Company prosecuted Trueman Wood,
a labourer at the Haydon Square warehouse, who claimed that he was
entitled to 24 lb of damaged ‘India paper’ found at his home: ‘When
he was before the magistrate, he said, the paper was his perquisites, that
he was allowed it by the East India Company.’35 Samuel Shailer was con-
victed in 1800 of stealing six ounces of tea, the jury having rejected his
defence that he had taken it as ‘waste tea’.36
In order to discourage collusion between the labourers and to exer-
cise control through a kind of ‘divide and rule’ policy, the East India
Company paid a reward of one guinea to every man who reported a
thief.37 For example, Joseph Andrews, a labourer at the Jewry Street
tea warehouse, was dismissed for pilfering in May 1833, and Edward
Nash, a fellow labourer, was paid one guinea for informing against
him.38 Thomas Hopkins, during his own trial in 1800 for the theft of 1
lb of nutmegs, complained of suffering ill-treatment after no action was
taken against the man he had reported for theft: ‘I stopped a man with
nutmegs, and it was dropped; I could not walk the streets safely after it,
I was so ill used.’39
The warehouse managers also instructed men to hide and watch for
transgressors. On 8 April 1818, labourer Philip Squire was ordered to
conceal himself behind three chests of tea. After about ten minutes, he
saw Richard Eastham come along, put his hand into a chest of tea, and
push something into his breeches. Squire immediately reported this
to assistant elder William French, and Eastham was prosecuted by the
Company for stealing nine ounces of tea to the value of 1s 4d.40
In spite of all these precautions, the Company continued to be the
victim of theft by its labourers, although a Customs and Excise commis-
sion of enquiry concluded that there was no insecurity or fraud ‘beyond
those petty pilferings, which cannot be entirely guarded against, where
great numbers of labourers are necessarily employed in sorting and
arranging very valuable articles’.41 Successful thieving was partly the
result of shortcomings in the safeguards employed and partly the result
of sheer ingenuity on the part of the labourers. An excise officer at
Blackwall gave evidence at the Old Bailey that he had seen labourers
come and go from the Company warehouse without being searched by
dint of arriving before the official opening hour of 8.00 a.m.42 Samuel
Ball, an assistant elder, believed that it was impossible to detect all pil-
fering by ‘rubbing down’ since the men ‘might conceal tea, as they are
not rubbed down indecently’.43 The labourers sewed special pockets
into their breeches for pilfering tea; for example, Samuel Hadgcraft,
a tailor by trade, concealed about fourteen ounces of tea in two large
pockets sewn into his pantaloons which hung between his legs in a way
that would not be noticed when he was ‘rubbed down’ at the gate.44
William Wilkins was searched by elder Mr Sellman at the Cutler Street
warehouse:
I found tea in his hat. I took out the tea. It was underneath the lining of
his hat, in an handkerchief. He said, that was all. I found in his hand a
glove full of tea. I desired him to unbutton his breeches, and I found a
pound of tea between the lining of his breeches and his shirt. I put my
hand in and found some more tea between his thighs. Altogether I found
about a pound and a half.45
When discovered in possession of Company property, the labourers

sometimes offered resourceful excuses. Samuel Russell explained that
the three ounces of tea discovered in his shoes had simply found its way
in there from spillage on the floor as he had gone about his duties in
the Fenchurch Street warehouse.46
In some cases, men suspected of theft were dismissed from their posts
without also being prosecuted.47 The records of the Finance and Home
Committee for 1834 and 1835 give the names of men who were struck
off the warehouse books for pilfering goods but not taken to court, for
example, commodore John H. Venables and labourers George Brown,
James Scott, John Steel and John Shore.48 In other cases, the Company
decided to take the man to court. Between 1800 and 1830, eighty-five
East India Company labourers appeared in the Central Criminal Court
at the Old Bailey accused of stealing from the warehouses. Table 12
shows these cases and the outcome of the trials. The spread of prosecu-
tions was very uneven, ranging from a year when no Company labourers
were tried at the Old Bailey to two years when six cases were heard.
There is no clear correlation between the value of the goods stolen and
the severity of the punishment: in 1815 John Nightingale was punished
with three months in Newgate gaol and fined 1s for taking nutmegs to
the value of £5; John Corsell was sentenced to six months’ confinement
in 1824 when found guilty of stealing tea valued at 3s; whilst in 1829
Thomas Rickards was transported for seven years for the theft of tea
worth 3d. It is however noticeable that the incidence of physical punish-
ment of the labourers by whipping decreased during the 1820s and they
were sentenced instead to jail or transportation.
Table 12: East India Company labourers prosecuted at the Old Bailey for pilfering,
1800–30
Year of Name Alleged stolen goods Verdict/punishment

trial
1800 John Jackson 14 oz mace, value 14s Transportation 7 years
1800 Samuel Shailer 6 oz tea, value 12d Whipped 100 yards Seething Lane
1800 William Halfpenny 2 oz tea, value 6d Whipped 100 yards Seething Lane
1800 Thomas Rainsley 9 oz tea, value 1s 3d One month Newgate; whipped 100
yards near Crutched Friars warehouses
1800 John Bickerstaff 4 lb tea, value 12s Whipped 100 yards near Haydon
Square warehouses
1800 Thomas Hopkins 1 lb nutmegs, value 2s Whipped 100 yards near St Helen’s
warehouse
1801 George Mell 3 lb 13 oz indigo, value 20s 6 months Newgate; whipped 100 yards
Billiter Lane
1801 Henry Cosby 5 oz tea, value 1s 1 month Newgate; whipped 100 yards
Jewry Street
1801 John Waller 13 oz tea, value 2s 6d 1 week Newgate; whipped 100 yards
Jewry Street
1801 William Pocock 1 lb tea, value 2s 6d Pleaded guilty – 2 years Newgate; fined 1s
1801 William Upsher 6 oz tea, value 1s Whipped 100 yards near Crutched
Friars warehouses
1802 John Blanch 1 lb 4 oz tea, value 10s Acquitted – indictment inaccurate and
tea not traced to his hands
1802 William Cole 1 lb 8 oz indigo, value 7s 2 weeks Newgate; whipped 100 yards
Seething Lane
1803 Samuel Russell 3 oz tea, value 6d Whipped 100 yards near Fenchurch
Street warehouse
1804 Robert Reardon 3 lb 6 oz galls, value 5s 1 month Newgate; whipped near EIC
warehouses in parish of St Katharine
Cree
1804 Arthur M’Ginnis 3 lb 2 oz indigo, value 5s 1 month Newgate; whipped near EIC
warehouse in parish of Allhallows
Barking
1804 Joseph Kitson 17 oz black tea, value 2s 1 month Newgate; fined 1s
1804 Nicholas Brady 14 oz tea, value 2s 12 months Newgate; fined 1s
1805 John Burroughs 1 lb 4 oz indigo, value 4s Transportation 7 years
1806 John Nix 1 lb 7 oz coffee, value 1 month Newgate; whipped in jail
1s 6d
1806 John Rawlins 9 oz tea, value 2s 1 month Newgate; fined 1s
1807 Martin Flynn 1 lb tea, value 5s One month Newgate; fined 1s
1808 William Lowen 4 lb 8 oz indigo, value 25s Whipped 100 yards near EIC warehouse
in parish of St George in the East
1808 Isaac Mullins 14 oz tea, value 5s Whipped 100 yards near Crutched
Friars warehouse
1808 Thomas Davis 2 oz tea, value 6d 1 month Newgate; fined 1s

trial
1808 John Douglass 6 lb 4 oz tea, value £1 1s Not guilty

1809 John Nash 11 oz tea, value 2s 1 month Newgate; publicly whipped
1809 Thomas Cole 3 lb tea, value 7s 6d 1 month Newgate; whipped in jail
1809 Thomas Maslin 12 oz tea, value 2s 3 months Newgate; whipped in jail
1809 James Gritten 8 oz silk, value 15s 1 month Newgate; whipped in jail
1809 Joseph Boucher 2 lb 9 oz nutmegs, value £3 3 months Newgate, whipped in jail
1810 Samuel Foot 3 lb indigo, value 12s 1 month Newgate; whipped in jail
1811 William Scourfield 18 oz tea, value 3s 6 months house of correction; whipped
100 yards near Haydon Square
warehouse
1811 Thomas Churton 12 oz tea, value 2s 6d Transportation 7 years
1811 John Dixon 19 lb indigo, value £3 3 months Newgate; whipped in jail
1811 John Dutton 8 oz tea, value 2s 1 month Newgate; fined 1s
1812 Henry Mayberry 2 lb indigo, value 7s Guilty; judgment respited
1812 Samuel Steele and 23 mother of pearl shells, Steele – 6 months house of correction;
John Lamb value 30s fined 1s
Lamb – not guilty
1812 John Lamb* 1 mother of pearl shell, 6 months house of correction; fined 1s
value 2s
1812 William Blades 1 lb tea, value 5s 1 month Newgate; whipped in jail
1812 William Wilkins 1 lb 8 oz tea, value 3s 1 month Newgate; whipped in jail
1813 Thomas Shervill 8 oz nutmegs, value 5s 6 months Newgate; fined 1s
1814 Robert Cromie 1 lb tea, value 2s 6d 1 month Newgate; whipped in jail
1814 John Nightingale 2 lb 12 oz nutmegs, value £5 3 months Newgate; fined 1s
1814 Trueman Wood 24 lb paper, value 6s, and Transportation 7 years
21 lb tea, value £3
1815 James Reeves 10 oz tea, value 2s Confined 3 months; whipped in jail
1815 Thomas Kelly 1 lb 8 oz indigo, value 8s Confined 6 months; whipped in jail
(extra labourer)
1816 Thomas Ball 3 lb 4 oz tea, value 3s 9d Confined 6 months; fined 1s
(extra labourer)
1816 John Field 21 lb coffee, value £l 1s Confined 3 months; whipped
1816 John Premery 2 lb 2 oz tea, value 6s Confined 1 year; fined 1s
1816 George Jenks 2 lb 13 oz tea, value 5s Confined 3 months; whipped
1817 William Sturdy 7 oz tea Pleaded guilty. Confined 3 weeks; fined
1s
1817 Thomas Holmes 9 oz tea, value 1s 4d Confined 6 months; fined 1s
1817 John Miller 1 lb tea, value 3s Confined 3 months
1817 John Youd 1 lb 7 oz tea, value 10s 6d Confined 6 months
1817 William Hill 2 lb tea, value 5s Confined 6 months
1817 George Richard 14 oz tea, value 4s Acquitted – no witnesses appeared
Payne

trial
1818 Thomas Bennet 2 lb pepper, value 1s Confined 3 months
1818 Richard Eastham 9 oz tea, value 1s 4d Confined 1 year
1818 Joseph Mayhew 14 oz tea, value 2s Pleaded guilty. Confined 3 months
1819 James Elliston 1 lb 2 oz tea, value 3s Recommended to mercy – confined 6
months
1819 Thomas Newman 1 lb 5 oz silk, value 30s Transportation 7 years
1820 John Hunt 11 oz tea, value 1s 4d Confined 6 months
1821 John Mallard 1¼ oz gum, value 1s Confined 3 months
1822 Patrick Lawler 1 lb 13 oz tea, value 6s Confined 1 year
1823 George Huggett 5 lb pepper, value 3s Confined 1 year; whipped in public
1823 James Simms 14 oz tea, value 2s Recommended to mercy – confined 3
months
1823 Samuel Hadgcraft 14 oz tea, value 2s 6d Confined 1 year; whipped
1824 Michael Collins 10 oz tea, value 2s Strongly recommended to mercy by
prosecutors & jury – confined 1 month
1824 John Corsell 17 oz tea, value 3s Confined 6 months
1825 Henry Barrell 14 oz tea, value 2s Confined 3 months
1825 John Glories 9 oz tea, value 1s 6d Confined 6 months
1825 Thomas Woodford 4 oz tea, value 6d Recommended to mercy – confined 2
months
1825 George Savory 3 oz tea, value 6d Strongly recommended to mercy
– confined 2 months
1826 John Jeffers 6 oz tea, value 9d Confined 6 months
1826 Joseph Shenston 2 lb 6oz tea, value 3s Both recommended to mercy by jury
and Robert – confined 1 year
Fitzgerald
1828 James Marshall 18 oz indigo, value 5s Recommended to mercy – confined 3
months
1828 John Rutt 10 oz tea, value 2s Transportation 14 years
1828 Joseph Clark 3 oz tea, value 1s Confined 6 months
1828 William Bradford 1 oz tea, value 3d, and a 4 Confined 6 months
lb brass weight, value 3s
1829 John Forward 4 oz tea, value 4d Pleaded guilty – confined 2 months
1829 Thomas Rickards 2 oz tea, value 3d Transportation 7 years
1829 William Hill 2 lb tea, value 2s Transportation 14 years
1830 Samuel Clough Silk and crape shawls, Transportation for life
scarves, handkerchiefs,
etc., value £608
1831–1840 No prosecutions of warehouse labourers for theft by the EIC have been traced
* Lamb was tried twice on the same day for theft at Blackwall on 5 December 1811.
Source: Old Bailey Proceedings.
Harsh punishments were sometimes meted out at the Sessions as a

deterrent. James Adair, the Recorder of London, commented in 1787
on a theft from the Company warehouses: ‘This property being neces-
sarily much exposed to the labourers, it seems expedient that it should
be protected by a pretty rigorous execution of the Law.’49 Culprits were
tied to a cart and whipped in front of the warehouse where they had
worked as a warning to colleagues. When Thomas Rainsley was found
guilty at the Old Bailey in 1800 of stealing nine ounces of tea worth 1s
3d, he was imprisoned for one month in Newgate and publicly whipped
for 100 yards near the Crutched Friars warehouse.50 In May 1822, the
Company proceeded with the prosecution of labourer Patrick Lawler
for stealing 1 lb 13 oz of tea, despite his plea that he was sincerely repen-
tant and that his family would be reduced to miserable circumstances
if he were to be tried.51 At his trial, evidence was given that Lawler was
drunk at the time of the theft and he claimed that he remembered noth-
ing of the deed. He was found guilty and sentenced to be confined for
one year.52 John Jackson was convicted in January 1801 of stealing mace
worth 14s and ordered to be transported for seven years. An appeal
was rejected and the sentence upheld as a deterrent because the judge
was aware that the Company was experiencing plunder by its servants
and Jackson was a commodore entrusted with a supervisory role in the
warehouses.53
In 1830 Samuel Clough, perhaps the most ambitious and most inept
of the Company labourers caught thieving, was transported for life,
having risked a death sentence because of the high value of the goods
involved. Clough hid in the roof space of the Cutler Street warehouse
one Saturday night, broke through the ceiling the next day and removed
silk to the value of £608. He threw the bales down into the yard, then
lowered himself on a rope, landing in a water cistern. Having heaved
a number of cloth bales over the perimeter wall, he found that he was
unable to climb over and join them. He then settled down to sleep in
the yard to await discovery when the gates were opened on Monday
morning.54
If the warehouse-keepers and directors serving on the Committee of
Warehouses baulked at outright dismissal or prosecution, or the offence
was not deemed very serious, there were other punishments available
to them. They had the option of making a stoppage from a labourer’s
wages; formally warning the miscreant; suspending him from his duties;
or demoting him.55 The Court was petitioned in 1827 by Joseph Hill, a
warehouse commodore, who pleaded that he was in distressed circum-
stances as part of his pay was being withheld.56 James Lighterness was
under suspension in 1834 for overstaying his period of agreed absence
but was reinstated as a labourer at the tea warehouse.57 William Burrows

was promoted on 1 March 1843 from his post as labourer at the Military
Store Department to be a messenger at East India House. The following
month, however, he was reduced to his former post as his conduct and
character had proved to be ‘wholly unfitting’ the situation of messen-
ger. Burrows was also warned that his continued employment depended
upon reports of satisfactory conduct from the Inspector of Military
Stores.58
In October 1832 Henry Johnson, the Bengal warehouse-keeper,
informed the Committee of Buying and Warehouses that he had sus-
pended James Phillips, a labourer in his department, for pilfering two
pieces of wax cloth. In mitigation, Johnson pointed out that the cloth
was about one yard in length and of trifling value, and that Phillips
had served the Company for thirty-two years. On the basis of Johnson’s
evidence, the Committee was willing to believe that Phillips was not a
habitual thief and agreed to restore him to his duties, but the ware-
house-keeper was instructed to admonish him and warn him not to be
guilty of the like again.59
Another instance where clemency was shown to a miscreant was in
the case of Richard Garrett, a labourer at the Private Trade warehouse,
who in June 1836 was caught trying to carry away indigo weighing 1 lb.
He was suspended awaiting the decision of the Committee of Buying
and Warehouses, but, under the terms of the Standing Order of 15 April
1829, he was not detained in custody. Garrett had been a Company
warehouse labourer since December 1809 and ‘was never before under
the displeasure of his Superior Officers’. He petitioned for reinstate-
ment in view of his advanced years, the needs of his wife and family, and
his long service both in the warehouses and at sea with the Company
maritime service and the Royal Navy. William Johnson, the Private Trade
warehouse-keeper, told the Committee that he had preserved proper
written evidence of the offence and had informed Garrett that he could
no longer be employed. Perhaps moved to sympathy by Garrett’s dec-
laration of wounds received in action with a French privateer and at
the Battle of Trafalgar, the Committee looked for precedents in the
records before making a decision about his fate and considered cases
such as that of James Phillips. It was decided that leniency was accept-
able: Garrett was to continue under suspension for two months from
the time of his being reported to the Committee on 4 June 1836. When
Garrett was restored to employment, the warehouse-keeper was ‘to ad-
monish him as to his future conduct’.60
When pilfering was detected, the culprit’s workmates might also fall
under suspicion. In May 1783, a group of labourers at the Billiter Lane
warehouse petitioned the Court for discontinuation of the stoppage

made from their wages on account of some stolen rhubarb and the pos-
sibility that they might be involved in the theft.61 Sometimes suspicion
did not lead to immediate retribution but to surveillance. In April 1833
Peter Cameron, the superintendent at the Blackwall warehouse, re-
ported to the Committee of Buying and Warehouses that assistant elder
Isaac Boram, commodore Thomas Matheson and others were impli-
cated in the plunder of pepper. Although the Committee decided not
to dismiss the men, Cameron was verbally directed to keep an eye on
them.62 Matheson continued in Company employment until he retired
in January 1835, but Boram was dismissed for stealing tea in January
1834.63
In spite of the Court’s declaration in May 1822 that ‘it is not the prac-
tice of the Court to interfere in the private concerns of any Individual
in the Company’s service’,64 there were restrictions placed upon the
labourers which meant that the Company’s control of its employees
went beyond the confines of the warehouse. From June 1816, labourers
admitted to the warehouses had to reside within a certain wide but care-
fully prescribed geographical area:
From the Thames, commencing at Limehouse Hole, by the North side

of the West India Dock to the River; West end of Blackwall from thence
to the River Lea, at the Company’s Buildings, then Northerly to Bow and
Old Ford, thence to Homerton, and to Ward’s Corner Hackney; cross
Hackney Downs to Shacklewell and Newington Green to Ball’s-Pond
Turnpike, by Hopping Lane to the Cock Public-House; thence across to
the Adam and Eve at Pancras (including Islington Workhouse); along
Fig Lane to the south-end of Camden Town; along the Hampstead Road,
to the Adam and Eve, New Road; westward, to Portland Road; down that
Road to Oxford street; westward, to Bond street; through that street,
across Piccadilly, into St James’s street; through Pall Mall and Whitehall
(including Spring Gardens), along Fludyer street and Duke street to
Storey’s Gate; along Prince’s street, Queen street, and Queen square, into
York street; down the Horseferry Road, falling into the New Road into
Vauxhall Bridge, about the Chimney house, to Vauxhall Bridge; from
thence along the intended road by the Oval at Kennington to Walworth,
and into the Kent Road, below the Green Man Turnpike; from thence
along the Grange Road to Rotherhithe church.65
Those already employed were obliged to find accommodation within

these limits if they moved home. The regulation was intended to fa-
cilitate the system whereby the Company warehouse surgeons and
commodore ‘visitors’ went to the men’s homes when they were absent
from work.66 Most friendly societies at this period also expected members
to live within a certain radius to facilitate visiting the sick and to enable
members to attend meetings.67 The men’s choice of where they lived
was anyway constrained by the necessity of walking to work in the days
before cheap public transport.
Restrictions were also imposed on labourers’ secondary occupa-
tions. The men were not allowed to deal in any article imported by
the Company, or to be employed as publicans (presumably as it was
believed that this would provide them with an easy outlet for any stolen
goods). In November 1799, a letter from Thomas Burton at the Excise
Office pressed the need to remove speedily from the tea warehouses
any Company employees who were dealers in tea.68 This ban extended
into retirement. In January 1823, John Morrison, formerly a labourer
in the tea warehouse, renewed his appeal to have his pension restored.
It had been taken away from him as a punishment for dealing in tea
contrary to a Court resolution that no person who had served in the tea
department should be allowed to sell that commodity.69
Yet there is evidence that the Company were not always vigilant about
enforcing these orders. When James Hill was questioned at the Old
Bailey in June 1799, he testified that he was both a publican and a la-
bourer in the East India Company warehouses. Although he had worked
in the warehouses for nine years, he said that he had never heard of
the Company rule excluding publicans and declared ‘there are a great
many keep public-houses as well as myself in the India-house’.70
In March 1815, a regulation was introduced to ban the labourers
from working as night watchmen except at East India House or the
Company warehouses. The Committee of Buying and Warehouses con-
sidered it to be:
impossible that men who have watched during the night, or the greater
part thereof, can work with diligence in the day; or that men going off
duty as Watchmen in the morning, and proceeding to the Warehouses
without rest, and with slight or no refreshment, and benumbed with cold,
can be proper persons to be employed in the Warehouses.71
The Committee went on to point out that the labourers were provided
with medical advice, sickness payments from a fund in great part sup-
ported by the Company, and pensions, even if the illness or incapacity
was caused by factors unconnected with their warehouse duties. The
prohibition proved not to be just empty words. Henry Whale, a labour-
er with twenty-three years’ service, disobeyed Company regulations by
working as a night watchman at South Sea House and compounded his
error by attending for duty there whilst signed off sick from the ware-
house. When this was discovered in 1834, Whale was suspended from
Company employment and never reinstated.72 However, the Committee

was prepared to be tolerant towards labourers employed as nightly
‘Patroles’ to the Public Office in Bow Street, who needed to absent
themselves from the warehouses ‘to attend at Court on the Levee Days,
together with other necessary attendance at the Public Office and at the
Old Bayley’. The directors supposed them ‘to be men of good character
and conduct, and to perform useful service to the public’ and decided
that ‘reasonable indulgence should be granted to them, so as it do not
interfere with their efficiency as Labourers for the Company’.73
***
In order to control the large bodies of labourers spread between the

separate warehouses and to ensure that commercial operations ran
smoothly, the East India Company developed comprehensive systems of
internal control. Rules and procedures were clearly written down; well-
organized staff records were kept; warehouse managers maintained
close personal supervision of those below them in the hierarchy; misde-
meanours were punished.
The management regime in the West India Dock Company ware-
houses has been described by Ellmers and Clark as being authoritarian
to a degree not found in other London dock systems, with discipline
controlled through a complex functional hierarchy of graded jobs, and
efficiency controlled through the constant threat of fines, demotion and
dismissal for negligence, wilful or otherwise.74 Since this system follows
so closely that of the East India Company, it is tempting to speculate
that the East India Company’s management style was used as a model
by the directors of the West India Dock Company when their dock ware-
houses first opened for business in 1802.75 There were many similar
regulations governing the labourers of the two companies; for example,
the body searches; the ban on accepting gratuities from merchants; the
restriction on outside employment which might conflict with company
interests; the set hours of working; and the maintenance of management
records. Yet the regime at the West India Dock warehouses does appear
to have been harsher than that experienced by the East India Company
labourers, mainly because the dock labourers did not enjoy such a wide
range of benefits which served to mitigate the elements of control.
The combination of incentive and discipline in the Company’s
treatment of its labourers was further demonstrated by the directors’
governance of the regiment of Royal East India Volunteers. Chapter
6 will consider the role played by the Volunteers in the lives of the
warehouse labourers.
Notes
1 BL, IOR: V/4 Session 1831–2, vol. 10, part 1, p. 215, Minutes of Evidence taken
before the Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company. Hall
may have been describing a slack period in the warehouses caused by a delay
in the arrival of ships and their cargoes, or perhaps the decline in the volume
of Company trade after c. 1830 meant that the labourers were now not always
fully occupied. Certainly, the number of labourers recruited was markedly re-
duced after 1828. See Figure 3.
3 Smiles, Lives of Boulton and Watt, pp. 479–80. The East India Company had a
total of 885 warehouse labourers in April 1779 (BL, IOR: H/67, pp. 51–62).
4 MID: East India Dock Company Book C, pp. 53–64, Minutes 25 July 1806.
5 MID: West India Dock Company, Committee of Superintendence Minute
Book February 1804–August 1805, cited in Ellmers and Clark, Warehouse No. 1,
p. 44.
7 These are the characteristics of a bureaucracy identified by Max Weber.
See From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills
(London, 1991), pp. 196–244, chapter 8 ‘Bureaucracy’.
8 For a full discussion of internal control mechanisms, see Government Internal
Audit Manual (London, 1988).
11 Extant from 1753 to 1861: BL, IOR: L/MIL/9/1-106.
12 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 963, 987.
13 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5.
14 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485.
15 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
16 See Kristine Bruland, ‘The Transformation of Work in European
Industrialization’, in The First Industrial Revolutions, ed. Peter Mathias and John
A. Davis (Oxford, 1989), pp. 154–69.
17 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur E 283, Finlayson papers.
18 Old Bailey Proceedings, 1 December 1813: one such book was produced in
evidence by assistant elder John Faircloth at the trial of labourer James Carey
for stealing silver from a house.
19 See pp. 43, 51.
20 BL, IOR: L/F/1-2, passim.
22 See, for example, BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 118 of December 1836. Henry
Seally submitted the case of John Smith to the Finance and Home Committee
by the order of 15 April 1829.
23 The London dock companies also controlled all payments to their labourers,
forbidding perquisites and outside gratuities. See Henderson and Palmer,
‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of London’, p. 48.
26 Gerald Mars, Cheats at Work: An Anthropology of Workplace Crime (London, 1982),
p. 157.
28 BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 118 of December 1836; L/F/1/5, pp. 734–5, Finance
and Home Committee. 30 December 1836; L/F/2/16, no. 164 of March
1837.
30 Old Bailey Proceedings, 28 May 1800, Trial of Thomas Rainsley.
31 Old Bailey Proceedings, 24 February 1790.
32 Old Bailey Proceedings, 5 December 1798: Benjamin Clarke was found guilty
of stealing two ounces of tea, value 4d. He was sentenced to fourteen days in
Newgate, fined 1s, and discharged.
33 Old Bailey Proceedings, 17 October 1731, Trial of warehouse labourer Isaac
Row for taking a calico wrapper worth 10s. Row was acquitted by the jury.
The ban on caps and aprons made from calico wrappers was repeated in the
warehouse regulations of 1782 (BL, IOR: B/98, pp. 658–62, Court Minutes 4
December 1782).
34 The concept of the dividing line between a ‘perk’ and a fraud is discussed in
Mars, Cheats at Work, pp. 167–9. It was suggested at the trial of Benjamin Clarke
that the Company were not generally concerned with very small amounts of
goods being taken (Old Bailey Proceedings, 5 December 1798).
35 Old Bailey Proceedings, 30 November 1814. Wood was found guilty and sen-
tenced to seven years’ transportation.
36 Old Bailey Proceedings, 2 April 1800.
37 MID: East India Dock Company Book H, pp. 32–4, Minutes 27 August 1819.
Examples of reward payments are noted in BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
38 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4, no. 36.
39 Old Bailey Proceedings, 17 September 1800, Trial of Thomas Hopkins.
40 Old Bailey Proceedings, 6 May 1818: Eastham, aged sixty-two, was found guilty
and sentenced to be confined for one year.
41 Sixth Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Departments of Customs
& Excise, p. 46.
42 Old Bailey Proceedings, 9 April 1823, Trial of George Huggett.
43 Old Bailey Proceedings, 14 September 1826, Trial of Joseph Shenston and
Robert Fitzgerald.
44 Old Bailey Proceedings, 3 December 1823, Trial of Samuel Hadgcraft.
45 Old Bailey Proceedings, 16 September 1812, Trial of William Wilkins.
46 Old Bailey Proceedings, 14 September 1803, Trial of Samuel Russell.
47 Dismissals were noted in BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485 and BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
48 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, pp. 111, 177, 196; BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, pp. 397, 747.
49 TNA: HO 47/7, f. 313, Report of James Adair on the case of Matthew Gibbons,
transported for seven years for stealing 1¼ lb of tea from the Company
warehouse.
50 Old Bailey Proceedings, 28 May 1800, Trial of Thomas Rainsley.
52 Old Bailey Proceedings, 22 May 1822, Trial of Patrick Lawler.
53 TNA: HO 47/25/35 ff 211–15, Report of John William Rose, Recorder of
London, on a collective petition on behalf of John Jackson, 24 January 1801.
54 Old Bailey Proceedings, 14 January 1830, Trial of Samuel Clough. Clough’s
troubles continued after his arrival in Van Diemen’s Land. His conduct record
lists sixteen offences between the years 1831 and 1845, including insolence,
drunkenness, neglect of duty, disobeying orders, absconding, refusing to go to
work, and losing some sheep which were under his charge. He was punished
by imprisonment, fines, hard labour, beatings of up to 50 lashes, and loss of
his ticket of leave. In May 1845 Clough was committed to trial for a felony
and sentenced to four years on Norfolk Island (Archives Office of Tasmania:
CON31/1/7). He survived the harsh regime on the island and eventually died
a pauper in the New Town area of Hobart in 1879. He is buried in Cornelian
Bay Cemetery (http://www.srct.com.au/index.html, Southern Regional
Cemetery Trust website, accessed September 2009).
55 Sometimes dock employees were given a second chance after breaking com-
pany rules when the need to maintain the strength of the workforce overrode
the need to maintain discipline. See Henderson and Palmer, ‘The Early
Nineteenth-century Port of London’, p. 50.
56 BL, IOR: B/179, p. 635, Court Minutes 21 February 1827.
57 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 535, Finance and Home Committee 12 August 1834.
58 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/12, f. 317, Finance and Home Committee 12 April 1843.
59 Cited as a precedent in BL, IOR: L/F/2/7, no. 55 of June 1836.
60 BL, IOR: L/F/1/4, pp. 138, 162, Finance and Home Committee 8 and 15 June
1836; BL, IOR: L/F/2/7, no. 55 and 152 of June 1836.
63 BL, IOR: B/187, p. 330, Court Minutes 22 January 1834.
64 BL, IOR: B/175, p. 112, Court Minutes 22 May 1822, Petition of William Strarie
for help in recovery of debt of £3 6s 6d owed by Company servant William
Jones.
65 Rules and Regulations for the Establishment and Management of a Fund, pp. 19–20.
66 BL, IOR: B/176, p. 295, Court Minutes 16 July 1823.
67 Lane, Social History of Medicine, p. 69.
68 BL, IOR: B/130, p. 759, Court Minutes 27 November 1799.
69 BL, IOR: B/175, p. 760, Court Minutes 3 January 1823. The matter was re-
ferred to the Committee of Buying and Warehouses and the relevant minutes
are not extant.
70 Old Bailey Proceedings, 19 June 1799, Trial of Barnett Solomons for coining.
71 BL, IOR: L/AG/9/8/1, no. 223, Extract from Minutes of Committee of Buying
and Warehouses 10 March 1815 printed in the form of a poster.
72 BL, IOR: L/F/2/31, no. 260 of June 1838, Petition of Henry Whale to be ad-
mitted to a pension (request declined).
73 BL, IOR: L/AG/9/8/1, no. 223.
75 Sir Joseph Broodbank claimed that the West India Dock Company modelled
its constitution to a large extent on that of the East India Company. See
Broodbank, History of the Port of London, vol. 1, p. 101.
Six
THE ROYAL EAST INDIA VOLUNTEERS: THE

‘UNION OF CIVIL AND MILITARY DEPENDENCE’
THE MILITARY overtones of the warehouse management structure

with its discipline and hierarchical organization were strengthened by
the existence of the regiments of Royal East India Volunteers which
were embodied at two separate periods, from 1796 to 1814 and then
from 1820 to 1834. Although the warehouses had always been guarded
by watchmen with firearms,1 the establishment of a Volunteer infan-
try corps during the French Wars using civilian servants as soldiers was
a key development in the East India Company’s management of its
London operations, marking a definite shift in the labourers’ duties
from commercial activities into a hybrid role involving regular military
and political functions. The labourers who served as privates in the
Volunteers were officered by their warehouse managers, which prompt-
ed The Times to remark: ‘The union of civil and military dependence is
… highly conducive to subordination and punctuality.’2
The formation of the Royal East India Volunteer regiments was not
the first time that Company labourers had been used for military and po-
litical rather than purely commercial ends. In the autumn of 1779, with
unrest caused by the war against the American colonies and agitation by
radical politicians, the Duke of Northumberland proposed that all able-
bodied men employed in the Company warehouses should be properly
trained in the use of firearms.3 The Committee of Correspondence be-
lieved that this would be a valuable public service as well as being of
particular benefit to the Company. The Court asked a Joint Committee
of Shipping and Warehouses to prepare a proper plan for implement-
ing the scheme.4 It was decided to drill the labourers, together with
any other servants thought suitable, in the manual exercise, platoon
exercise, street firing and charging with bayonets. The Company would
apply for the services of five sergeants and ten corporals to instruct
the labourers, with the officers being under the command of Colonel
Edward Windus.5
Justification for the Company’s decision to ensure that the labourers
had basic military skills came in the following year when the Gordon
Riots broke out in London, resulting in hundreds of deaths and thou-
sands of pounds worth of damage to property. Rioters held out against
the civil and military authorities for almost a week in June 1780.6 From
initial attacks on Catholics, the conflict escalated into an offensive on
symbols of authority.7 On 7 June the rioters ‘made a regular attack upon
the Bank, and meant to destroy the East India House, Excise Office, all
other public offices, Inns of Court, and all other places where records
or public accounts were kept’.8 The attack on the Bank of England was
repelled by a mixed force of Government troops, militia, and volunteers
including Bank staff.9 Nearby East India House and the Company ware-
houses escaped unscathed after Chairman William Devaynes requested
urgent military assistance to help the labourers who were acting as
watchmen.10
With the outbreak of the French Revolution, alarm about the per-
ceived danger of popular radicalism was added to fear of the mob. The
Government believed that seditious elements in Britain were plotting
to overthrow or weaken the current regime and assist an invasion by
France.11 Meetings of friendly societies were seen as opportunities for
political machinations by members or as a front to conceal revolution-
ary activities.12 Even Frederic Eden, who was sympathetic to friendly
societies, wrote ‘Association is the prevalent malady of our times. In
all cases its real object should be ascertained, and its progress vigilantly
watched, by those who are entrusted with the government of the coun-
try.’13 The London working classes were mistrusted by those above them
in the social hierarchy, and steps were taken to compensate for the high
cost of bread, meat and other provisions in time of war in an attempt to
lessen discontent and to reduce the possibility of protest. The Company
made corporate contributions to a number of initiatives, for example,
£500 towards the relief of the industrious poor in and near the metrop-
olis, and £100 to a charitable soup institution in Pennington Street.14
In April 1794 Parliament passed ‘An Act for encouraging and dis-
ciplining such Corps or Companies of Men as shall voluntarily inrol
themselves for the Defence of their Counties, Towns, or Coasts, or
for the general Defence of the Kingdom, during the present War’.15
Since there was believed to be a threat of rebellion from dissident el-
ements at home, the government intended to deploy the volunteers
as anti-revolutionary as well as anti-invasion forces.16 Prompted by the
The Royal East India Volunteers 115
legislation and no doubt spurred to take action by three days of distur-

bances in London during August 1794, the Court of Directors asked
a Joint Committee of the House and Warehouses to consider a plan
to raise a Volunteer regiment from the servants in East India House
and the warehouses to defend the Company’s premises in the event of
riots.17 According to the Morning Post and Fashionable World, the scheme
originated from the Company warehouse-keepers who:
taking into consideration the critical state of affairs, and that should any
disturbances take place in London, that most probably the Company’s
Warehouses would be the first object of attack, have proposed to the
Court of Directors, to raise a Volunteer Corps, consisting of 500 of the
labourers, belonging to the different warehouses, for the defence of them
and the India House.18
The proposal was not acted upon immediately, but taken up in the
late summer of 1796 having been ‘matured … by the Court’s consider-
ation’.19 The Committee of Warehouses devised a plan for protecting
East India House and the Company warehouses ‘against hazard from
insurrections and tumults’ and for assisting the City government in
times of disorder. Trouble was expected in the capital because of unrest
caused by the war and the restrictions placed on public meetings and the
press prompted by the government’s fear of Jacobinism. This time it was
suggested that two regiments of Volunteers should be raised, each consist-
ing of 500 rank and file drawn from the Company warehouse labourers.20
The Committee’s plan was approved by the Court on 27 September
1796 after amendment by the Home Secretary Lord Portland. Table 13
shows the suggested composition of each regiment by rank.
Table 13: Composition of each regiment of Royal East India Volunteers, 1796
Rank Number
Colonel 1
Lieutenant Colonel 2
Major 2
Captain 10
Lieutenant 10
Ensign 10
Adjutant 1
Sergeant Major 1
Sergeant 30
Drummer 20
Private 500
Total 587

Under the scheme, the field officers were elected by the Court in a
ballot of the directors who wished to serve, whilst the commissioned
officers were recruited from clerks and officials at East India House
and the warehouses. The Company requested that the officers should
receive their commissions from the King on successive days in an order
which reflected their seniority in the civilian hierarchy, suggesting dates
‘as would be most accommodating to the rank which the respective
Gentlemen bear in the Department of the India House’.21 The supervi-
sory grades in the warehouses became non-commissioned officers who
led the labourers serving as privates. The officers did not collect any
pay; the non-commissioned officers and privates did not receive levy
money but were paid 1s per hour extra time when required to attend for
military duty outside their usual hours of work. Uniforms were provided
by the Company, arms and accoutrements by the government.22 The
colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors constituted a Superintending
Military Committee with powers to frame regulations and regulate ex-
penditure on behalf of the corps.23 Professional soldiers were brought
in to help drill and organize the regiments. Chairman David Scott was
keen for the Company’s Volunteers to be trained under exactly the same
system as the regular troops with whom they might be called to serve,
and he therefore asked to be granted help from non-commissioned
officers from the Duke of York’s Regiment who were ‘most expert in
Discipline’.24 Two experienced Company Army officers were appointed
as adjutants to the two regiments: Captain James Salmond and Captain
James Cunningham.25 However, the gentlemen of East India House ob-
jected to being commanded by officers other than Company directors
once they felt competent in their military duties. Salmond resigned
through choice and returned to India in 1798, but Cunningham’s poor
health prevented him from doing the same. Scott felt it was impor-
tant to have one man in the corps who had seen real service and so
Cunningham was appointed as Brigade Major to act as a liaison officer
without any power of command over the Volunteer captains.26
The Company plan to establish Volunteer regiments was received at
the General Court of Proprietors in October 1796 with ‘cordial and
unanimous approbation’.27 Randle Jackson supported the measure
because of the possibility of invasion but recommended caution. He
warned the Company to be wary of undue military display which might
stir up the Londoners believed to be capable of insurrection.28 Another
stockholder welcomed the suggested structure of command because it
drew upon the strong relationships already present in the warehouses:
the labourers would be officered by their immediate superiors in the
Company:
to whom they are in habits of paying a degree of attention beyond the mere
discipline of bought service; and commanded in the higher ranks by gen-
tlemen possessing a stake in the property they are to defend, and whom
you have selected for the management of your important concerns.29
However, there were reservations about the legality of the scheme

because it was not clear whether the terms of the Charter Act of 1793
permitted the Company to meet the expenses of the corps.30 The Court
therefore submitted a petition to Parliament in December 1796, and an
Act was passed on 6 June 1797 to sanction the raising and maintenance
of two regiments of Volunteers, charged to the Company’s ordinary
outgoings.31
The unprecedented need for large numbers of men suitable to serve
as soldiers in the Volunteer regiments had a major impact upon the
recruitment criteria for labourers. The fact that the new admission
regulations for labourers introduced in February 1797 were formulat-
ed by a Joint Committee of Warehouses and Superintending Military
Committee highlights the dual role of the men as both a civilian work-
force and a military unit by the end of the eighteenth century.32 David
Scott believed that the stricter regulations would probably mean that
several men on his waiting list would be made ineligible, but he hoped
that the new rules would make the warehouse labourers ‘a really good
Efficient Corps in time’.33 Whereas labourers already on the Company
establishment were encouraged to enlist in the Volunteers, new entrants
to the warehouses were screened to ensure ‘that no person shall hereaf-
ter be appointed Labourers, except such as are willing and fit to enter
into the Volunteer Corps’.34 In his role as Colonel of the First Regiment,
Scott was keen to lead by example, although he was fifty years of age and
a very busy man:
At present, in consequence of my feeling it my duty to become a Colonel,

I am employed from 7 to 8 every morning at the drill, and I am resolved
to steal an hour on my usual sleep sooner than not be qualified for my
new office. I shall go to a riding school and study that also an hour each
day.35
One of the more junior officers also took his new military responsi-
bilities very seriously: in 1798 Henry Dickinson, assistant keeper of the
Coast and Surat warehouse and captain and adjutant in the Royal East
India Volunteers, produced a book dedicated to Scott with instructions
for exercises and manoeuvres which aimed ‘to arrange the Regulations,
adopted for His Majesty’s Infantry Forces, in such a Manner as to render
them more easy to the Learner’.36
Based at the New Street warehouse, the Volunteers trained in a

nearby drill hall in Bishopsgate and also at a parade ground off the City
Road behind the Shepherd and Shepherdess public house.37 The train-
ing appears to have been successful: one contemporary commentator
praised the Company Volunteers as ‘the best soldiers next to the foot-
guards’.38 The labourers were provided with a smart military uniform to
give them a sense of belonging and pride as they marched out from the
warehouse, and they were armed with muskets and bayonets. They were
not allowed to keep their weapons at home, although it is likely that this
was not prompted by any lack of trust, but rather by the belief that in
an emergency the men would be less exposed to harassment on their
way to their alarm posts if unarmed.39 The caricaturist James Gillray was
quick to poke fun at the Company labourers in their new military role.
His engraving entitled ‘The Leadenhall Volunteer, drest in his shawl’,
published in March 1797, shows a Company labourer in military uni-
form standing to attention holding a musket, wearing a cap decorated
with a teapot, and with a flowered shawl tied round his shoulders.40
Since the two regiments formed in 1796 were liable to be called upon
to assist the authorities in times of crisis and thus taken away from their
general duty of protecting the warehouses, it was decided in April 1798
that all men employed in East India House and the warehouses who
were deemed capable of bearing arms should be obliged to undergo
training for the express purpose of protecting Company property.41
David Scott wrote to Lord Mornington, ‘Our two India regiments of 588
each are as fine troops as can be seen. We are just going to discipline
1,000 more of our labourers.’42 The number of men to be provided
from each warehouse is shown in Table 14. A total of forty sergeants and
corporals were to be selected from the assistant elders, commodores
and writers and ‘stationed to the several Companies in such manner as
the respective Warehouse keepers shall be of opinion will best accord
with the Duties required of them in their Civil Stations’.43
Table 14: Proposed supply of labourers for military training, May 1798
Warehouse Number of men

Tea and drug 650
Bengal 150
Coast 80
Pepper 20
Private trade 100
Total 1000
Source: BL, IOR: B/127 p. 94.

It was at first intended that this new force should be distinct from
the Volunteer regiments, but in due course it became known as the
Third Regiment of Royal East India Volunteers and it was put on an
equal footing with the other regiments in March 1803. Chairman John
Roberts, Commandant of the Third Regiment, was raised in rank from
Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel.44 An artillery corps was also formed.45
Table 15 shows an analysis of the Company labourers for military
purposes prepared for the Committee of Warehouses in May 1798.
From a total of 2784 men, 1053 were already serving in the two
regiments of the Royal East India Volunteers. The remainder were
categorized as: 61 recruits; 440 men ‘of soldier-like appearance’; 837
‘capable of some service though not of soldier-like appearance’; 178
incapable of military service; 161 absent; and 54 who ‘refused to sign’.46
The West India Dock Company sacked able-bodied men who refused
to join its Volunteer force,47 and there is evidence that the East India
Company also took action against warehouse labourers who would not
sign. John Sewell put his case before the Finance and Home Committee
in 1836. He had been appointed a permanent hand in 1795 in the tea
warehouse at Cooper’s Row. After serving about eighteen months, he
was suspended for refusing to sign an order which was posted on the
doors of the respective warehouses to serve in the military force about
to be embodied. Sewell said that his refusal was not motivated by dis-
loyalty to his King and country, but he was a member of the Society of
Friends (Quakers) and could not do so without violating his pacifist
principles. In 1812, he was taken on as a temporary labourer by Sir
Robert Thornton who promised that Sewell would be reinstated in a
permanent post, but this never happened and he served as a temporary
labourer until he was made redundant by the warehouse closures in the
1830s.48
The Company invested a great deal of money in the Volunteers: ex-
penses from its formation in October 1796 to Christmas 1797 amounted
to £20,216 2s 1d.49 When the Peace of Amiens between Britain and
France was signed in March 1802, the Company’s Volunteer Artillery
Corps was disbanded and the number of privates in the other regiments
was reduced from 500 to 400. The Court also resolved that the annual
expenditure on the Volunteers was not to exceed £5000 per annum.50
However, after resumption of hostilities in May 1803, the three regi-
ments of Royal East India Volunteers reverted to an establishment of
500 men each, the Artillery Corps with about eighty men was reinstat-
ed, and a military guard was appointed for additional security by night
at the warehouses and the armouries in New Street.51 A second Act of
Parliament was passed to allow the Company to continue financing
Table 15: Analysis of the body of East India Company warehouse labourers for military purposes, May 1798
In the two REIV Recruits Of soldier-like Capable of some Incapable of Absent Refused to sign Total
regiments appearance service though military service
not of soldier-like
appearance
Tea 643 40 202 626 114 110 37 1772

Bengal 86 95 95 24 21 11 332
Coast 174 1 58 47 12 14 *3 309
Private 112 20 80 40 18 16 1 287
Trade
Pepper 35 26 10 71
Baggage 3 5 3 2 13
Total 1053 61 440 837 178 161 54 2784
* Two of the Coast labourers signed subsequently and the other was a Quaker.
Source: BL, IOR: B/127, p. 96.
its Volunteers.52 In April 1804, Lord Harrington, who was command-

ing the London District, instructed the Company Volunteers ‘to hold
themselves in readiness to march at a moments warning on the first ap-
pearance of an Enemy to such Points as shall then be directed’.53
Ten years later, a dispute arose over whether the Volunteers were a
commercial or political charge on the Company. When the allocation
of expenditure was being considered at the time of the Charter renewal
in 1813, the Company’s Accountant General Charles Cartwright argued
that the Volunteers were a political rather a commercial charge on the
grounds that the regiments were formed at a time of great unrest in
order to defend the warehouses which ‘represented the revenue of
India’.54 The Commissioners of the Board of Control thought otherwise
and recommended in February 1814 that the cost of the Volunteers be
divided between the Political and Commercial Departments because:
the respectability of the Company as a great Commercial Corporation,

their known loyalty, their immense property, and extensive warehouses,
would, upon every consideration of the basis of the volunteer system, have
led them to embody a portion at least of their numerous warehousemen,
without any reference to their Political character.55
The Committee of Accounts replied that if the East India Company had
been a purely commercial body, it would not have created such a large
military establishment but merely claimed protection as did other citi-
zens. The directors stressed:
It must be allowed that a force of this description, embodied and kept in

an efficient state in the centre of the Metropolis had tended very much to
reduce the risk [to the Customs and Excise revenue], particularly as these
troops have been under the orders of the Secretary of State, and of the
Chief Magistrate of London, and thereby rendering the employment of
some portion of the regular army the less necessary, and in fact admitting
of a larger proportion of that army being sent on foreign service, thus
clearly operating as a saving to the State. It may be questioned also wheth-
er the Court of Directors ought under any circumstances to continue this
establishment except it be made a charge upon the Political branch.56
However, the opinion of the Board of Control prevailed. In the finan-

cial year beginning May 1814, the expenses for the Volunteer regiments
were divided between the political and commercial ‘departments’ of
the Company accounts.57
A little more than a month after the signing of the Treaty of Paris be-
tween France and the allies on 30 May 1814, Robert Thornton, Colonel
of the First Regiment of Royal East India Volunteers, submitted to the
Court a plan for maintaining the corps more cheaply on a reduced

scale.58 The matter was referred to the Committee of Correspondence
who reported in September 1814 that the expense of maintaining the
Volunteers over a four-year period averaged £20,103 per annum, and
that the political situation no longer justified the continuation of the
regiments at such a high cost to the Company.59 The Volunteers were
therefore disbanded in October 1814. The Prince Regent conveyed
his appreciation of the public spirit and liberality which had induced
the directors ‘at a moment of great difficulty and alarm’ to raise and
maintain without expense to the public ‘so numerous, respectable and
valuable a force’.60
A formal discharge certificate appears to have been issued by the
Company to each labourer, stating that the named man had ‘served
honestly and faithfully as a Private’ and providing details of his service,
place of birth and current residence, and physical characteristics.61
Gratuities were voted by the Court to the soldiers: £2 to sergeants; £1
10s to corporals; and £1 to privates. The three regimental adjutants,
Captains Dickinson, Lloyd and Barnard, together with Captain Johnson
of the Artillery Company, were each awarded 100 guineas for the pur-
chase of a piece of plate as a mark of the Court’s regard of their conduct
in relation to the discipline and efficiency of the corps.62
In April 1815, the field officers of the corps drew up a statement
for the Committee of Warehouses of claims on ‘the liberality of the
Company’ on behalf of staff sergeants and sergeants of companies.
Additional daily pay of 6d per day was to continue to be paid to fifty-
four labourers who had served as sergeants. All commodore vacancies
were to be filled by the promotion of labourers who had been sergeants
of companies. Once promoted, the special grant of 6d per day would
merge into their pay as commodores. The practice of selecting com-
modores from the whole labourer body was to be resumed as soon as
all sergeants, or as many as were competent, had been promoted to
commodore.63
Early in December 1819 the Chairman and Deputy received a confi-
dential letter from Lord Sidmouth asking the directors to re-establish
the corps of Royal East India Volunteers. The government believed it
would be highly desirable to provide ‘additional means of protection
and security to the Metropolis’ and appealed to ‘the public spirit of the
Company’. The Secret Committee of Correspondence deliberated upon
the matter and decided that ‘in such circumstances it might be deemed
advisable to meet the wishes of H. M. Government by raising a Battalion
of about 800 Men’, although the opinion of the Company solicitor was to
be sought as to whether this could be done under existing legislation.64
On 21 December the Secret Committee of Correspondence resolved to

recommend to the General Court of Proprietors that the Court should
be authorized to offer to raise a regiment of volunteer infantry from
Company employees which would be modelled on the earlier corps.
The government was to settle the number of men required. If necessary,
the Court would apply to Parliament for an Act to sanction the appro-
priation of Company funds to defray the expense of the regiment.65
The government’s wish to strengthen its military strength in London
became more urgent in the early months of 1820 with political insta-
bility following the death of George III and the discovery of the Cato
Street conspiracy to assassinate the Cabinet.66 A bill to enable the re-em-
bodiment of the Company Volunteers was introduced into Parliament
in June 1820 where it met with fierce opposition.67 Members challenged
the Company’s need for a corps of volunteers in time of peace and
attention was drawn to the fact that the Bank of England was not plan-
ning to revive its regiment although it had equally valuable property
to protect.68 The Company was accused by Thomas Creevey of helping
the Government to establish a military despotism in order ‘to subdue a
distressed nation’.69 Supporters of the proposal included William Taylor
Money who argued in favour of the force on the grounds that it was ‘com-
posed of men who were under the obligation of self-interest to unite the
character of good citizens and good soldiers’.70 George Canning point-
ed out there had been disturbances in recent years serious enough for
Government troops to be deployed to guard the Company warehouses
which were said to store goods generally to the value of £12,000,000 or
£13,000,000.71
As a way of mollifying opponents by playing down the political role
of the Volunteers, it was enacted that all expenses for raising, train-
ing, clothing, arming, paying and maintaining the corps were to be met
solely from the Company’s commercial funds.72 Just one regiment of 500
rank and file was re-embodied by the Company in August 1820 ‘for the
protection of their valuable premises and the still more valuable Goods
and Property contained in them; and for the aid of the Civil Power in
case of need’. The labourers were asked to show their support:
by voluntarily and cheerfully coming forward and making an immediate

tender of their services for the purpose of enabling the Court of Directors
to carry their laudable intentions into execution without delay, which will
give great satisfaction to the Court. It may not be unnecessary to acquaint
all the persons now addressed that it is not intended to put them to any
expense for dress, learning their exercise or any thing else; and that for
so much of their time as may be taken up in this engagement, it is the
intention of the Court to reward them at the same rate as if they were
employed at extra service in the Warehouses.73
Men presenting themselves for service ‘upon this patriotic occasion’

were asked to sign an engagement, and it was resolved, as in 1796, that
in future no man was be appointed as a labourer who was not willing
to enter the corps. On the day after the announcement was made, 661
men enlisted. Table 16 shows a breakdown of the labourers who en-
listed immediately by warehouse and by the Volunteer unit to which
they were assigned.
The Royal East India Volunteers register which survives for the period
1820 to 1834 reveals that there was a constant turnover of personnel in
the regiment.74 Having enlisted, men might be discharged for a number
of reasons, and 1193 discharges are recorded from a listing of 1725 dif-
ferent individuals (69 per cent). However, fifty-one of the discharged
men were readmitted to the Volunteers at a later date, and of these
men, ten were discharged a second time.75 Table 17 categorizes the rea-
sons for discharge given in the register.
Physical reasons for discharge included general poor health or lack
of fitness; awkwardness and inability to perform the military exercises;
nervousness; difficulties with sight or hearing; injuries to limbs; bad feet
and corns; short stature or weak build. Many entries just note that there
was a report from surgeon Leese or Spry authorizing release from mili-
tary duties without specifying the reason.
More than 200 men were discharged on the instructions of their
Colonel, director William Astell, specifically to allow them to under-
take ‘afternoon employment’. Presumably the additional earnings were
more lucrative than the ‘extra hours’ pay for attending military duty
outside the usual time for warehouse business and it appears that Astell
believed that these men might be excused military duty without ad-
versely affecting overall efficiency.
Of the fifty-one men who re-enlisted in the Volunteers, thirty-seven
were re-admitted in February 1831 and twenty-eight of these had previ-
ously been discharged for physical reasons including being too short,
awkward, incapable, or lame. The heights of the five men who were all
deemed too short in February 1825 did not alter dramatically before they
were re-admitted, and it appears that the Company was obliged to lower
its standards for Volunteer soldiers as the fall-off in labourer recruit-
ment shrank the pool of available men. A report of the Superintending
Military Committee remarked in November 1833: ‘as no new Labourers
have been admitted into the Warehouses during the last six years, nor
are any likely at present to be engaged, it must happen, that in a short
period there will not be a sufficient number of Persons in the Company’s
employment who are fit for Military Service’.76
Table 16: Enlistment into the Royal East India Volunteers, 3 August 1820
Company Assistant Baggage Bengal Blackwall Cloth Crutched Fenchurch Haydon Jewry Military Private Warehouse Total
of REIV private Friars Street Square Street store trade not
trade known
1st 15 1 6 11 1 5 6 3 3 1 10 62
2nd
14 7 14 1 5 5 4 2 1 16 69
3rd
10 4 19 2 6 4 5 4 1 12 67
4th
14 5 18 5 3 4 4 1 12 66
5th
14 1 11 2 7 4 2 4 2 11 1 59
6th 13 5 14 3 10 6 2 3 1 11 1 69
7th 15 5 12 8 3 5 3 1 14 66
8th 13 8 13 1 8 4 7 3 11 68
Grenadiers 8 12 15 6 6 6 2 1 9 1 66
Light
23 5 15 4 3 4 4 1 7 66
Infantry
Unknown 1 1 1 3
Total 140 1 59 142 10 64 44 43 32 10 113 3 661

Table 17: Discharges from the Royal East India Volunteers, 1820–34
Reason for discharge Number of

men
Physical 519
(health, stature and physique, psychological state)
Additional employment outside the East India Company 226
Conflicting civilian duty connected with the East India Company 145
(including the three labourers who went to Canada)
Quit East India Company service 123
Dead 60
Misdemeanours (pilfering, indiscipline) 39
Pensioned 7
Appointment as warehouse labourer cancelled 1
Unspecified/illegible 73
Total 1193
Discipline was taken seriously. Misconduct whilst on military duty

leading to discharge from the Royal East India Volunteers was reported
to the Committee of Warehouses with the risk of immediate dismissal
from Company service. In October 1803, a court martial was held on
Sergeant Scholes of the Third Regiment for disobeying orders. The
whole regiment was kept standing under arms for two hours before
judgment was reached: Scholes was ‘dismissed the service, with every
mark of ignominy’. The Times regretted the young man’s ill-conduct ‘as
he was a most excellent soldier, and strict disciplinarian’.77
In January 1804 George Augustus Matthews, a drummer in the Third
Regiment, was found guilty by court martial of desertion ‘heightened by
several aggravated circumstances’. A sentence of 500 lashes was reduced
to fifty in consideration of his extreme youth and in hope of his future
good conduct. The entire Regiment, together with the Volunteers’
band and a surgeon, were assembled in the yard of the New Street ware-
house to witness the punishment which was to be inflicted by a fellow
drummer ‘when after four strokes had been given, Major George Smith
directed that the boy be untied, and stated, that in compassion of his
youth, and its being his first offence, Colonel Roberts had been pleased
to remit the rest of the sentence’.78
A complaint of premeditated insubordination amongst the ranks

of the Royal East India Volunteers was made to the Home Secretary
Lord Sidmouth in 1820. The Company Volunteers were assembled at
New Street on 29 November because of fears that disturbances in the
City might be sparked by Queen Caroline going to St Paul’s. The men
were reported to have shouted ‘Queen Caroline for ever’ and given
three cheers in the face of their officers. Colonel Astell investigated
and submitted a thorough refutation of the allegations, which he said
sprang from one labourer shouting ‘Here comes the Queen!’ when a
washerwoman drove into the warehouse yard as the men stood at ease.
Astell expressed his indignation that such a complaint had been made,
praising not only the officers for their ability to enforce discipline but
also ‘the steady conduct of the East India Company’s Labourers, who
have marked their loyalty to their Sovereign and attachment to their
employers, by volunteering to a Man, to take up Arms in the defence of
the same’.79
Military drill, parades and ceremonies played a major part in the
activities of the Royal East India Volunteers from their earliest days, al-
though Company commercial operations sometimes took precedence.
One planned review of the regiment was postponed because the ar-
rival of the China fleet meant that the labourers were needed at work.80
Contemporary press reports indicate how the Company Volunteers
took part in many ceremonial occasions during the French Wars which
were intended to encourage patriotism, display the power of the rulers
of the capital, and boost morale amongst those who would assist the
regular military forces in the event of an invasion.81 The Royal East
India Volunteers joined other regiments lining the streets of London
on 19 December 1797 for a grand procession on a day of thanksgiv-
ing for the British naval victories.82 In April 1802, The Times reported
that ‘The Brigade of Royal East India Volunteers, accompanied by their
six field pieces, are ordered out by the Lord Mayor, to aid and give
splendor to the Procession of this day.’83 When a day of general fasting
was appointed for 19 October 1803, the London volunteer regiments
went to church to hear sermons ‘to strengthen their resolve’. The hun-
dreds of men serving in the Royal East India Volunteers attended at five
churches: St Mary Axe, Aldgate, St Katharine Cree, Allhallows Barking
and St Peter Cornhill.84 Chaplains, who were appointed to each of the
three Company regiments, no doubt preached to the labourers in an
attempt to inspire the patriotism and sense of duty desired by the direc-
tors, bolstering the stirring words of the Volunteers’ officers.85 Captain
Robert Markland Barnard, Adjutant to the Third Regiment, gave ‘a
most eloquent and animated speech’ to his men in April 1804, in which
‘he painted in glowing colours the mildness of our Laws, and the excel-
lence of our Constitution; and concluded with reminding the men, that
in resisting the common foe, they fought for their King, Religion, their
parents, wives, and children’. The labourers responded with ‘repeated
acclamations’.86
There are also numerous reports of parades and field days when the
Volunteers were required to display their collective skills in public, often
in front of senior military and government officials. Lord Harrington
inspected them in Hyde Park in September 1803: ‘The Brigade, after
presenting arms, and passing in review in ordinary time, went through
a variety of evolutions, firing by companies, grand divisions, wings, and
regiments, in a very masterly manner.’87 Awards for prowess in military
skills were made; in 1802, for example, medals were presented at Lord’s
Cricket Ground to Company Volunteer soldiers as prizes for firing.88
The ‘powerful seduction exerted by martial music’ was not over-
looked.89 The Company established at Cutler Street one of ‘the numerous
bands which enlivened the scenes of scarlet and sham fights – for nearly
all the volunteer corps retained the ambition of cultivating music as
much as target-shooting’.90 The band of the Royal East India Volunteers
consisted of twenty-five musicians led by the distinguished German mu-
sician Christopher Frederick Eley (1756–1832), who brought in some of
his talented pupils as bandsmen, creating a ‘renowned practical school
for juvenile aspirants’.91 The virtuoso trumpet player Thomas Harper
(1786–1853) left Worcester at the age of about ten and studied music
under Eley in London. He belonged to the Company’s Volunteer band
for seventeen or eighteen years, whilst at the same time playing in the-
atres in the evenings.92 Harper was also employed for many years by the
Company to examine musical instruments shipped as military stores to
India.93 Thomas Lindsay Willman (1784–1840), the accomplished clari-
nettist, also received his early musical training in the Company band.94
Pieces of music were composed especially for the band, such as The
Royal East India Quick March and The Royal East India Slow March writ-
ten by Company clerk and Volunteer officer William Abington, and The
Third Regiment of Royal East India Volunteers Slow and Quick Marches by
Thomas Attwood.95 The band was in demand to provide entertainment
at gala events: for example, at the opening of the London Docks in
January 1805 and of the East India Docks in August 1806, and at the visit
of the Persian ambassador to East India House in December 1809 when
the Volunteer soldiers lined the passages in salute.96
Marching to stirring music and performing target practice using
a painted figure of Napoleon must have been a welcome break from
mundane daily routine,97 but there was a serious aspect to be faced by
anyone who ‘in this scarlet tainted age was ambitious of playing at sol-
diers’.98 Labourers risked grave injury when practising their manoeuvres,
as did their instructors. During one of Lord Harrington’s inspections, a
gunner in the Third Regiment had two fingers of his right hand blown
off when reloading the cannon. He was granted £30 by the Patriotic
Fund on the recommendation of Thomas Parry, the director who was
Lieutenant Colonel of the Regiment.99 Patrick Barry of the Second
Regiment was discharged from the Volunteers in March 1826 when he
was ‘maimed in the field’ and lost a finger.100 When the First Regiment
was practising firing in September 1803, Sergeant Major Brown had
part of the flesh of his arm taken away when he was hit by the wadding
from a six-pounder gun.101
The Royal East India Volunteers were expected to put their lives in
jeopardy in times of political emergency because they were liable to
be called out to suppress riots or disorder in any part of London or its
environs on the order of the King or of the civil authorities in London
or Middlesex.102 A large stock of ammunition was kept in the Company
warehouses for the use of the Volunteers: in February 1814 this amount-
ed to 60,000 rounds of ball cartridge and 32,000 rounds of blank.103
The labourers were sometimes summoned to perform policing duties
to protect property in London. In September 1802, there was a fire at a
house in Leadenhall Street and Company Volunteers attended to keep
looters away from the property.104 There was an arrangement for the
Royal East India Volunteers to guard the Custom House.105 When fire
broke out there in February 1814, the East India Company and Custom
House Volunteers formed lines to keep the crowd back, and ‘by their
unceasing attention prevented much of that plunder and confusion
which would have otherwise prevailed’. However, the men operating
the fire engines retreated when they were told that gunpowder was
stored in the vaults for the use of the Custom House volunteer corps.
The fire took hold, the gunpowder duly exploded, and the building was
destroyed together with many of its contents.106
Occasionally the labourers were called upon to serve at a distance
from London. In October 1803, they were equipped with knapsacks
and camp equipage for ‘a grand sham-fight on Epping Forest, previous
to the real one expected on the coast’.107 Amidst the threat of invasion
by the French in August 1805, the three regiments of Royal East India
Volunteers took it in turns to march to Maidstone in Kent for a week’s
permanent duty.108
Surviving evidence suggests that the labourers serving in the Royal
East India Volunteers were never forced to fire on a London mob
and were thus spared the necessity of harming fellow members of the
working classes. The radical Thomas Spence wrote of a conversation he

had in September 1800 with a Company warehouse labourer about the
food riots which were taking place. The labourer confided the dilemma
faced by the Company Volunteers:
several of their people had been discharged for saying they would bite off
the bullets from their cartridges if they were ordered to fire at the mob,
for, continues he, we in general wish the people well, and their cause, and
would be sorry to hurt them; but I don’t like their breaking the lamps
and windows. Besides, adds he, they are too audacious and provoking. I,
myself, was struck on the head with a stone.109
Spence retorted that the labourer deserved to be knocked on the head

if he valued his position in the warehouse more than his conscience or
humanity. He assured the labourer that the people confronted by him
as an armed Volunteer were ‘at no loss to know that your appearance
against them with arms in your hands is to keep them in awe, and en-
courage the monopolisers, and all their oppressors’, and denounced
him and his fellows as ‘needy, mercenary and interested men’.110
Spence’s account must have given the East India Company directors
cause for concern if it came to their attention: not only were some of
their Volunteers apparently willing to disobey orders if military action
was needed, but also it demonstrated that at least one of their ware-
house servants was in friendly contact with a radical reformer who was
inciting him and his companions to lay down their arms and rebel
against their masters. Yet there was also much that might have reassured
them: the labourer’s use of ‘we’ as opposed to ‘the people’, thus dis-
tancing the warehouse men from the general populace in London and
suggesting a sense of solidarity between the Company employees; the
labourer’s liking for order; and his intention to retain his job. Perhaps
the Volunteer oath of 1820 to which the men were obliged to subscribe
did to some degree reflect the labourers’ mindset:
animated with a love of our King and Country, and being fully sensible
[of] the many blessings we experience under its happy and glorious
Constitution, and of the benefits which we in particular and the nation
at large derive from the Commerce of the East India Company … we
hereby pledge ourselves to stand by, defend, and support to the utmost
of our power, the Constitution of these Kingdoms as by Law established,
the Property of our Honorable Employers, the East India Company; and
to aid the Civil Magistrate in preserving the Peace, believing this to be the
only means of ensuring protection to our selves, our children, and our
Property.111
The warehouse labourers were quick to declare their allegiance to

Crown and constitution when they were accused of complicity in a plot
to overthrow the Government and murder the King. In February 1803
Colonel Edward Marcus Despard and twelve associates were tried for
high treason, and it was alleged at their trials that there had been a
plan to attack the Tower of London and then to march on the East
India Company warehouses in New Street to secure the arms deposited
there.112 One conspirator was said to have claimed that this would not
be necessary as ‘he believed one half of the India Company’s men to be
our friends already’.113 Despard and six of his co-conspirators were found
guilty of treason and sentenced to death. The Court of Directors soon
received a letter from Captain Henry Dickinson forwarding resolutions
composed by the commodores and labourers of the various warehouse
establishments which expressed their loyalty to King and constitution in
response to the claim that the Royal East India Volunteers and others
employed in the Company warehouses supported the cause of those on
trial.114 Shortly afterwards, the directors received a declaration of loyalty
from the soldiers of the Second Regiment of Volunteers, and The Times
published a letter from the non-commissioned officers and privates of
the Company’s Third Regiment who were anxious to deny the allega-
tions.115 As proof of their regiment’s innocence, the sergeants offered a
reward of fifty guineas to be paid on the conviction of any one or more
members of the Third Regiment who had joined with or consented to
the treasonable practices of Despard and his associates.
Given that the penalty for treason was execution by being hanged,
drawn and quartered, the labourers’ anxiety to dissociate themselves
from Despard’s plot is not surprising, yet the directors must have been
gratified by the vehemence of their servants’ protestations of loyalty to
the existing order. The Company had taken the risk of arming the la-
bourers as Volunteer soldiers, even though the men grouped together
in large numbers in the warehouses appear to have fallen under sus-
picion. In a ‘most private’ letter dated 28 March 1800 addressed to
Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for War and Colonel in Chief of the
Royal East India Volunteers, David Scott reviewed his achievements on
behalf of the Company and stressed the importance of ‘the forming the
Regiments of E.I. Volunteers, & changing that then Dangerous Body
of Seditious Men in the Heart of London to as Loyal a Corps as was in
the Kingdom’.116 Scott seemingly believed that the warehouse labourers
had been tamed and robbed of their revolutionary potential by focus-
ing their energies on the military routines, and by inculcating them
with patriotic fervour. Rather than being a potential component of the
London mob, the labourers were trained to fight against it.117
When the Government sanctioned the Volunteer movement in the

1790s there had been many objections to equipping men outside the
social elite with weapons, but according to J. R. Western the evidence
points to the conclusion ‘that nothing but a strengthening of loyalty
resulted from the arming of the people’.118 Moreover, only a minority
of the working classes was armed, often where men could be organized
under landlords or employers such as Matthew Boulton or the East India
Company who were able to exploit the patriarchal nature of the rela-
tionship already in place.119 By ensuring that their labourers enlisted in
the Volunteers, the Company was in fact encouraging the politicization
of their workers, but instead of rallying to the cause of those who wished
to see the government and monarchy overturned, the men stayed loyal
to the regime. The claim of the Chiswick Armed Association in 1799
may therefore have been an accurate reflection of the impact of the
volunteer movement, that it had ‘induced the heedless to reflect fairly
upon the advantages they actually enjoy and the doubtful issue of in-
novation … rendered disloyalty unfashionable, sedition dangerous and
insurrection almost impossible’.120
By the 1830s the future of the Royal East India Volunteers was in
doubt. The services of the regiment were not then required by the
government to take part in defence operations. One use made of the
regiment in the spring of 1830 was to provide a party of twenty men to
assist George Everest with the testing of surveying apparatus at Lord’s
Cricket Ground.121 The Company had to decide whether the cost of the
Volunteers was still justified and in December 1830 the directors debated
the expediency of continuing to maintain the regiment. It was resolved
that, whilst the Court wanted to effect every practicable reduction in
Company expenditure, it was desirable to maintain the Volunteers to
act in any sudden emergency because of the large amount of property
deposited in the warehouses. Indeed, measures were to be taken to in-
crease the strength to 700 men, although the Court was counting on
Colonel Astell to keep expenses as low as possible.122
However, the outlay of money on the Volunteers continued to be a
bone of contention. In a debate on directors’ expenses at the General
Court of Proprietors held on 22 March 1832, the matter was raised by
Captain William Gowan, a former Bengal Army officer who ‘often spoke
at length on trifling matters’ at stockholders’ meetings.123 Gowan had
read in a book that the Royal East India Volunteers cost the Company
£10,000 per annum, ‘Or as the book had it, there was expended, for
the maintenance of that splendid hobby of Col. Astell, £10,000 a year’.
Whilst he believed this sum to be ‘a monstrous exaggeration’, Gowan
wished to put the directors on their guard against such reports which
were ‘maliciously’ and ‘sinisterly’ circulated to the prejudice of the

Company’s reputation.124
The costs incurred for the Volunteers during the first year of their
re-embodiment did indeed exceed £10,000: the expenses in the year
ending 1 August 1821 amounted to £11,704 16s 7d. However, the
annual outgoings thereafter were approximately £3500 per annum.125
A detailed breakdown of the exact expenses of the Royal East India
Volunteers for the year 1832/33 was provided in a report to the Court by
the Superintending Military Committee in November 1833. Categories
of expenditure with both the estimated and the actual amount are
shown in Table 18. Payments of just under £3000 in the twelve-month
period were set against an estimated cost of over £4000. Nearly 75 per
cent of the costs borne were for wages paid to soldiers, adjutants, ar-
mourers, clothes cleaners and tailors.
The demise of the Royal East India Volunteers was not brought about
by criticism of the regiment’s purpose or excessive cost. The corps was
disbanded forever on 25 March 1834 because the provisions of the 1833
Charter Act meant that the requisite funds and manpower provided
by the Company’s commercial operations would no longer be avail-
able. As in 1814, gratuities were awarded to certain officers as a mark
of the Court’s approbation for upholding discipline and efficiency. The
579 non-commissioned officers and privates were each given a sum of
money: sergeants received £2; corporals £1 10s; and privates £1. These
ranks were also given 4s in lieu of providing a dinner for them on dis-
bandment. Each man was also allowed to retain the clothing issued to
him.126 Astell’s farewell regimental order thanked the Volunteer soldiers
for their ‘steadiness and general good conduct’ and said that they had
‘proved how effectually military drill and discipline can be engrafted
upon the duties of a laborious occupation’.127
***
The required commitment to the Royal East India Volunteers outside

normal working hours was the most notable way in which the Company
impinged on the labourers’ lives away from the warehouses. Military
service in the Volunteers involving tight discipline together with extra
pay may be seen as a melding of both strands of the Company manage-
ment strategy: control and incentive. The Company created a situation
of enforced dependence for the labourers, and the next chapter will
examine the effects of this, seeking to analyse the nature of the rela-
tionship between the Company and its labourers, and the interaction
among different ranks of the warehouse hierarchy.
Table 18: Statement of expenditure for the Royal East India Volunteers, 1 August
1832–6 August 1833
Category of payment Estimated expenses Actual expenses
Pay to NCOs, privates and £2391 0s 0d £1533 3s 2d

drummers
Pay to armourers, clothes £540 0s 0d £407 14s 4d
cleaners, and tailors
Pay to adjutants £182 10s 0d £182 10s 0d
Pay to assistant adjutant £91 5s 0d £91 5s 0d
Arms, ammunition, drums, etc. £50 0s 0d £20 2s 0d
Shoes and other clothing for £280 0s 0d £211 12s 10d
NCOs and privates
Clothing for officers, including boots £200 0s 0d £87 10s 0d
Miscellaneous expenses – allowances £350 0s 0d £316 5s 10d
to officers, military dinners, etc.
Rent of field for exercise £50 0s 0d Nil
Paymaster and clerk to Committee £143 15s 0d £143 15s 0d
Total £4278 10s 0d £2993 18s 2d
Source: L/MIL/5/429, Collection 413, f. 18.
Notes
1 Considerations Respecting the Volunteer Corps to be Raised by the East-India Company;

Addressed to the Proprietors of East-India Stock (London, 1796), p. 8.
2 The Times, 12 April 1804, p. 4a. The comment was made in relation to both the
Royal West India Regiment of Volunteers which was formed in 1804 and the
Royal East India Volunteers.
3 I am indebted to Chris Ellmers for showing me C. E. C. Townsend’s typescript
notes on the Royal East India Volunteers held at the Museum in Docklands
which include the activities of 1779. Hugh Percy, first Duke of Northumberland,
was Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex 1762–86 and was engaged in raising volun-
teer companies at this time.
4 BL, IOR: B/95, p. 266, Court Minutes 22 September 1779; BL, IOR: E/1/65,
ff 163–6v, Memorial by Major A. Mitchell 29 September 1779.
5 BL, IOR: B/95, pp. 282–3, Court Minutes 6 October 1779. Windus was the
Company’s Inspector of Recruits and Inspector of Small Arms. See Harding,
Smallarms, vol. 1, p. 330.
6 John Stevenson, ‘Social Control and the Prevention of Riots in England, 1789–
1829’, in Social Control in Nineteenth Century Britain, ed. A. P. Donajgrodzki
(London, 1977), pp. 27–50.
7 Roger Wells, Insurrection – The British Experience 1795–1803 (Gloucester, 1983),
p. 254.
8 Clements Markham, A Memoir of Archbishop Markham 1719–1807 (Oxford,
1906), p. 60.
9 Acres, Bank of England, vol. 1, pp. 208–10.
10 J. Paul De Castro, The Gordon Riots (London, 1926), p. 165; BL, IOR: B/96, pp.
378–9, 519, Court Minutes 15 November 1780 and 11 January 1781, Petitions
of labourers to be paid a gratuity for their services during the riots. The peti-
tions were referred to the Committee of Warehouses to do as it saw fit and no
record of the decision appears to have survived.
11 Stevenson, ‘Social control’, p. 30.
12 Gosden, Friendly Societies, p. 156.
13 From Eden’s 1801 pamphlet Observations on Friendly Societies, cited in Gosden,
Friendly Societies, pp. 157–8.
14 BL, IOR: B/132, pp. 854, 882, 1093, Court Minutes 2 January, 7 January, and
25 February 1801.
15 34 Geo. 3 c. 31.
16 Robert R. Dozier, For King, Constitution and Country: The English Loyalists and the
French Revolution (Kentucky, 1983), p. 141.
18 Morning Post and Fashionable World, 28 August 1794, p. 2 (http://www.bl.uk,
17th–18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, accessed October 2009).
19 Considerations Respecting the Volunteer Corps, pp. 6–7.
20 BL, IOR: B/123, pp. 563–5, Court Minutes 24 August 1796, and BL, IOR:
B/124, pp. 646–8, Court Minutes 27 September 1796.
21 TNA: WO 31/53, List of officers of the two regiments of Royal East India
Volunteers submitted for the King’s approval, November 1796.
22 BL, IOR: B/124, pp. 646–8, Court Minutes 27 September 1796.
23 BL, IOR: B/123, p. 603, Court Minutes 14 September 1796.
24 BL, IOR: H/729, pp. 4–5, Scott to Major General Stanier, 12 November 1796.
25 BL, IOR: H/729, p. 8, Scott to the Duke of York, 19 November 1796. Salmond
married Scott’s daughter Louisa in 1798.
26 BL, IOR: H/729, p. 203, Scott to Colonel Brownrigg, 14 June 1798. Cunningham
also served as Inspector of Military Stores for India 1802–17.
27 Considerations Respecting the Volunteer Corps, p. 5.
28 William Woodfall, A Sketch of the Debate, at the India House of the Raising of Two
Regiments of Volunteers, from among the Servants of the Company, for the Publick Service,
which took place on the 13th of Oct. 1796 (London, 1796?). Jackson acted as parlia-
mentary counsel of the East India Company: see James Tait, ‘Jackson, Randle
(1757–1837)’, rev. Robert Brown, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
29 Considerations Respecting the Volunteer Corps, p. 10.
30 33 Geo. 3 c. 52.
31 37 Geo. 3 c. 74.
33 BL, IOR: H/729, p. 43, Scott to William Windham 19 February 1797.
34 BL, IOR: B/124, pp. 749–51, Court Minutes 25 October 1796.
35 C. H. Philips (ed.), The correspondence of David Scott Director and Chairman of the
East India Company relating to Indian Affairs 1787-1805, 2 vols (London, 1951),
vol. 1, p. 91, Scott to Sir Francis Gordon, 20 November 1796.
36 H. Dickinson, Instructions for Forming a Regiment of Infantry for Parade of Exercise,
Together with the Eighteen Manoeuvres, as Ordered to be Practised by His Majesty’s
Infantry Forces, Accompanied by Explanations and Diagrams (London, 1798).

37 The City Road parade ground was no longer available when the Royal East
India Volunteers were re-embodied in 1820; see G. A. Raikes, The History of the
Honourable Artillery Company, vol. II (London, 1879), p. 278.
38 ‘A City Volunteer’ quoted in William Hone, The Table Book of Daily Recreation
and Information (London, 1827), p. 442,
39 Austin Gee, The British Volunteer Movement 1794–1814 (Oxford, 2003), p. 145.
40 Mary Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the
Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, vol. 7 (London, 1942),
p. 339.
42 Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 1, p. 127, Scott to Mornington 24
April 1798.
45 Foster, East India House, p. 168. Foster could not trace the date of the forma-
tion of the artillery corps and it was not discovered whilst researching this
book.
46 BL, IOR: B/127, pp. 92-7, Court Minutes 9 May 1798.
47 Pat Hudson and Lynette Hunter (ed.), ‘The Autobiography of William Hart,
Cooper, 1776–1857: A Respectable Artisan in the Industrial Revolution’,
London Journal 7:2 (1981), pp. 158–9.
48 BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 23 of December 1836, Petition of John Sewell 28
November 1836.
49 BL, IOR: B/126, p. 762, Court Minutes 22 December 1797.
50 BL, IOR: B/135, pp. 128–9, Court Minutes 26 May 1802.
51 BL, IOR: B/137, p. 248, Court Minutes 8 June 1803. Edward Wedlake Brayley,
The Beauties of England and Wales, vol. 10, part 2 (London, 1814), p. 180: the
strength returns for December 1810 and April 1811 gave a total of 1676 men
in the Royal East India Volunteers, i.e. 522 in the First Regiment, 542 in the
Second, 532 in the Third, and 80 in the Artillery.
52 43 Geo. 3 c. 48.
54 Minutes of Evidence taken before the Right Honourable the House of Lords in the
Lords’ Committees Appointed to take into Consideration so much of the Speech of His
Royal Highness the Prince Regent as relates to the Charter of the East-India Company
(London, 1813), pp. 829–30, Evidence of Charles Cartwright.
55 BL, IOR: L/AG/9/1/2, Plan for keeping the Home accounts 1813–19:
Observations of the Board of Control 24 February 1814 on the report of the
Committee of Accounts on the separation of accounts under the provisions of
Act 53 Geo. 3 c. 155, sec. 64.
56 BL, IOR: L/AG/9/1/2, Reply to the Board of Control from the Committee of
Accounts 13 April 1814.
57 BL, IOR: L/AG/1/13/1, Appendix to the General Commerce Journal
1814–21.
59 BL, IOR: B/159, pp. 529–30, Court Minutes 14 September 1814. In 1820
George Canning, then President of the Board of Control, told the House of
Commons that the Royal East India Volunteers were disbanded in 1814 be-
cause of the difference of opinion over which funds should be used to pay for
them. See The Times, 4 July 1820, p. 2b.
61 LMA: E/BER/CG/T/V/P12, Discharge certificate issued to Yearly Waterer,
private in the 2nd Regiment of Royal East India Volunteers, 18 October 1814.
63 BL, IOR: B/160, pp. 1228–9 Court Minutes 5 April 1815. In May 1834 six
former sergeants were still working as labourers in the Bengal and Coast ware-
house with an extra 6d per day in their pay: see BL, IOR: L/AG/30/9.
64 BL, IOR: L/PS/1/13, pp. 57–8, Minutes of the Secret Committee of
Correspondence 8 December 1819.
65 BL, IOR: L/PS/1/13, pp. 59–60, Minutes of the Secret Committee of
Correspondence 21 December 1819.
66 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/429, Collection 413, ff 12–15v.
67 T. C. Hansard, The Parliamentary Debates, New series vol. 1 (London, 1820), 16
June 1820; and vol. 2 (London, 1821), 3 and 11 July 1820.
68 The Bank’s volunteer regiment had been disbanded like the Royal East India
Volunteers in 1814; a revival was considered in 1820, but it was decided not to
proceed. See Acres, Bank of England, vol.1, p. 298.
69 Hansard, 11 July 1820.
70 Ibid. Money was an MP and an East India Company director in 1820.
71 The Times, 4 July 1820, p. 2b, Canning’s address to the Commons.
72 1 Geo. 4 c. 99.
74 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485.
75 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485: Joseph Samuel Barfoot discharged in 1826 for civil
duty and in 1831 for stealing tea; William Chapman in 1831 for being awkward
and in 1833 when reported insane by Lewis Leese; Richard Hodges in 1826
on a surgeon’s report and in 1830 when pensioned; Patrick Hughes in 1824
for being awkward and in 1831 as infirm; John Johnson in 1827 and 1832 on
a surgeon’s report; John Mason in 1821 when he quit Company service and in
1823 (after being given a second card for employment) for afternoon employ-
ment; Robert Ovenden in 1828 and 1831 on a surgeon’s report; John Skeel in
1830 and 1831 on a surgeon’s report; James Sullivan in 1821 and 1831 for civil
duty; Charles Walsh in 1826 for afternoon employment and in 1831 when he
was discharged from Company service.
76 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/429, Collection 413, f. 17v.
77 The Times, 11 October 1803, p. 2d.
78 Hampshire Chronicle, 9 January 1804 (http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk,
accessed January 2010).
79 TNA: HO 44/3, no. 165.
80 The Times, 21 August 1804, p. 3d.
81 See Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837, 2nd edn (London,
2005), p. 316, for discussion of such red-letter days.
82 Annual Register (1797), pp. 80–3.
83 The Times, 29 April 1802, p. 2d.
85 In 1800, the chaplains to the three regiments were W. Edmonstone, Henry

Butts Owen and T. Woods: see Monthly Brigade Return of the Three Regiments,
Royal East-India Volunteers, Commanded by the Right Honorable Henry Dundas,
Colonel en Chef, 31 July 1800.
86 The Times, 11 April 1804, p. 4e.
87 The Times, 3 September 1803, p. 2d.
88 D. Hastings Irwin, War Medals and Decorations Issued to the British Military and
Naval Forces from 1588 to 1898 (London, 1899), p. 237.
89 Colley, Britons, p. 397.
90 The Olio, Vol. 2 (London, 1829), p. 395.
91 Ibid. Eley was presented with a gratuity of £100 in 1815, and in 1816 was
granted a pension of £25 per annum backdated to October 1814: BL, IOR:
B/160, p. 1229, Court Minutes 5 April 1815, and BL, IOR: B/162, p. 1171,
Court Minutes 13 March 1816. It appears that the band was not fully reinstated
after the 1820 re-embodiment, but limited to fife and drum – see BL, IOR:
L/MIL/5/485 for the names of fifers and drummers.
92 Scott Sorenson and John Webb, ‘The Harpers and the Trumpet’, Galpin Society
Journal 39 (1986), pp. 35–57.
94 Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn,
vol. 27 (London, 2001), p. 419.
95 BL: g.133.(1.); BL: h.3213.k.(1.); BL: g.443.e.(1.).
96 Annual Register (1805), pp. 358–9; George Pattison, ‘The East India Dock
Company, 1803–1838’, East London Papers 7:1 (1964), p. 32; The Times, 30
December 1809, p. 4d.
97 The Times, 16 August 1804, p. 3a.
98 E. V. Lucas (ed.), The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol. 7 (1905), p. 965,
Charles Lamb’s letter to Robert Southey, 20 March 1799 with a mocking
epitaph for Ensign Peacock of the Third Regiment of the Royal East India
Volunteers who died of natural causes but who was buried in his regimental
sash and gorget.
99 The Times, 12 June 1804, p. 3d; 19 July 1804, p. 3b.
100 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485.
101 Annual Register (1803), p. 430.
103 Harding, Smallarms, vol. 4, p. 552.
107 The Times, 5 October 1803, p. 2c.
108 The Times, 14 August 1805, p. 3c, and 20 August 1805, p. 2b; TNA: WO 13/4458,
Pay lists for the Royal East India Volunteers 1805.
109 Thomas Spence, The Important Trial of Thomas Spence, for a Political Pamphlet,
Intitled ‘The Restorer of Society to its Natural State’ (London, 1803), Letter 6, pp.
33–4.
110 Ibid.
112 George Canning told Parliament in 1820 that at the end of each calendar year
there would be a large quantity of arms accumulated in the Company ware-

houses ready for shipping to India. He estimated about 520,000 muskets and
other arms would be stored in November 1820. See The Times, 4 July 1820, p.
2b.
113 A Full and Accurate Report of the Whole Proceedings upon the Trial of Colonel M. E.
Despard (Dublin, 1803), pp. 43, 45.
115 BL, IOR: B/136, p. 1275, Court Minutes 23 February 1803; The Times, 19
February 1803, p. 2a.
116 BL, IOR: H/730, pp. 172–4.
117 The general arming of ‘potentially volatile’ social elements in the Volunteer
movement during the French Wars is discussed in Colley, Britons, pp.
283–319.
118 J. R. Western, ‘The Volunteer Movement as an Anti-Revolutionary Force,
1793–1801’, English Historical Review 71:281 (1956), p. 610.
119 Ibid., pp. 610–12.
120 Ibid., p. 613.
121 J. R. Smith, Everest: The Man and the Mountain (Caithness, 1999), pp. 64–5:
Everest was testing compensating bars.
122 BL, IOR: B/183 (not paginated), Court Minutes 1 December 1830.
124 Asiatic Journal (April 1832), p. 212.
125 BL, IOR: B/174, pp. 673–4, Court Minutes 12 December 1821, and subse-
quent annual returns made to the Court in BL, IOR: B.
126 BL, IOR: B/187 pp. 563–4, Court Minutes 19 March 1834.
127 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur F 552, Papers of John Douglas Close: Royal East India
Volunteer regimental order 25 March 1834.
Seven
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE EAST INDIA

COMPANY AND ITS LONDON WAREHOUSE
LABOURERS
THE LATE eighteenth-century political economist and reformer

Patrick Colquhoun believed that a careful blend of benevolence and
coercion could be used to create an authoritarian, but not repressive,
framework for social order.1 The regime established in the microcosm
of the East India Company London warehouses was proof that such a
concept could be successful, with an intermingling of incentives and
constraints used to maintain the organizational hierarchy and to try to
create the type of work force wanted by the directors.2 In contrast, many
industrial employers in the early nineteenth century based their deal-
ings with their workers purely on ‘compulsion, force and fear’,3 whilst
Colquhoun spoke of the need for dock labourers to be ‘overawed and
controuled’.4 This chapter will put forward evidence to suggest that
the Company succeeded in forging a much less confrontational rela-
tionship with its warehouse labourers based largely on mutual loyalty,
whereby the labourers were to a degree controlled but certainly not
overawed by their managers.
The East India Company’s method of directing the warehouses con-
formed to most of the universal management principles later identified
by Henri Fayol (1841–1925). Some of these have already been exam-
ined in earlier chapters: a chain of command running from the top to
the bottom of the organization; the right of managers to give orders
and exact obedience; centralization; order; specialization of labour; re-
muneration for employees; and stability of tenure for personnel. Fayol
also specified: discipline which was grounded in respect rather than
fear; equity, or kindliness and justice in employee relations; and esprit
de corps.5 These last three principles are evidenced by the relationships
which developed amongst the Company managers and the labourers.
The East India Company and its London Warehouse Labourers 141
The Company archives reveal that the chain of command within

each warehouse was clearly demarcated, with precise gradations within
ranks: for example, in 1820 Thomas Proben was a junior deputy assistant
elder.6 Warehouse-keepers, deputy keepers, elders, assistant elders and
deputy assistant elders were distinguished by the use of the title ‘Mister’
before their names; the commodores and labourers were referred to
by their first names and surnames only. Yet the East India Company
labourers and their families do not appear to have been intimidated
in their relations with their superiors in the Company hierarchy. They
used the lines of communication available to them as groups or as indi-
viduals to express grievances, to ask for pay increases or promotion, or
to plead for help in distressed circumstances.
The large number of petitions which survive in the papers of the
Finance and Home Committee, and by inference those which were in
all probability filed with the long since destroyed records of the ear-
lier Committees, demonstrate how the men and their families were not
afraid to appeal to the Company directors and senior officers such as
the Secretary as well as to their immediate managers in the warehous-
es. Some of the most senior Company officials would have been seen
regularly by the labourers as they worked: important visitors were often
shown around the warehouses by the directors, and members of the
Committee of Warehouses made regular inspections. In their petitions
the labourers harked back to the patronage links with the directors
who had nominated them for a post. When addressing a request to the
Company in 1841, retired labourer William Parker spoke of the late
Richard Chicheley Plowden as his ‘drector’, suggesting that he would
have been better treated if Plowden had still been alive.7 Richard Field,
on his return from Canada, asked Company Secretary James Cosmo
Melvill to present his petition to the directors. He apologized because
he was not known to Melvill, but explained that he was ‘without a friend
in the E I House’ since the death of Sir Thomas Reid who had given
him a warehouse card in 1822.8 Field’s description of a baronet who
was a leading City merchant and Company Chairman as ‘my friend Sir
Thomas Reid’ is perhaps explained by a quote from Reid’s obituary: ‘ …
he was always accessible to those who had occasion to consult him, while
to individuals whom his high station had attracted towards him as suit-
ors for patronage, the mildness of his manner was such, that it seemed
to give confidence to the poorest and most dependent of them’.9
Although other directors may also have displayed Reid’s ‘uncommon
urbanity and kindness’10 in their dealings with Company servants, the
social and managerial distance between the directors and the labour-
ers would have been maintained at all times. It has been said of the
industrialist Robert Owen that he was a benevolent and reasonable pa-

ternalist, but also very much a master who never felt the remotest sense
of equality with his workers at New Lanark.11 This assessment could be
applied equally to the East India Company directors, who would no
doubt have agreed with the sentiments of Matthew Boulton’s address
to his employees at the Soho Foundry: ‘As the Smith cannot do with-
out his Striker, so neither can the Master do without his Workmen. Let
each perform his part well and do their duty in that state which it hath
pleased God to call them, and this they will find to be the true rational
ground of equality.’12
The petitions of the labourers and their families are couched in re-
spectful terms, with an underlying acknowledgement that their position
in the Company hierarchy was perceived to be very lowly. When the
widow of pensioned labourer George Griffin put forward a petition for
financial assistance, her request was laced with phrases indicating her
perceived status: ‘humble petition’, ‘most humbly submits’, ‘respectfully
presumes’, ‘most humbly informs’ and ‘humbly implores’.13 Yet, as E. P.
Thompson has pointed out, this deference might have been accorded
knowingly for self-preservation, calculated to extract whatever benefit
was possible.14 The poor needed to develop a ‘social knowledge’, an
understanding of the rich, to help them survive.15 Moreover, Hitchcock
has expressed the belief that ‘petitions are constructed with as much
artifice as a novel’.16 The wording of many of the petitions preserved in
the Finance and Home Committee correspondence certainly appears
to follow a formula, and the uniformity of layout and paper quality
suggests that they were drafted on behalf of the labourers and their
families, perhaps by Company colleagues. The Complete Petitioner by the
Reverend Thomas Cook offered advice on how to draft petitions and
included three models addressed to the East India Company: from a
young man for appointment as a purser; from a young gentleman to be
a surgeon’s mate; and from a warehouse labourer for promotion. It was
a popular work judging from the number of editions which appeared in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: the British Library
holds nine editions published between 1771 and 1863. The model la-
bourer’s petition highlights themes which often appear in those actually
received by the Company: length of service; constant attention to duty;
good conduct and ‘conscientious fidelity’; advanced age; large family;
sickly wife; distressed circumstances.17
The petitions in the Finance and Home Committee papers give a voice
to the labourers and to their widows and children. They imprint person-
alities onto the lists of names in the Company archives and flesh out bare
facts of employment with life histories. The directors sometimes dealt
with dozens of petitions in a month and so emotive language was often

used to bolster the impact of the appeal. Elizabeth Ann Gast, widow of
Frederick Gast who had served as a labourer in the Bengal warehouse
for thirty-eight years, petitioned the Company for relief because she was
left with two small children and prevented by poor health from working
to support them. Her entreaty ran thus: ‘her departed Husband having
served in the Honorable Company’s service for so many years, she sin-
cerely hopes and trusts that they will not let the widow plead in vain,
but will with their accustomed and well known benevolence relieve her
distressing case’. Warehouse-keeper Henry Johnson reported that she
had received the usual fund allowances on the death of her husband in
April 1836, amounting to nine guineas. Although she was in distressed
circumstances and her husband had been a long serving ‘useful and
deserving Laborer’, Johnson was unaware of any precedent of relief
having been granted by the Committee to a labourer’s widow beyond
the fund allowances. The request for assistance was rejected: almost in-
variably, precedent proved more powerful than pleading.18
In February 1837, Elizabeth Sugg, the widow of a labourer pensioned
from the Cutler Street warehouse, applied for aid because of her in-
ability in a declining state of health to look after a large family of eight
children, six of whom were dependent ‘helpless babes’. Warehouse-
keeper Henry Seally made enquiries and found that Mrs Sugg was a
person of ‘unexceptionable’ character who appeared to be in a state
of destitution. Since she would have received fund payments totalling
thirteen guineas if her husband had died in service, she was granted a
one-off donation of £7 by way of compensation.19
Joseph Taylor, whose case appeared in Chapter 4, submitted another
petition to the Company in October 1837. He was still confined to bed
and unable to work as a result of his accident in the warehouse, with his
wife obliged to be his full-time carer. He would never be able to walk
again without crutches and he asked for an addition to be made to his
pension so he might avoid ‘the painful necessity of going to the Parish
Workhouse’. Warehouse-keeper William Johnson confirmed Taylor’s
incapacity and a single donation of £5 was voted by the Committee.20
James Lawson, a former labourer who had been promoted to be mes-
senger at East India House and deputy crier at Company sales, wrote a
letter to William Astell shortly before his death in February 1836 express-
ing his thanks for past favours from the director which had enabled him
to raise his large family in comfort. He asked Astell to use his influence
with the Finance and Home Committee to meet ‘the fervent prayer of
a (grateful) dying man’ by increasing his weekly allowance of 2s 6d to
meet the future needs of his wife and children. Lawson subsequently
died at the age of thirty-eight ‘from a pulmonary consumption caused

by the too great exercise of the lungs in blowing wind instruments in the
band of the late Regiment of Royal East India Volunteers’.21 A weekly
pension of 5s was conferred on his widow Sarah because Lawson was
considered very efficient and regular in his duties, and the Company
believed that his service as bugler in the Volunteers had indeed ‘ma-
terially injured his health’.22 In September 1836 Sarah Lawson turned
to Secretary James Cosmo Melvill for assistance: ‘I am quite a stranger
to you, but your being a Christian gives me encouragement that you
will help me to the utmost.’ Her pension was not sufficient to keep her
and five surviving children: ‘I have applied since for more but I am
very sorry that I should have done so, for I am afraid that I should be
thought ungrateful.’ Having asked Melvill to support her petition to
fill a vacancy as charwoman at East India House, she was appointed in
preference to the other applicants.23
Unless a labourer enjoyed a close link with a particular member of
the Court, as James Lawson appears to have done, a favourable report
from the warehouse-keeper was generally crucial for any labourer wish-
ing to secure the directors’ goodwill. The keepers knew many of the
men personally, but they also relied on information about the men’s
conduct or family circumstances furnished by their deputies and by the
elders and assistant-elders. Many of Henry Seally’s recommendations
concerning petitions from tea warehouse labourers in the 1830s began
with the phrase ‘Upon inquiry … ’ as he passed on evidence he had
picked up from colleagues.24
The policy of encouraging employees to stay in the Company’s home
service allowed relationships within the workforce to develop over a
period of years. The trustees of the Company Savings Bank sometimes
called upon the senior staff in the warehouses to verify claims when
family members asked for repayment of sums deposited by dead rela-
tives, or when the money was claimed by someone other than a relation.
The managers’ submissions demonstrate a familiarity with the labourers’
private lives which does seem to point to the existence of cordial inter-
action between those on the different rungs of the warehouse ladder.
John Hawes, brother-in-law and executor to the deceased labourer
Daniel Oatridge (also known as Outrage), applied for repayment of
Savings Bank deposits amounting to £62 10s 3½d. He was asked to pro-
duce an affidavit from a respectable person to confirm that Oatridge
and Outrage were the same person. Warehouse elder James Higgs duly
swore an affidavit to this effect, adding that he had known the labourer
for ten years, and that he had heard him declare his intention to leave
property to his sister Mary Rachael Hawes.25 In 1823 the submission of
Henry Johnson, assistant Bengal warehouse-keeper, ensured that Sarah

Mason received James Rooke’s savings of £2 1s 3½d ‘for her kind at-
tention to him during his illness’. Johnson stated that Rooke had died
leaving neither a wife nor children, and that he had reason to believe
that the labourer intended to leave his money to Mason.26
Other evidence also suggests friendly relationships between differ-
ent ranks of servants. When Joseph Lightfoot asked elder John Wilson
for a ticket permitting him to leave the warehouse and go home as he
was feeling ill, Wilson replied that as it was only 11.30 a.m. he would
let Lightfoot go home for one hour and that would save his day’s
pay.27 Henry Royle, a labourer in the Crutched Friars tea warehouse,
bequeathed £5 in his will to William Barber, deputy elder of the ware-
house, as a small token of Royle’s respect for him and in consideration
for Barber’s trouble in acting as one of his executors.28
Robert Barnard, assistant keeper at the Coast warehouse, was in the
habit of receiving sums of money on deposit from labourers and paying
them interest. Once the Company Savings Bank was opened, matters
became complicated as there were at least two occasions when labour-
ers handed cash to Barnard expecting him to pay it into the Bank whilst
he continued to treat the transactions as private. One instance involving
the large sum of £200 paid to Barnard by labourer John Bradford was
brought to the attention of the Chairman Thomas Reid in September
1821 by an anonymous letter signed ‘a Proprietor’. Reid forwarded the
letter to the Bank trustees and considered the matter sufficiently seri-
ous to raise it with the Secret Committee of Correspondence.29 The
Company directors and officials were uncomfortable about Barnard’s
private financial transactions both from the point of view of possible
damage to the reputation of the Savings Bank, and also, one suspects,
because of the irregular nature of the unofficial relationship he had
established with his subordinates in the warehouse. However, their
reaction to Barnard’s activities was somewhat more muted than the
shocked response of the directors of the West India Dock Company in
1823 when they discovered that their officers had been attending an
annual dinner held by the dock labourers, claiming that such associa-
tion would ‘break down the pale of distinction and be subversive of all
proper discipline’.30
An enquiry undertaken by officers of His Majesty’s Customs into
practices in the East India Company tea warehouses in 1818 revealed
the type of vertical cross-grade relationship so feared by the West India
Dock Company. Customs officials claimed to have uncovered a well-
organized system of corruption in the sampling of teas which involved
collusion between different ranks of servants from labourers and
commodores to elders: ‘the Superior as well as the lower Classes of the

Company’s servants in the Warehouses are accomplices in the Abuses’.
It was alleged that the strict rules governing the taking of samples by
brokers and dealers were being ignored, with large amounts of tea
being removed under the cloak of sampling with illicit fees charged
and distributed amongst Company servants.31 William Billings, acting
surveyor in the East India branch of the Customs, also alleged that that
there was a regular system of plunder in all the Company warehouses
and that the men had a rendezvous where they met to exchange tea
and spices pilfered from the different warehouses where they worked.32
The Court was anxious that Billings’s allegations of improper conduct
by Company employees should be thoroughly investigated and pledged
its co-operation in guarding more effectively against ‘nefarious’ prac-
tices, but the directors were keen to be given a copy of the evidence on
which the allegations were based rather than accept without question
the report of an official outside the Company.33
The directors were prepared to shield their servants from external
criticism, perhaps motivated both by a sense of loyalty to their employ-
ees and by the wish to refute allegations of indiscipline which reflected
badly on the Company’s ability to manage its personnel effectively. In
April 1829 William Taylor Copeland, Sheriff of London and Middlesex,
and Samuel Barrett, keeper of the debtors’ prison in Whitecross Street,
drew to the Court’s attention that the majority of men imprisoned there
for small sums were Company warehouse labourers, alleging that nearly
all of their debts were incurred for porter drunk whilst at work. Barrett
suggested that it might be advisable to limit the amount of drink allowed
on Company premises.34 The Committee of Buying and Warehouses
was asked to investigate and it reported back to the Court in July 1829
upholding the wisdom of the current regulations which permitted the
‘moderate admission of refreshments’ into the warehouses and exoner-
ating the labourers from ‘the general imputation of Drunkenness and
Immorality’. The Committee had discovered that the number of suits at
the instance of ale house keepers between 8 October 1828 and 18 March
1829 had been much increased, if not chiefly occasioned, by two of the
publicans who supplied the warehouses having quit their business. With
nothing more to expect from the custom of the men, the publicans had
then proceeded against them as debtors. The other principal creditor
was a tally-shop near East India House which sold clothes to the labour-
ers on credit in return for payment by weekly instalment, at rates giving
a profit of 100 per cent according to an article in The Times.35 Since this
arrangement tempted the labourers to spend beyond their means, ‘the
Court cannot but regret that such a class of persons exists’.36 Debts of
under £1 brought imprisonment for twenty days but at least a Company

warehouse man might hope for a fund payment of 6d per day to help
towards keeping his family during his imprisonment and had the pros-
pect of a job still waiting for him, unlike The Times’ description of a typical
‘poor labourer’ in debtors’ prison whose wife and children were forced
to enter the workhouse and who had to look for work at the expiry of
his term ‘with all the prospects of starvation before him’.37
The culture of mutual loyalty generated between the managers and
subordinates at all levels of the East India Company hierarchy enabled
the directors to continue to trust in the labourers’ loyalty and to use
them for political ends even when the formal disciplinary framework
of the Royal East India Volunteers was not in operation, that is, in the
period between October 1814 and August 1820, and after March 1834.38
Large numbers of Company labourers were sworn in as special consta-
bles by the City authorities on at least three occasions. At the time of the
Spa Fields riots in December 1816, 500 labourers acted as constables
and were paid by the Company for extra attendance beyond their usual
hours.39 When the civil authorities feared disturbances at a political
reform meeting in Smithfield in August 1819, over 500 men were made
available by the East India Company, although this proved to be merely
precautionary as there was no trouble at the meeting.40 Shortly after the
final disbandment of the Royal East India Volunteers, the Lord Mayor
wrote to the Company Chairman asking for the labourers’ help in pre-
serving peace in the City should any disturbance ensue from a trade
union meeting in Copenhagen Fields on 21 April 1834. The labourers
were assembled in the warehouse yard at New Street after work at 3.00
p.m. and 574 were sworn in as special constables. In the event, they were
only kept on stand-by, but the Company paid 3d per hour for their extra
attendance and provided refreshments at a total cost of £16 14s 1d.41
Even in the 1840s, when only a relatively small number of labourers
were employed in the Military Store Warehouse in Leadenhall Street,
the men were used to protect Company property in times of political
disturbance. In 1848, at the height of Chartist agitation, up to twenty
commodores and labourers mounted guard amid fears of rioting.42
There is evidence of the infiltration of unapproved external politi-
cal influences into the warehouses. In January 1813, the Committee
of Warehouses reported that visitors had called at the Company
warehouses with the purpose of obtaining the signatures of the ware-
house-keepers, clerks, and labourers on petitions to Parliament ‘upon a
question of great public moment now pending’. The Court agreed that
this practice was altogether improper and moved quickly to suppress it
by sending prohibition orders to all the warehouse-keepers.43
In March 1833 Company Chairman John Goldsborough Ravenshaw

received a private and confidential letter from Samuel March Phillipps,
Under-Secretary at the Home Office, informing him that:
a man named Lucking, who is employed in the East India Company’s

Warehouses as a labourer has been disseminating ‘a good deal of
Republican Principles and has by introducing Penny Papers formed
a secret society amongst the men there’ who subscribe weekly for the
purpose of the Union … Lucking is at the Head of this Society who pay
him the money on Saturdays, & he pays it to Lovett, another Member of
the Union. He has been in the Army and now belongs to the Grenadier
Company of the East India Military Establishment.44
The labourer who had been reported by a government spy for seditious
behaviour was Richard Luckins, a former miller who had joined the
Private trade warehouse in April 1827 and had enlisted the following
month in the Grenadier unit of the Royal East India Volunteers. In the
early 1830s Luckins was an active member of the National Union of the
Working Classes whose main objectives were to secure the principles
stated in the declaration of the Rights of Man; to obtain for every work-
ing man the full value of his labour and the free disposal of the produce
of his labour; to support fair and rational opposition made by societies
of working men against the combination and tyranny of masters and
manufacturers; to obtain reform of the House of Commons based on
annual parliaments, extension of the suffrage to every adult male, vote
by ballot, and the abolition of any property qualification for members
of Parliament.45 Weekly penny papers such as The Poor Man’s Guardian
and Republican were distributed in defiance of the law without paying
newspaper stamp duty.46 An advertisement issued by the printer and
political activist Henry Hetherington sought the services of hundreds of
poor unemployed men to sell the unstamped papers because they had
less to risk.47 By acting as salesman for these papers Luckins was court-
ing imprisonment and the consequent loss of his job. However, in spite
of the surveillance report, Luckins kept his job in the warehouse until
he was made redundant and granted a pension in October 1834.48
In spite of such evidence that there was interest in radical politics
amongst the labourers, extant records give no indication of any labour
disputes or strikes in the warehouses.49 The obligation to contribute
exclusively to the Company’s own welfare scheme reduced the impact
of outside influences on its labourers’ behaviour, and the web of depen-
dence constructed by the Company’s management strategies made the
men far more likely to conform to the patterns of behaviour expected
of them by the directors. The West India Dock Company feared that
independent welfare societies might undermine discipline within its

workforce by supporting political activities, for example, by contribut-
ing strike pay: it therefore introduced old age and sickness benefits with
the express purpose of forbidding its coopers to join other schemes.50
There were allegations that the Company exercised direct and cor-
rupt political influence over their warehouse labourers. In 1832 John
Wade published a new edition of his Black Book on corporate corruption
which devoted a substantial chapter to the East India Company. One
passage concerned the Company’s treatment of its London labourers:
the political influence of the Company is very considerable from the vast
number of individuals employed in their different warehouses and es-
tablishments in London. All the influence they possess is employed in
support of their parliamentary interest. Whenever a labourer comes into
the service of the Company he is required to state for which place he has
a vote for a member of parliament: his name is then registered with this
specification; and on an election he is told that he will be spared from his
situation to give his suffrage, if he will vote according to orders; disobe-
dience being supposed to be punished by dismissal from his office. The
number of individuals thus kept in political subjection to the Company is
about four thousand.51
Wade was not alone in accusing the Company of electoral malprac-

tice. A letter from ‘A. Z.’ was published in The Times of 10 December
1832 claiming that Company warehouse employees with a vote in the
borough of Finsbury had been ordered to vote for Robert Spankie and
Robert Grant.52 Charles Saunderson, one of the Company’s clerks,
wrote into the newspaper on 14 December to refute the allegation, and
the information he provided shows how Wade’s account had elements
of truth which had been distorted. Saunderson verified that many of
the warehouse labourers had forty shilling freeholds in different parts
of England or were householders in the metropolitan districts.53 On
the eve of every general election, a list of electors was laid before the
directors and an order was then passed authorizing all labourers with a
vote to be absent for the time necessary to exercise their franchise. Thus
they had no need to ask the warehouse-keeper for leave of absence and
so perhaps be subjected to influence. He suggested that an ‘officious
intermeddling party’ may have got access to the list, and defended the
directors’ practice as being adopted ‘to secure that very freedom of
election which they are so unjustly accused of tampering with’.54
Saunderson’s evidence is borne out by a Finance and Home
Committee minute of January 1835 which states that all persons in the
warehouses who were voters for Members of Parliament were permitted
to be absent from duty during the general election in order to exercise
their franchise. The warehouse-keepers were to limit the time granted

to each person according to the travelling distance involved.55
George Pattison claimed that ‘large corporations … are perennial
objects of suspicion, distrust and dislike’.56 Perhaps this partly explains
why the East India Company was subjected to allegations of corrupt
management from contemporaries. The Company did exercise a con-
siderable degree of influence over its warehouse labourers, yet the
relationships within the Company hierarchy in London were based on
benevolence, humanity and mutual respect rather than on fear and
injustice. Director Joseph Cotton described the permanent labourers
employed by the East India Dock Company as ‘fixtures’ with ‘an interest
in the Concern’, and he might have said the same about the men whom
he oversaw in the East India Company warehouses who also held a re-
ciprocal interest.57 Pensioned labourer Francis McBarron spoke warmly
in 1840 of the treatment he had received as a Company servant:
I received many favours while in the service, through the kindness of

Messrs Stockwell, Butcher, Captain Johnston, Doctors Leese, Spry &
Traverse. To these Gentlemen I am Indebted for Liberty to serve in a
Veteran Battalion and Return again to the Employment, to a Leave of
absence for the benefit of my health to my native air, and I may say for my
life through the kind attention of Captain Johnston and Surgeon Leese
in 1818, the Latter through the former attending me by night as well
as by day – and Doctor Traverse carried his kindness so far as to attend
my first wife on her death Bed very many times, without accepting any
fee, In that for the uniform kind treatment which I received while in the
Employment, I shall ever feel unbounded gratttitude.58
It seems likely that the East India Company labourers in the early
nineteenth century would have developed an esprit de corps, fostered by
the number of hours they spent together both in the warehouses and
as soldiers in the Royal East India Volunteers, as well as by the longev-
ity of service of many of the men.59 Over a decade after the Company’s
commercial premises were closed, some of the former warehouse la-
bourers still retained a proud sense of identity from their time with the
Company. In the 1851 census for Bethnal Green, James Fitch, formerly
a labourer at the Bengal and Coast warehouse, described himself as
‘Foreman L[ondon] Docks Pensioner E.I.C.’.60 In 1871, thirty-six years
after his compulsory retirement, Benjamin Thomas Tottman told the
census enumerator that he was an ‘East India Company Pensioner Tea
Department’.61
The beneficial conditions of work enjoyed by the East India Company
warehouse labourers in the early nineteenth century marked them out
as a distinct group within the London working classes. Although the
Company warehousemen are probably best described as better-off la-

bourers occupying the middle ground between the poorest working
classes and the artisans, they did in fact fulfil a number of the criteria
which Eric Hobsbawm recognized as being necessary for membership
of a ‘labour aristocracy’.62 Hobsbawm identified six different factors
which need to be considered when judging whether or not a worker
belonged to this ‘aristocracy’: the level and regularity of his earnings;
his prospects of social security; the treatment he received from mas-
ters and foremen; his relations with the social strata above and below
him; his general conditions of living; the prospect of future advance-
ment for both himself and his children. Assessing the experience of
the warehouse labourers against these criteria reveals a strong degree
of correlation: the Company labourers received a reasonable regular
wage; their prospects of social security were good because of the sick
fund; they were treated with some respect and dignity by those above
them in the warehouse hierarchy, and there is evidence of friendly rela-
tions between the men and their superiors; their general conditions of
living appear to have been better than those of many members of the
London working classes; and they had some prospect of future advance-
ment for themselves and for their children, through the possibility of
promotion, the opportunity to build up a nest egg in the Savings Bank,
and the chance to give their children an education at schools often sup-
ported in part by Company subscriptions.
Moreover, it should be borne in mind that many of the East India
Company labourers were skilled artisans who had decided to join the
semi-skilled world of the warehouses, with some continuing to work
part-time at their trade in their free afternoons and evenings. As Trevor
Lummis has written of the London dock labourers in the second half
of the nineteenth century, skilled men were ‘prepared to work perma-
nently as unskilled labour in return for the security it provided’, because
the trade in which they had served their apprenticeship ‘had provided
less than a satisfactory living’.63 Lummis suggests a conceptual division
into secure/insecure workers rather than skilled/unskilled or labour
aristocracy/non-aristocrats, because the major difficulty for nearly all
British workers in the nineteenth century was the lack of continuity of
employment, with no general social welfare except the Poor Law for the
destitute. After 1850 the men who managed to obtain permanent posts
in the docks, rather than being subject to uncertain hire as preferable
or casual labourers, enjoyed security ‘with guaranteed employment,
sick pay, medical attention while at work, and a pension on retirement,
these workers had solved for themselves the difficulties of living with
the insecurities of 19th-century capitalism’.64 This comment could be
applied equally to the established warehouse labourers of the East India

Company fifty years earlier.
***
By encouraging good working relationships at all levels of the ware-

house hierarchy, the East India Company managers helped to create
a loyal and committed workforce in the midst of the insecure world of
early nineteenth-century London. The Company chose not to rely on
a fluctuating group of labourers plucked as ‘anonymous labour power’
from a large pool of casual workers,65 but instead strove to nurture a
stable body of trusted employees. When the East India Company ware-
house labourers were made redundant as a result of the 1833 Charter
Act, they lost the security and stability which they had enjoyed in their
working life and were deprived of the cushion against adversity which
had been provided for them by the Company. Many labourers had fully
expected to hold a job with the Company until retirement or death, and
the closure of the warehouses threw into sharp relief just how favour-
able the labourers’ situation had been. Daily existence became much
more precarious for many of the Company’s servants and their fami-
lies once commercial operations ceased and swingeing cuts were made
in the establishment. The next chapter will examine the upheaval in
the relationship between the Company and the warehouse labourers
caused by the Act of 1833.
Notes
1 A. P. Donajgrodzki, ‘“Social Police” and the Bureaucratic Elite: A Vision of

Order in the Age of Reform’, in Donajgrodzki, Social Control, pp. 51–76.
2 The idea of creating a labour force with desired characteristics in the London
docks in the early nineteenth century is discussed in Henderson and Palmer,
‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of London’, pp. 34–5.
3 Pollard, Genesis, pp. 207–8.
4 Quoted in Henderson and Palmer, ‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of
London’, p. 39.
5 Daniel A. Wren, The History of Management Thought, 5th edn (New Jersey, 2005),
pp. 215–18.
6 BL, IOR: B/170, p. 1023, Court Minutes 14 January 1820.
7 BL, IOR: L/F/2/56, no. 29 of February 1841. Plowden had nominated Parker
for a warehouse labourer post in 1810 (BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 1885).
9 Gentleman’s Magazine (March 1824), pp. 281–2.
10 Ibid.
11 Margaret Cole, Robert Owen of New Lanark (London, 1953), pp. 57–8.
12 Matthew Boulton’s speech at the opening of the Soho Foundry reported in
Arris’s Birmingham Gazette, 1 February 1796, cited in Roll, An Early Experiment,
pp. 220–1.
13 BL, IOR: L/F/2/14, no. 161 of January 1837, Petition of Sarah Griffin.
14 E. P. Thompson, ‘Eighteenth-Century English Society: Class Struggle Without
Class?’, Social History 3:2 (1978), pp. 133–65.
15 Peter Mandler, ‘Poverty and Charity in the Nineteenth-Century Metropolis: An
Introduction’, in The Uses of Charity: The Poor on Relief in the Nineteenth-Century
Metropolis, ed. Peter Mandler (Philadelphia, 1990), p. 1.
16 Hitchcock, Down and Out, p. 234.
17 Thomas Cook, The Universal Letter-Writer … to which is added, The Complete
Petitioner (London, 1808). The labourer’s petition as drafted actually seeks
promotion to a vacant post as elder, a jump up the warehouse hierarchy which
appears highly unlikely ever to have occurred.
18 BL, IOR: L/F/2/6, no. 81 of May 1836.
19 BL, IOR: L/F/1/5, pp. 845–6, Finance and Home Committee 1 February
1837, and BL, IOR: L/F/2/15, no. 22 of February 1837.
20 BL, IOR: L/F/1/7, p. 103, Finance and Home Committee 31 October 1837,
and BL, IOR: L/F/2/23, no. 251 of October 1837.
21 BL, IOR: L/F/2/8, ff 37–9.
22 BL, IOR: L/F/1/3, pp. 675–6, Finance and Home Committee 1 March 1836.
24 BL, IOR: L/F/2, passim.
25 BL, IOR L/AG/30/15/1, pp. 70–8, Savings Bank Trustees’ Minutes 27 January
and 21 March 1825.
26 BL, IOR L/AG/30/15/1, pp. 45–7, Savings Bank Trustees’ Minutes 13 January
1823.
27 Old Bailey Proceedings, 24 February 1790. However, Lightfoot was ‘rubbed
down’ by Wilson on his way out and found to have fifteen porcelain saucers
and three porcelain cups in his pocket. See p. 99.
28 TNA: PROB 11/1561, ff 316v–17, Will of Henry Royle, signed 9 July 1801,
proved 13 October 1814.
29 BL, IOR: L/PS/ 1/13, pp. 102–3, Secret Committee of Correspondence
Minutes 25 January 1822 and 6 February 1822; BL, IOR L/AG/30/15/1, pp.
23–39, Savings Bank Trustees’ Minutes 3 January 1822 and 14 February 1822.
30 Cited in Henderson and Palmer, ‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of
London’, pp. 48–9. The officers were fined for their transgression.
31 TNA: T 64/154.
32 TNA: CUST 30/286, pp. 289–90, Letter from George Delavaud, Secretary to
the Board of Customs, to James Cobb, Secretary to the East India Company, 6
March 1818.
33 BL, IOR: E/1/254, p. 71, no. 109, Company to Customs 26 January 1818;
BL, IOR: B/166, pp. 989, 1160–1, Court Minutes 23 February and 11 March
1818; BL, IOR: B/167, pp. 74–5, Court Minutes 29 April 1818. Unfortunately
the detailed reports for the investigation were lodged with the papers of the
Committee of Buying and Warehouses which are no longer extant.
34 There was a Company rule that no liquor was to be drunk in the warehouses
except beer: BL, IOR: B/89, p. 330, Court Minutes 4 August 1773.
35 The Times, 26 February 1829, p. 6f.
36 BL, IOR: B/182 (not paginated), Court Minutes 24 April and 15 July 1829; BL,
IOR: E/1/265, no. 1748, Letter from Peter Auber, Secretary to the East India
Company, to Copeland at the Mansion House, 17 July 1829.
37 The Times, 26 February 1829, p. 6f.
38 The concept of mutual loyalty with regard to the London dock companies is
discussed in Henderson and Palmer, ‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of
London’.
39 Andrew T. Harris, Policing the City: Crime and Legal Authority in London, 1780–
1840 (Columbus, 2004), pp. 103–4. See BL, IOR: L/AG/1/1/31, p. 321,
Payment for extra attendance during the riots in 1816 to labourers from the
Military Store Warehouse, April 1817. No amount is entered in the ledger.
40 The Times, 26 August 1819, p. 2d; Harris, Policing the City, p. 105.
41 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, pp. 43–4, Finance and Home Committee 23 April 1834;
BL, IOR: B/188, pp. 33–4, Court Minutes 23 April 1834.
42 Harding, Smallarms, vol. 1, pp. 115–16.
43 BL: IOR: B/156, pp. 1243–4, Court Minutes 27 January 1813. The identity of
the visitors is not disclosed. Possibly this was connected to the debates over the
renewal of the Company’s Charter.
44 TNA: HO 79/4, ff 219–19v, Phillipps to Ravenshaw 30 March 1833.
45 D. J. Rowe (ed.), London Radicalism 1830–1843 – A Selection of the Papers of Francis
Place (London, 1970), pp. 29–34.
46 The duty was levied at a rate of 4d by 1815: Joel H. Wiener, The War of the
Unstamped: The Movement to Repeal the British Newspaper Tax, 1830–1836 (Ithaca,
NY, 1969), p. 3.
47 TNA: HO 64/17, f. 88.
48 For more on Luckins, see Chapter 8.
49 David Green found no evidence of strikes in the Company warehouses when
researching his article ‘Lines of Conflict: Labour Disputes in London, 1790–
1870’, International Review of Social History 43:2 (1998), pp. 203–33. I am very
grateful to Dr Green for checking his database to confirm this.
50 George Pattison, ‘The Coopers’ Strike at the West India Dock 1821’, Mariner’s
Mirror 55:2 (1969), p. 171.
51 John Wade, The Extraordinary Black Book: an Exposition of Abuses of Church and
State, Courts of Law, Representation, Municipal and Corporate Bodies (London,
1832), pp. 411–12.
52 The Times, 10 December 1832, p. 4f.
53 For example, William Cecil Hows, labourer at Jewry Street warehouse, was a
freeman of Evesham in Worcestershire. At an enquiry in December 1830 into
malpractice in the Evesham election, he gave evidence of being canvassed and
paid by representatives of candidates for his support. There is no suggestion
that anyone within the Company tried to influence his vote. See Minutes of
Evidence taken before the Select Committee on Evesham Election Petition (London,
1830), pp. 75–9.
54 The Times, 15 December 1832, p. 3f.
55 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, p. 138, 2 January 1835.
56 Pattison, ‘The Coopers’ Strike’, p. 175.
57 Cited in Henderson and Palmer, ‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of

London’, p. 46. Cotton was one of the directors who served both the East India
and East India Dock Companies.
58 BL, IOR: L/F/2/53, no. 37 [?] of September 1840, Letter from Francis
McBarron written in Enniskillen gaol 25 August 1840 where he was imprisoned
for debt. The men referred to are John Stockwell, Robert Butcher, William
Johnson, Lewis Leese, James Hume Spry and Benjamin Travers.
59 When the warehouses were closed down in the 1830s, service of over forty
years was not uncommon. See BL, IOR: L/AG/21/6/2.
60 TNA: HO 107/1540, f. 626.
61 TNA: RG 10/1337, p. 46.
62 E. J. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men – Studies in the History of Labour (London, 1964),
chapter 15. However, Hobsbawm doubted the existence of a labour aristocracy
before the 1840s, by which time most of the East India Company warehouse
labourers had been made redundant.
63 Trevor Lummis, The Labour Aristocracy, 1851–1914 (Aldershot, 1994), p. 57.
64 Ibid., p. 30.
65 Ibid., p. 27.
Eight
THE WAREHOUSE CLOSURES
FAREWELL ON THE BREAKING UP OF THE

EAST INDIA COMPANY’S GREAT ESTABLISHMENT1
1 Stay gentle Muse, and deign to smile,

A little with us dwell,
Let us invoke thy aid awhile,
To make our last – FAREWELL.
2 Reform, search History’s page and see,
What in this age befell,
When to this great Monopoly
The country bids – FAREWELL.
3 The bill dictates by sweeping lines,
And LEADENHALL MONARCHS tell
Their trade with ORIENTAL climes,
Must henceforth bid – FAREWELL.
4 For when the great concern’s broke up,
With some it may be well,
While others taste the bitter cup
Of life, and say – FAREWELL.
5 Some quit the soil which gave them birth,
To cross the ATLANTIC swell,
And fly, perhaps, from bad to worse,
When they pronounce – FAREWELL.
6 ‘Tis hard to leave our native strand,
Or cottage in the dell,
To seek for bread in distant land,
And say to friends – FAREWELL.
The Warehouse closures 157
7 In age to emigrate is vain,

Do not your birthright sell,
But trust in GOD, and you will gain
Your bread, nor say – FAREWELL.
8 But when Death’s fatal arm shall strike
The blow which sounds your knell,
May we soar up to regions bright,
No more to say – FAREWELL.
The Charter Act of 1813 took away the East India Company’s monopoly
of trade to India but maintained its exclusive privilege of trade with
China. Twenty years later, the Charter Act of 1833 put an end to all the
Company’s commercial activities and forced the closure of almost all
the London warehouses. The directors had been prepared for change
but the scope of the legislation of 1833 took them by surprise. As they
commented in 1834:
the change which has taken place exceeds that upon which the most pru-
dent calculator could have justly reckoned. Not only has the Company’s
exclusive privilege of trade to China been abrogated (it was generally ex-
pected that such would be the case), but the Company’s trade is wholly to
cease. That could scarcely have been expected.2
The legal obligation to cease all commercial activity meant that the
Company directors were faced with the need to formulate a systematic
rolling programme of mass redundancy at East India House and the
warehouses on what must surely have been an unprecedented scale in
the 1830s. When the Bank of England reduced its staff in 1821, 174
clerks retired and were given a pension of one half of their salary, rising
to three-quarters for those who had served over twenty years.3 By way
of contrast, the East India Company was forced to lay off thousands of
home establishment and maritime servants of all grades and to devise
separate compensation measures for the different groups of staff af-
fected. The directors expressed their distaste for the task before them:
It can scarcely be necessary for the Court of Directors to observe that a

more difficult or invidious duty could not well have devolved upon them
than that of deciding upon the multifarious claims to compensation con-
sequent on the discontinuance of the Company’s trade. Acting on the
one hand as the guardian of all who have served the Company with zeal
and fidelity, it became the Court of Directors to respond to the liberal
disposition expressed towards their Servants by the Proprietors through-
out the discussions regarding the Charter, whilst on the other hand the
Court feel themselves equally bound as Trustees for the Indian Territory
to restrict liberality within the limits of what should appear to be due in
justice to the pretensions of the respective claimants.4
In February 1834, the Court resolved to pay pensions amounting to

two-thirds of their salary and emoluments to redundant officers, estab-
lished clerks, extra clerks, writers, elders, assistant elders, overlookers
of cloth, cloth drawers, hoy masters, surveyors of shipping, watermen
and office porters if they had served ten years. Gratuities on a scale of
between one and four years’ salary and emoluments were paid to those
with less than ten years’ service. The minutes noted that this decision
took into account the fact that those affected had not lost their posts
through any fault on their part nor any commercial difficulty experi-
enced by the Company. To ensure efficiency, the Court reserved the
right to exchange people in posts which were to be reduced with those
in home establishment posts which were to be retained.5
As part of the general scaling down of operations at East India House,
the Court resolved in June 1834 to put a stop to the provision of break-
fasts in the tea rooms and consequently the number of housekeepers
was halved from four to two. Elizabeth Tarrant and Lucy Imeson, whose
husbands had worked as labourers in the Company warehouses, retired
on pensions calculated as half of their salary and allowances, sums of £75
and £50 per annum respectively. Both women were required to move
out of their apartments in East India House.6 Elizabeth Tarrant was al-
lowed to commute £15 of her pension into a lump sum of £148 and she
set up home with her son James who worked for the Company as a mes-
senger.7 Her estranged husband repeatedly petitioned the Company for
a share of the pension, complaining of his extreme indigence and of his
wife’s extravagance and ‘dram drinking’. In 1838 he submitted a claim
to the whole pension with arrears as his legal right as her husband: mar-
ried women had no right at this period to keep their own earnings. The
Company’s enlightened response was to resist all attempts to divert the
pension and to continue the payments directly to Elizabeth Tarrant.8
The Company’s maritime commanders, mates, surgeons, boatswains,
carpenters and gunners were compensated for the loss of their posts by
a range of lump sum payments. More generous terms were proposed
for those serving in the Company’s own ships because they were ‘in
every respect, servants of the Company … and by the discontinuance
of the Company’s trade their prospects in life are materially affected’.9
Officers of the freighted service were to receive lower rates of com-
pensation since they were appointed by private owners whose business
would not necessarily end with the cessation of East India Company
trade. The remit of the Poplar Fund was extended to deal not only with
cases of sickness and pecuniary distress, but also to provide for cases
where officers could not find employment. The Court received memo-
rials from all sectors of the maritime service putting forward reasons
why they should receive more money and there was lively debate in
Parliament and the press.10
The end of commercial operations also meant that the cadre of labour-
ers which the Company had nurtured had to be broken up. Seeking to
soften the blow with monetary compensation, the directors asked the
warehouse-keepers to furnish detailed breakdowns of the men working for
them so that accurate estimates of cost for any proposed pensions might be
calculated.11 Tables 19 to 21 show aggregates of the data which were collected
to form an age and service profile of the warehouse workers in May 1834.
Table 19: Age profile of warehouse commodores, messengers and labourers, May
1834
Age in May 1834 Number %

of men
Not exceeding 20 years 8 0.38

20 & not exceeding 30 191 9.10
30 & not exceeding 40 694 33.02
40 & not exceeding 50 633 30.11
50 & not exceeding 60 367 17.45
70 & upwards 30 1.43
Total 2102 100.00
Source: BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 323.
Table 20: Service profile of warehouse commodores, messengers and labourers,

May 1834
Length of service at Michaelmas 1834 Number %

of men
Not exceeding 20 years 1300 61.85

20 & not exceeding 25 260 12.37
30 & not exceeding 35 233 11.08
35 & upwards 161 7.66
Total 2102 100.00
The number of men with service not exceeding twenty years was subsequently reduced
to 1297 – see Table 21. It appears likely that the three men who were wrongly allocated
should have been included in the 20–5 year category.
Source: BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 323.
Table 21: Commodores, messengers, labourers and cloth drawers on the ware-
house books on 31 May 1834 whose length of service did not exceed twenty years
Length of service Tea Bengal with Private Assistant Blackwall Cloth Cloth Total %
baggage trade Private drawers
trade
Not exceeding 5 10 5 0 0 1 0 14 30 2.3
years
5 & not over 10 318 51 95 51 1 0 9 525 40.5
10 & not over 15 298 19 108 73 8 0 3 509 39.2
15 & not over 20 112 10 54 47 9 1 0 233 18.0
Total 738 85 257 171 19 1 26 1297 100.00
This table was drawn up on 21 July 1834 with a note that the earlier report to the Court giving a total of
1300 men included three men with over twenty years’ service.

The loss of a permanent job with the Company was traumatic for
many of the labourers, especially those who had been favoured with
light duties because of their age and infirmities and who now had diffi-
culty in securing alternative employment in direct competition with the
young and fit. A total of 2102 warehouse commodores, messengers and
labourers were on the Company books in May 1834, including 193 com-
modores and messengers, and twenty-nine cloth drawers transferred
from the Woollen Cloth Department. Of these, 1209 (57.5 per cent)
were aged forty years and upwards.
When making their deliberations about compensation for the ware-
house workers, the directors decided to base pensions on length of
service. The Company’s analysis showed that a very small cohort of men
(2.3 per cent) had served in the warehouses for less than five years, half
of whom were cloth drawers. A total of 1297 labourers (62 per cent) had
service of less than twenty years, and four-fifths of these men had served
between five and fourteen years. The directors referred to the scale of
pensions established by the Court in 1819 for labourers disabled by
age and infirmity, and also to the rules and regulations of the welfare
fund. Wishing to cancel all claims on the fund from those about to be
made redundant, the Finance and Home Committee decided that it
would be necessary ‘to grant them some consideration beyond what the
Fund gives them a title to expect’.12 Thus a scale of weekly compensa-
tion pensions was devised ranging from 7s 6d for a labourer with under
twenty years’ service to 11s 6d for thirty-five years’ service and over.
Commodores were to be paid an additional weekly premium of 1s.
The annual cost of the compensation scheme to the Company was
calculated at £46,777 18s 0d, although this figure would gradually
reduce as the size of the pension establishment decreased as men died.
Table 22 shows the estimated annual cost calculated by the Accountant
General’s Office in July 1834 based on the composition of the ware-
house establishment on 31 May 1834.
Once the rates had been approved by both the Court and by the
Board of Control, the details were transmitted at the end of August
1834 to the warehouse-keepers so they might make them fully known
to all concerned.13
The Court of Directors soon received a petition from the ware-
house commodores asking for a reconsideration of the compensation
allowance granted to them: ‘your Petitioners have with inexpress-
ible regret heard that it is the intention of your Honorable Board
to adhere to the Printed Articles in which they are guaranteed to
receive One Shilling weekly in addition to the pension of the Laborers’.
The commodores believed that they deserved to be paid a greater
Table 22: Annual cost of compensation to commodores, messengers and labourers

calculated in July 1834
Length of service Number of Pension per week Annual charge

commodores,
messengers and
labourers
Not exceeding 20 years 1300 7s 6d £25,350 0s 0d
20 years and not 260 8s 0d £5408 0s 0d
exceeding 25
exceeding 30
exceeding 35
35 years or more 161 11s 6d £4813 18s 0d
Total 2102 £46,276 2s 0d

Additional 1s per week for 193 commodores £501 16s 0d
Total £46,777 18s 0d
The calculation was made using the unadjusted figure of 1300 instead of 1297 for
service not exceeding twenty years.
Source: BL, IOR: L/AG/10/2/9, p. 48.
supplement to differentiate them more markedly from the main body

of labourers because of ‘the responsibility and arduousness’ of their
work and their ‘vigilance and exertions’ on the Company’s behalf. They
asked for a pension of two-thirds of their current pay:
We have no concern with your munificence to those above us. We rejoice

at your liberality to those below us – but in humble boldness we say – that
whilst your Honorable consideration has given Two thirds of their pres-
ent pay to the classes above us – and Seven Shillings and sixpence a week
nearly the one half of their Weekly pay to those below us – we justly deem
that the Eight Shillings and sixpence a week awarded to us is not a one
Third of our present Pay of Twenty six Shillings a Week.14
The Finance and Home Committee looked carefully at the claims

made in the petition and reviewed the relative rates of pay and pensions
for commodores and labourers before recommending to the Court that
the additional compensation to commodores be increased from 1s to 3s
6d per week.15 However, the more generous terms were subject to the
approval of the Board of Control, and the Commissioners responded
in November 1834 by stating that, whilst they saw no objection to the

proposal for those who had served as commodores for ten years or
more, they believed the rate of additional pension which had been in
operation since 1819 should not be increased for men who had not
served at least ten years as commodores.16 The Board also prevented
the Court from granting an extra shilling per week to men who had
served for at least ten years as gate-keepers, yardsmen, ticket writers and
watchmen in the warehouses. The directors had believed that the extra
payment was justified because these men were paid at a higher rate than
the ordinary labourers.17 Table 23 records the scale of compensation
payments approved by the Board of Control.
Table 23: Scale of compensation pensions for commodores and labourers from
1834
Pension per week
Length of service Labourers Commodores Commodores with

10 years’ service at
that rank
Under 20 years 7s 6d 8s 6d 11s 0d
20–5 years 8s 0d 9s 0d 11s 6d
25–30 years 10s 6d 11s 6d 14s 0d
30–5 years 11s 0d 12s 0d 14s 6d
35 years & above 11s 6d 12s 6d 15s 0d
The extra weekly 2s 6d awarded only to men who had been commo-
dores for ten years or more was a substantial sum and there are petitions
in the records of the Finance and Home Committee which illustrate
how the Board of Control ruling affected individuals. John Hansell and
James Startin, commodores at the assistant private trade warehouse who
were laid off at Michaelmas 1834, both petitioned the Company in the
spring of 1835 after learning that they were now excluded from the
higher rate of additional allowance since they had acted as commo-
dores for less than ten years. They asked to be permitted to return to
Company employment to complete their ten years, but their requests
were negatived.18 Thomas Marsh, a commodore at the Haydon Square
tea warehouse, was given notice that his services would not be required
after Lady Day 1836. He petitioned the Finance and Home Committee
asking to continue working beyond that date since he would be just
fifteen months short of ten years’ service as a commodore and there-
by ‘deprived of that Your Liberality and Munificence has Conferred’,
namely an extra 2s 6d in his weekly pension. Marsh said that this was a
great loss to him as he had a family of young children, one of whom was
completely blind. The petition was rejected on the pragmatic grounds
that Marsh, who had been appointed as commodore in June 1827 just
four months after entering the warehouses, was not so well acquainted
with the general business of the tea department as other men who had
been retained.19
The commodores were not the only group in the warehouses to pro-
test about the severance pensions. Many of the permanent labourers
were also discontented with the terms offered and unhappy that they
were required to sign away their future entitlement to receive any relief
from the Company welfare fund into which they had paid their weekly
contributions. A large number of the men were not eligible to enrol
with a friendly society.20 William Province, a labourer at the Fenchurch
Street tea warehouse who retired at Midsummer 1836 aged forty, dis-
covered that he was past the age for entering any other benefit society.21
Labourer Thomas Bird was suffering from asthma when he was dis-
charged from the tea warehouse in June 1836 aged forty-eight, and
because of this complaint he was unable to gain admission to any bene-
fit or burial society, having been compelled when he entered Company
service to leave the benefit society of which he was then a member.22
Another cause of complaint was the system of banding for the com-
pensation payments. There was a large jump from a pension of 8s per
week for labourers with service of more than twenty and less than twenty-
five years to 10s 6d for those who had served for over twenty-five and less
than thirty years. All redundant labourers with less than twenty years’
service (over 60 per cent of those employed in May 1834) were given a
weekly pension of 7s 6d. This meant that the newest entrants and the
youngest men appeared to be favoured. William Card, one of the last la-
bourers to be admitted to the Company warehouses, received a pension
of 7s 6d per week when he was discharged in the autumn of 1834 after
serving just one year and eleven months, the same rate as Richard Dean
who had been a labourer for nineteen and a quarter years. Another
example was George Wallis who joined the Third Regiment of the
Royal East India Volunteers as a drummer aged fourteen in 1828 and
subsequently became an established labourer at the Bengal and Coast
warehouse. In 1834 he was entitled to a pension of 7s 6d per week for
life at the age of just twenty.23
The Times set out the case for the ‘middling’ men with between ten
and twenty-five years’ service who considered themselves hard done by
in comparison with more recent recruits: ‘Surely this class of humble
individuals should be thought worthy the notice of their hon. employ-
ers … more particularly as their employment has been for the benefit
of the country in general’. The discontented labourers gave a petition
to a sympathetic warehouse-keeper to present to the Court of Directors
but no answer was received.24 Another petition was delivered in the
autumn of 1835 to the House of Commons from the ‘inferior and la-
bouring servants of the Honourable East India Company’ asking the
Members to overrule the Board of Control by granting them two-thirds
pay as compensation for their loss of jobs in line with the terms agreed
for the more senior staff in the warehouses, but this also met with no
response.25 In October 1837 a petition was submitted to the directors
signed by twenty-two of the remaining labourers who had served over
twenty and under twenty-five years. They thanked the Company for the
provision which would be made for them on retirement, ‘an event which
your Petitioners anticipate with the utmost poignant feelings of regret
to be rapidly approaching’, but pointed out how disadvantageous the
pension scale was to them and asked for their forthcoming pension to
be increased. The directors again refused to alter the compensation
terms.26
A petition bearing the names of eighty-two extra labourers was pre-
sented to the Court in December 1836 thanking the directors for the
‘greatest liberality’ shown to them, but drawing attention to the priva-
tions they had suffered by the cessation of the Company’s trade and
renewing a request first made in 1833 for the grant of a small sum in
compensation for their loss of employment. The men, ‘old and tried ser-
vants’, claimed to have the support of some of the directors, including
Joseph Cotton and John Masterman. Having reviewed earlier proceed-
ings on the question of whether compensation should be awarded to
the non-established labourers, the Finance and Home Committee de-
cided to negative the petition and not to make any allowance.27
The extra labourers were not the only ones to cast covetous glances
at the compensation pensions. Men pensioned before the introduc-
tion of the redundancy scheme received a lower rate and there were
cases of pensioners seeking to re-enter Company service in order to
be discharged under the new rules and on the new scale, for example,
Fitzmaurice Walsh who unsuccessfully petitioned the Company to this
effect in October 1834 hoping to secure a pension of 7s 6d per week.28
John Rowlands, who had worked as a labourer in the tea department
at Crutched Friars from March 1825 to April 1832, ‘did unadvisedly
quit your Honorable Employ under the delusive hope of bettering his
condition about two years prior to that generous provision which your
Honorable Committee condescended in their goodness to bestow upon
the Laborers then in service’. He had been unable to find regular em-
ployment ever since and asked the directors to overlook his ‘ignorance
and folly’ and to reinstate him on their books as a pensioner. His re-
quest was also turned down.29
Having decided the compensation rates for its servants, the East India
Company proceeded to the task of winding up its commercial business
as quickly as possible, a difficult operation which involved the sale of
millions of pounds of tea and other commodities stored in London, the
discharge of all surplus staff, and the closure and disposal of most of
the warehouses. The Company also had to negotiate with its Canadian
agents Forsyth, Richardson and Co. for closure of the Montreal tea
warehouse.
No more ships were sent to Asia to trade, meaning that the cargoes
returned on East Indiamen already embarked on voyages were the
last to enter the warehouses, and thereafter only deliveries of goods
out of the warehouses were made. As the various commodities were
sold and taken away by the buyers, the warehouse-keepers submitted a
joint monthly report on the state of business to the Finance and Home
Committee. From the summer of 1834 the Company started to shut up
and sell its warehouses and to rationalize storage in those remaining.30
Operations were consolidated to cut costs and increase efficiency: the
baggage warehouse ceased to be a separate unit in June 1834 and its busi-
ness was transferred to the Bengal and Coast Warehouse;31 the private
trade and assistant private trade warehouses were united in December
1834 under the superintendence of William Johnson;32 and the cloth
and stationery warehouses were combined with the department of the
Inspector of Military Stores at Lady Day 1835.33 As warehouses were
emptied and sold, men were retired or transferred to work at other
Company buildings.34
It was resolved in July 1834 that 240 men would be discharged from
the warehouses at Michaelmas 1834 and 300 more at Christmas that
year.35 The directors expressed their sympathy for the plight of the
commodores and labourers, and were determined that volunteers for
retirement should be sought first in order ‘to carry those reductions
into effect with as great a regard to the comfort and advantage of the
Men, as the nature of the case could possibly admit’.36 The warehouse-
keepers were to make returns to the Finance and Home Committee of
the number of men who wished to be allowed to retire at Michaelmas
1834, and the Company solicitor was to prepare a deed for execution by
those leaving renouncing all claims on the welfare fund.37 In December

1834, the Finance and Home Committee reported that 414 men had
volunteered to retire at Michaelmas and eleven other men had since
been pensioned at their own request. The Committee believed that the
services of a further 235 men might be dispensed with at Christmas,
making a total of 660 discharged in 1834, instead of 540 as at first rec-
ommended. The principle of first seeking volunteers was adhered to
but this time only 100 men came forward and the shortfall needed to
be addressed. The Committee was concerned: the excess of volunteers
at Michaelmas had given rise to the expectation that there would be the
same demand at Christmas, and the men who were now to be warned
of impending retirement might be ‘quite unprepared and perhaps dis-
tressed at so sudden a notice’. A recommendation was therefore made
to the Court that only volunteers should be discharged at Christmas
1834. Since 450,000 chests of unsold Company tea would remain in
the warehouses after the December sale, it was decided that profitable
employment might be found for a larger number of men in the tea
department by anticipating the work of preparing the teas for future
sales. The Company might then discharge a larger number of labour-
ers in 1835. The warehouse-keepers were ordered to select twenty-two
commodores and 113 labourers who were the least efficient workers by
reason of old age or infirmity. They were then to give these men notice
that they would be retiring from Company service on Lady Day 1835.38
Under the watchful eye of the Board of Control and Parliament,
the directors had to ensure that the programme of warehouse closures
was carefully managed. The Company clerks were obliged to prepare
detailed lists of names ‘specifying the particulars of the compensation
proposed to be granted to reduced officers and servants of the East
India Company in England’ for submission to the House of Commons.39
The Company needed to whittle away the number of non-manual staff
of warehouse-keepers and their assistants, elders, clerks and writers as
well as make sweeping cuts in the labourer workforce. The planned
arrangements were kept under constant review as the Company never
knew how many men would come forward to retire voluntarily each
quarter or how many men would die before they could be discharged.
As the redundancy scheme progressed, the ‘least efficient’ men came
to be those with less experience of the job they were doing, since their
colleagues handicapped by advancing years or ill health had already left
the warehouses.40
The relentless reduction of the warehouse establishment was ef-
fected throughout the years 1834 to 1839. Table 24 demonstrates the
progressive cutting of the number of staff at all grades from April 1834
to December 1837.
Table 24: Strength of the warehouse establishment, 1834–7
Warehouse Assistant Chief clerk Clerks Extra Writers Elders Assistant Deputy Commodores, Total number
-keepers warehouse- Blackwall clerks elders assistant messengers of warehouse
keepers elders & labourers staff
22 April 4 3 1 30 3 94 12 24 20 2106 2297

1834
26 3 1 1 20 2 37 9 13 12 1542 1640
December
1834
26 2 1 1 14 2 25 6 10 6 881 948
December
1835
26 2 1 1 9 1 20 4 8 6 444 496
December
1836
26 1 1 0 7 0 12 2 4 4 274 305
December
1837
Source: BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 78 of December 1836; L/F/2/25, no. 6 of December 1837.
In 1835 the Company divested itself of a substantial amount of com-

mercial property: the tea warehouses in Fenchurch Street, French
Ordinary Court, Jewry Street, Crutched Friars, Haydon Square and St
Helen’s; the private trade warehouses in Billiter Street and Seething
Lane; the naval store warehouse at Ratcliff; and the spice warehouses
at Blackwall. The following year, the lease of Rumball’s private trade
warehouse was disposed of, and the Cutler Street warehouses were sold
with completion of the conveyance postponed until 1838. The Ratcliff
saltpetre warehouses were sold in 1837, followed in 1838 by the under-
lease of Cooper’s Row.
At Michaelmas 1838 the remainder of the staff in the once huge tea
department was discharged: one acting warehouse-keeper; two clerks;
one elder; two deputy assistant elders; four writers; and sixty-five com-
modores, messengers, gate-keepers and labourers.41 In December 1838
William Johnson, keeper of the consolidated private trade department,
reported that all the Company raw silk had been sold, and that great
progress had been made with clearing old goods and stores, with a
final sale of these scheduled for January 1839. By Lady Day 1839, no
warehouse room was required for commercial purposes, and Johnson
retired together with seven elders and writers and forty-eight commo-
dores, gate-keepers and labourers.42 Johnson received a compensation
allowance of £740 per annum, together with a gratuity of £200 in recog-
nition of his zeal and application in winding up the business of several
branches with which he had no previous connection whilst at the same
time managing his own immediate department.43 A small number of
mainly clerical warehouse staff was retained until Midsummer 1840 to
deal with outstanding business. After that only two men were kept on
for their thorough knowledge of the content and arrangement of the
books and documents used in the former warehouses: writer George
Keay and messenger Robert Disney, a former labourer ‘who is repre-
sented as a very intelligent person’.44
A large number of men died in the months following their retirement
and many others were too ill or infirm to secure employment outside the
Company, suggesting that the warehouse-keepers did try to abide by the
directors’ instructions to weed out the least effective labourers at each
stage of the closure process. Commodore John Snellgrove was seriously
ill when he was pensioned on 29 September 1835, and he ‘lingered’
until 24 March 1836 when he died.45 Charles Bohlen, who had served
as labourer and then gatekeeper, was discharged on 29 September 1836
but died at the age of sixty-one just over a fortnight later ‘having la-
bored previously under a long indisposition’.46 When Thomas Cluse was
pensioned from the tea warehouse on 29 September 1836 he was ill and
drawing an allowance from the sick fund. Cluse did not recover and was
never able to work again before his death on 6 January 1838.47 Some
men volunteered to retire for reasons of health. Joseph Hackney, a la-
bourer at the private trade warehouse aged fifty-six, asked to be allowed
to leave in June 1837 after nearly thirty-seven years’ service, because
he felt his ‘increasing inability to do his duty satisfactorily’ having long
suffered from rupture and rheumatism. He wished to see if country air
would improve his health.48
The availability of alternative employment was a major factor in deter-
mining which men volunteered for retirement under the compensation
scheme. The mid- to late 1830s was a time of widespread unemploy-
ment and underemployment in Britain, with thousands thrown out of
work during the trough of a cyclical trade depression which lasted from
1839 to 1842.49 Thus the redundant Company labourers were forced to
enter the job market at a difficult time, and the offer of permanent and
secure work elsewhere prompted many labourers to ask to leave before
they were selected for redundancy. George Atkins successfully sought
permission to retire in December 1836 having been offered permanent
employment at the Army Pay Office in Whitehall where for twenty years
he had been employed as an extra messenger after putting in his hours
at the Company warehouse.50 Edward Smith petitioned to be released
on pension since he knew that he would have to leave Company employ-
ment soon and had ‘succeeded in his endeavours for the attainment of
a comfortable livelihood for the future’.51
Smith’s request was granted but the Finance and Home Committee did
not just nod through such applications. Each case was considered on its own
merits and the warehouse-keeper was required to comment on the pru-
dence of giving sanction. The Committee received a petition in February
1835 from Henry Windsor, a former drummer in the Royal East India
Volunteers and now a permanent labourer in the Bengal warehouse.
Windsor sought permission to retire on pension: ‘a favourable opening
presents itself whereby he has a prospect of being advantageously set-
tled’. After reading the report of the warehouse-keeper, the Committee
resolved that the petition should be rejected: the young men remain-
ing on the warehouse books who were appointed labourers as a result
of being enrolled as drummers were all, with one exception, efficient
labourers, and they enjoyed good eyesight which was required for open-
ing packages of raw silk.52 This policy was however relaxed in August
1836 when John Brown, a former drummer, was allowed to leave the
Bengal warehouse to seize an opportunity to improve his circumstances.
Keeper William Johnson reported that it would not inconvenience his de-
partment if the Committee was henceforth to discontinue the order.53
In April 1835 Henry McCowen and Edward Young asked to be al-

lowed to retire immediately from the private trade warehouse because
they had the ‘prospect of permanent and beneficial employment’.
The Committee decided that the Company could not spare the two
men and told McCowen and Young that they would have to procure
equally efficient substitutes from the labourers who had already been
pensioned, and that these replacements would have to relinquish their
pensions during the period of their re-employment by the Company.54
The Committee received a report nine days later that the labourers had
managed to find two suitable men from amongst the pensioners to fill
their places, namely George Nevill and Charles Harris who had been
pensioned at Michaelmas 1834. McCowen and Young were placed on
the pension list from 20 April 1835 and the pensions paid to Nevill and
Harris ceased from that day.55 However, the withdrawal of Nevill and
Harris from retirement was only short-lived: they were pensioned again
in June and October 1835 respectively.56
A small percentage of the labourers escaped redundancy by secur-
ing permanent posts elsewhere within the Company. A few labourers
transferred to East India House as messengers or extra watchmen.57
Jobs in the Military Store were eagerly sought since this warehouse was
to remain open after the rest closed.58 There is evidence that patronage
could play a part in deciding who was successful in securing a transfer.
In October 1837 James Brown, a labourer at the Military Store, peti-
tioned for retirement. Colonel Bonner, the Inspector of Military Stores,
reported that there were men in the other warehouses very willing to
change places with Brown and suggested that an exchange should be
sanctioned. James Goodiff was selected after Bonner received a note
from William Astell, the chairman of the Court of Directors: ‘If it be
possible to employ in your Department James Goodiff on his meditated
removal from the Asst private trade warehouse you will oblige.’59
Many of the commodores and labourers found jobs with the dock
companies in London. Since the dock companies purchased many of
the East India Company warehouses, some men continued to work in
the same buildings: the East and West India Dock Companies (which
amalgamated in 1838) acquired the warehouses at Blackwall, Crutched
Friars, Billiter Street, Jewry Street, Fenchurch Street and French
Ordinary Court, while the St Katharine Dock Company bought New
Street, Cutler Street and Haydon Square.60 Once the commercial
monopoly was removed, the dock companies sought to hire men ex-
perienced in handling particular types of goods, and they could more
or less have their pick from the East India Company men facing redun-
dancy, selecting only those meeting the essential criteria of competence
and respectability.61 Certificates verifying good conduct in the Company

warehouses could be obtained from the keepers: Michael Gorman, for-
merly a labourer at the private trade warehouse, had a certificate of
satisfactory service given to him by William Johnson in July 1836 to show
to the dock companies.62 Some men were borrowed from the Company
warehouses with the permission of the Finance and Home Committee
to attend temporarily at the dock company premises and many of them
were subsequently offered permanent jobs. In February 1835 the West
India Dock Company asked for the loan of three labourers who were
conversant with the management of cinnamon. The Committee agreed
that George Jackson and Richard Garrett, labourers at the private trade
warehouse, should attend.63 Three weeks later, Jackson was offered a per-
manent position at the West India Docks and the East India Company
released him.64 Peter Dobby and William Stoakes were appointed fore-
men in the raw silk department of the East India Dock Company in May
1835 because of their experience of dealing with this commodity in
the Bengal warehouse.65 The East India Dock Company requested the
permanent transfer of one commodore and three labourers from the
tea warehouses in April 1835. The warehouse-keeper made no objec-
tion, observing that the East India Dock Company was at a disadvantage
because it had received its first free trade tea after the other dock com-
panies had engaged the pensioned commodores and labourers who
were most useful in assisting in the management of teas.66
Hundreds of Company warehouse labourers transferred to the dock
companies but not all were lucky enough to be appointed as permanent
labourers who were guaranteed employment, albeit not always continu-
ously.67 Some were only ‘preferable’ men who could normally expect to
be given work but at a lower rate of pay than the permanent labourers.
Of the fifty-three former East India Company labourers who transferred
to the London Dock Company in March 1835, ten were appointed as
‘preferables’ at a wage of 16s 6d per week, whereas the forty-three per-
manent men earned at least 18s per week, rising to 24s if they had the
experience necessary to work with spices and cinnamon or with silk and
piece goods.68 By September 1838, the dock companies had resolved not
to admit any more men above the age of thirty-five, which was a harsh
blow to the older commodores and labourers amongst those who had
been retained until the last of the warehouse closures. Denied what had
seemed a likely source of new employment, the men regretted ‘that cir-
cumstances should unfortunately militate against their future welfare’
and anticipated their retirement with ‘consternation and dismay’.69
Many redundant labourers returned to the occupations they had fol-
lowed before they were admitted to the Company warehouses, whilst
some struck out in new directions. Those who reverted to their former
trades now had the cushion of their Company pension to assist them
in times of difficulty. Examples of labourers who resumed their old oc-
cupations to provide their main source of income were Nicholas Oram,
a cabinet maker in Shoreditch;70 Joseph Annaball, a boat builder in
Poplar;71 Charles Ward, a carver and gilder in St Botolph Bishopsgate;72
James Smallwood, a tallow chandler in Mile End;73 Adam Edwards,
a paper hanger in Whitechapel;74 and Joel Mason, a shoe maker in
Southwark.75 Amongst those seeking a new way to earn their livelihood
were Phillip Slater who obtained a permanent position in the City
police,76 and Benjamin Constable who in June 1838 secured a position
as turnkey at Whitecross Debtors’ Prison in Cripplegate, east London
and rose to be appointed governor of the gaol in 1862.77
A success story such as that of Constable was very rare, and many of
the Company labourers were forced to enter the casual labour market
in London. Even if they had been skilled workers before they entered
the warehouse, it must have proved impossible for some men to take up
that work again because of lack of demand, or because they were too
old or unhealthy. The situation was even bleaker for labourers who had
no special skills to offer. The petitions submitted to the Finance and
Home Committee show that many of the former labourers never had
regular employment again after leaving the Company and were faced
with being ‘out of employ’ for long periods supported only by their
pension which was paid quarterly. Often their wives could only make a
limited contribution to the family earnings because of dependent chil-
dren.78 John Nott was discharged from the Blackwall warehouse on 24
June 1837 when he was aged fifty-five, and he informed the Company
in May 1838 that he had been out of work almost ever since, being
unable to secure a position ‘for Poor Age is not very marketable in
London’.79 William Gregg, a former commodore at the Haydon Square
tea warehouse, reported in March 1838 that, although he had tried to
find employment by advertisement and application, he had not worked
since he retired at Midsummer 1837 because his age of fifty counted
against him.80
Michael Green, a labourer in the tea department at Cutler Street
petitioned the Company in May 1836 as he was finding it almost impos-
sible to obtain any kind of employment in London, and wanted to move
with his wife and three sons to his native country of Ireland where he
would be able to subsist at a much more reasonable rate. The Company
granted him an advance of three months’ pension to enable him to do
so.81 Green was one of a number of labourers given advances to return
to their place of birth where relations had promised them employment,
many in Ireland. The Company did not always agree to an advance and
relied upon the judgment of the warehouse-keepers on whether or
not payment would be of benefit to the applicant. Thus in December
1836 the Finance and Home Committee rejected Robert Louttit’s re-
quest for advance payment of one quarter’s pension to enable him to
go to Scotland after reading the report of Henry Seally: ‘I regret to be
under the necessity of stating that the Petitioner is much addicted to
liquor.’82
Another means of escaping the struggle to find work in London was
to emigrate. Encouraged by the Government Emigration Office, many
thousands of British people moved across the Atlantic or to Australia
in the 1830s lured by the promise of plentiful work and higher wages.
In 1835 a total of 8043 people emigrated from London alone.83 There
were plenty of shipping agents in London advertising passages for emi-
grants, some in the vicinity of East India House, and perhaps that was
what prompted warehouse labourer William Baker in September 1834
to ask to be paid a lump sum in lieu of his pension to enable him to go to
Canada with his family. The Finance and Home Committee commented
that the resolution passed on 25 July 1834 concerning the commuta-
tion of pensions permitted under the Act of 1833 was not intended to
include the labourers. The directors had resolved that commutation
should be restricted in future to half of the compensation allowance
and that applicants had to support their request with the testimony of
two ‘respectable’ people that there was a reasonable prospect that the
lump sum would be more useful to the applicant and family than the
annual allowance, and with medical certificates such as those required
by managers of insurance offices to show that people wishing to take
out life insurance were in good health and had no chronic or other
disease tending to shorten their life.84 However, the Committee were
told of Baker’s ‘steadiness and sobriety’ by warehouse-keeper Thomas
Cleeve, and were given satisfactory evidence of his good health and fa-
vourable prospects of providing for his family in Canada. The auditor
was therefore instructed to pay Baker a lump sum of £210 which had
been calculated according to the same rate of actuarial valuation as
commutations for clerks’ pensions. Baker had to sign a receipt cancel-
ling his claim to the whole of his pension. Similar applications from
his fellow commodores and labourers wishing to emigrate were to be
considered henceforward, but partial commutations for other purposes
which operated for servants ranked higher in the Company hierarchy
were not to be extended to them.85
The acceptance of William Baker’s request opened the floodgates,
and between September 1834 and July 1838 nearly 500 commutation
applications were received from the warehouse commodores and la-

bourers.86 This figure includes more than one application for some men
who applied at intervals to commute their pension, undeterred by re-
jection. Sometimes second or even third requests proved successful. Of
these 500 applications, approximately half were negatived because they
did not meet the strict guidelines laid down by the Company. Between
1834 and 1840, 311 commutations were authorized for commodores
and labourers, with 70 per cent of these paid in the years 1834–6.87
There were just a handful of commutations made after 1840. The lump
sums paid varied between £150 and £351 depending upon the amount
of the man’s pension, his age and health.88
The warehouse-keepers were asked to report on commutation appli-
cants in their chain of command. These reports were a very important
component of the grant-making process and commutations were not
approved if the keeper felt it would not benefit a man or his family. The
keepers gave their judgments on the labourers’ character, often appear-
ing to be father-like figures saving improvident labourers from ruin by
limiting them to the regular drip feed of their quarterly pension rather
than risk sanctioning the payment of a single large sum. Applications
from men adjudged to have ‘unsteady’ habits were rejected, and some-
times the warehouse-keeper expressed a belief that the man did not
truly intend to emigrate but had other reasons for trying to secure a
large amount of cash. The petition of John Huggins was turned down in
July 1836 since Henry Seally regarded him as ‘a person of very unsteady
habits’, and John Connell’s request was rejected in July 1836 despite his
satisfactory conduct in the warehouse as Seally did not believe that he
intended to settle in America.89
In order to prevent the money being used for purposes other than
emigration, the directors instructed the auditor to pay directly to the
men only the sums necessary to defray the expenses of their passage
and equipment, with the remainder made payable at their destination.90
The Company was right to anticipate evasion of the rules. In April 1835
the tea warehouse-keeper wrote to the Finance and Home Committee
reporting the names of several commodores and labourers who had
returned to England from America after having received the balance
of their commutation money there.91 The 1841 census also reveals the
presence of labourers in England who were supposed to have emigrated
after commuting their Company pension, for example, Cornelius Wray,
Percival Pennington and Joseph Gamgee.92 The Finance and Home
Committee reported in 1839 that it knew of several instances where
those commuting their pension had not emigrated, instead selling their
letter of credit or entrusting it to someone else to cash on their behalf.
Fresh regulations were passed to ensure that the men signed a declara-
tion acknowledging that the letters of credit were payable only to them
personally, and to instruct those making the payment to check the iden-
tity of the person claiming the money.93
A petition from labourers wishing to commute their pension with-
out being obliged to emigrate was rejected on 14 December 1836.94
Despite the clear rules about commutation being sanctioned only for
emigration, many labourers continued to ask to be granted a lump sum
for other purposes.95 These applications were routinely rejected no
matter how worthy they may have seemed: to go into business; to open
a school; to set up a boarding house; to buy tools needed to pursue a
trade. Other men were turned away because they wished to emigrate to
places which the Company was not willing to countenance. The United
States of America, Canada, and Australia were all approved, and, in two
special cases, Madeira and Jersey. Applications to resettle in places such
as the south of France and Portugal were declined.96
Other commutation applications failed on health grounds. A de-
tailed medical report had to be submitted to ensure that the lump sum
payment was actuarially prudent, since if a man was likely to die within
a short period he would thus be removed from the pension list before
any substantial amount had been paid to him.97 Deductions were made
for medical conditions which were not considered serious enough to
warrant outright rejection but which were still a cause for some con-
cern. John Sevenoakes lost £4 14s 6d of his lump sum of £192 because
he suffered from a hernia.98 William Robert Peacock was certified by
surgeon Lewis Leese as not being subject to any particular disease, but
as having ‘an impaired constitution which will derive benefit from a Sea
Voyage’. Because of this, Peacock’s lump sum of £216 to enable him to
settle in America was reduced by 10 per cent to £195.99 Leese also re-
ported that Bryan Kiernan had no complaint that was likely to shorten
his life except a cough ‘which augments the hazard of ensuring his life
in a small degree’. A deduction of £5 was made from the sum of £207
calculated for payment to Kiernan.100
Two of the labourers granted commutations were Richard Field and
Absalom Pratt who had been sent out to the Company’s Montreal ware-
house in 1825. Whereas John Bradshaw had returned to England in
1829 to work as a labourer in the Cutler Street warehouse, Field and
Pratt remained in Canada until they were made redundant. All three
men had married in Montreal.101 In 1835 Field travelled to London and
petitioned unsuccessfully for his weekly pension of 7s 6d to be enhanced
beyond that of a labourer because he claimed to have borne more re-
sponsibility than a Company elder in London.102 He later submitted an
application to commute in order to emigrate and was awarded £213

in June 1836.103 Field arrived with his wife and son in New York in
September 1836, but returned to London in time to be recorded by
the 1841 census enumerator for Shoreditch as a tea inspector living just
with his son Elias.104 Absalom Pratt wished to settle in Canada, and in
1837 he was allowed to commute his pension for a lump sum of £197 to
be paid by Forsyth and Richardson according to the rate of exchange
on the day they dispensed with his services.105 Pratt subsequently moved
to New York and died in Brooklyn in August 1860.106
The application of political activist Richard Luckins for commutation
to enable him to emigrate to New York was approved by the Finance
and Home Committee in December 1839.107 Press reports indicate
that ‘Citizen’ Luckins had continued to be involved in London cam-
paigns for the enfranchisement of the working class in during the five
years since his retirement.108 By 1853 he had settled in the new town of
Lansing in Allamakee County, Iowa with his wife Charlotte and was a
member of the township committee of democrats.109
***
The administration of the commutation scheme demonstrates how the

East India Company continued to strive to maintain a balance between
paternalistic care and practical financial prudence even as their ‘family’
of workers was being reduced and dispersed. Labourers whose applica-
tions to commute were successful had to sign away all their claims on
the Company, and the economic tie between man and master was cut
once and for all. There are a few extant petitions from labourers who
fell upon hard times after emigrating, but who discovered that no help
was forthcoming from the Company; for example, Samuel Benstead
who emigrated with his family in 1835 and set up business as a grocer in
New Jersey. He lost money by investing unwisely and was reduced from
the ‘most flattering prospects to perfect destitution’. He returned to
London in 1838 with his wife and six of their eight children and asked
the Company for financial assistance to no avail.110
Yet the Company’s devotion of much time and effort to weeding out
commutation applications deemed unsuitable suggests that the direc-
tors had no great desire to sever all links with the labourers. Indeed they
believed that the Company’s duty of care persisted not only with respect
to the small body of labourers retained in the Military Store depart-
ment, but also to the newly expanded group of warehouse pensioners.
The Company’s management of both sets of men in the new circum-
stances of its post-commercial era is examined in the next chapter.
Notes
1 BL, IOR: L/F/2/51, no. 81 of July 1840, Petition of Samson Richards contain-
ing a copy of this poem ‘Published by S Richards, 52 Broadwall, Blackfriars’.
2 Papers Respecting the Plan of Compensations Proposed to be Granted to the Commanders
and Officers of the Maritime Service of the East India Company (London, 1834),
p. 11, Report of the Finance and Home Committee 7 May 1834.
3 Acres, Bank of England, vol. 2, pp. 438–9.
4 BL, IOR: L/F/1/53, no. 232, Finance and Home Committee 5 August 1834.
6 BL, IOR: L/F/2/57 no. 65 of March 1841.
7 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 824, Finance and Home Committee 12 November 1834;
TNA: HO 107/666/5 f. 18, 1841 census for Finsbury.
8 BL, IOR: L/F/1/4, p. 931, Finance and Home Committee 1 March 1836;
BL, IOR: L/F/2/17, no. 167 of April 1837; BL, IOR: L/F/2/27, no number
[before no. 111 of February 1838].
9 Papers Respecting the Plan of Compensations, p. 14.
10 See, for example, Papers Respecting the Plan of Compensations; The Gentleman’s
Magazine (September 1834), pp. 275–6; Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, Third
series, vol. 26 (London, 1835), columns 839–46.
11 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/9.
12 BL, IOR: B/188, pp. 369–70, Court Minutes 25 June 1834.
13 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, pp. 597–9, Finance and Home Committee 27 August
1834.
14 BL, IOR: D/243, no. 130, Auditor’s reference: Commodores’ petition to the
Court of Directors asking for an addition to their compensation allowance.
Finance and Home Committee 3 September 1834. Reported 1 October 1834.
15 BL, IOR: L/F/1/53, no. 375, Finance and Home Committee 1 October 1834.
16 BL, IOR: D/245, no. 405, Auditor’s reference November 1834; BL, IOR: L/
F/1/1, pp. 799–800, Finance and Home Committee 5 November 1834.
17 BL, IOR: B/189, pp. 195, 467, Court Minutes 23 December 1834 and 27
February 1835.
18 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, p. 630, Finance and Home Committee 24 April 1835; BL,
IOR: L/F/1/2, pp. 749–50, Finance and Home Committee 20 May 1835.
19 BL, IOR: L/F/2/5, no. 22 of February 1836. Marsh retired aged forty-three
on 25 March 1836 on a pension of 8s 6d per week (BL, IOR: L/PARL/2/47
and BL, IOR: L/F/1/55, no. 444). He died suddenly on 9 July 1839 leaving a
widow and four young children in great poverty (BL, IOR: L/F/2/42 no. 82 of
Jul 1839).
20 The Times, 6 October 1834, p. 1d.
21 BL, IOR: L/F/2/17, no. 168 of April 1837, Petition of Susan Province for help
with her husband’s funeral expenses.
22 BL, IOR: L/F/2/28, no. 39 of March 1838, Petition of Frances E. Bird for help
with her husband’s funeral expenses.
23 BL, IOR: L/AG/21/6/2; BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5, no. 4669. Card was admitted
on 20 November 1832. Former Royal East India Volunteers drummers Maurice
Walsh and Joseph John Hope were subsequently made permanent labourers
on reaching the age of eighteen in 1833 and 1835 (BL, IOR: L/F/2/36, no.
20 of December 1838; BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4). For Wallis, See BL, IOR: L/
MIL/5/485 and BL, IOR: L/AG/21/6/2.
24 The Times, 21 October 1834, p. 2e.
25 The Journal of the House of Commons, 90 (London, 1835), p. 649, 4 September
1835.
26 BL, IOR: L/F/2/23, no. 10 of October 1837, Petition of warehouse
labourers.
27 BL, IOR: L/F/1/55, no. 367, Finance and Home Committee 30 December
1836; BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 152 of December 1836.
28 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, p. 716, Finance and Home Committee 1 October 1834.
29 BL, IOR: L/F/2/27, no. 101 of February 1838, Petition of John Rowlands
for reinstatement. Rowlands had previously applied in October 1832 to the
Committee of Buying and Warehouses to be readmitted but his request was
rejected.
30 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, pp. 640–1, Finance and Home Committee 3 September
1834.
31 BL, IOR: L/F/1/53, no. 149, Finance and Home Committee 18 June 1834.
32 BL, IOR: L/F/1/53, no. 129, Finance and Home Committee 11 June 1834.
33 BL, IOR: L/F/1/54, no. 190, Finance and Home Committee 28 July 1835.
34 See BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4, East India Company warehouse establishment from
1830.
1834.
37 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, pp. 597–9, Finance and Home Committee 27 August 1834;
for deeds of release see BL, IOR: L/AG/23/3C.
1834.
39 BL, IOR: L/PARL/2/435, Allowance, superannuation and compensation
book 1830–8.
40 See the case of Thomas Marsh, pp. 163–4.
41 BL, IOR: L/F/1/57, no. 91, Finance and Home Committee 28 May 1838.
1838.
43 BL, IOR: L/F/1/59, no. 631, Finance and Home Committee 13 March 1839.
44 BL, IOR: L/F/1/59, no. 639, Finance and Home Committee 19 March 1839;
BL, IOR: L/F/1/61, no. 634, Finance and Home Committee 26 February
1840. For more about Disney, see Chapter 4.
45 BL, IOR: L/F/2/20, no. 36 of July 1837, Petition of widow Dinah Snellgrove
for financial assistance.
46 BL, IOR: L/F/2/11, no. 103 of October 1836, Petition of Charles Bohlen
junior for assistance with his father’s funeral expenses.
47 BL, IOR: L/F/2/26, no. 241 of January 1838, Petition of widow Sarah Cluse
for relief.
48 BL, IOR: L/F/2/19, no. 20 of June 1837. Hackney’s request was granted (BL,
IOR: L/F/1/6, pp. 219–20, Finance and Home Committee 7 June 1837).
49 John Burnett, Idle Hands – The Experience of Unemployment, 1790–1990 (London,
1994), p. 316 n. 7.
50 BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 77 of December 1836, Petition of George Atkins.

51 BL, IOR: L/F/2/17, no. 106 of April 1837, Petition of Edward Smith.
52 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, pp. 350–1, Finance and Home Committee 18 February
1835.
53 BL, IOR: L/F/2/9, no. 271 of August 1836, Petition of John Brown.
54 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, pp. 611–12, Finance and Home Committee 15 April
1835.
55 BL, IOR; L/F/1/54, no. 20, Finance and Home Committee 24 April 1835.
56 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/27.
57 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4; BL, IOR: L/F/1 Minutes of the Finance and Home
Committee, passim.
58 Petitions to the Finance and Home Committee scattered throughout BL, IOR:
L/F/2.
59 BL, IOR: L/F/2/23, no. 257 of October 1837; BL, IOR: L/F/1/7, p. 104,
Finance and Home Committee 31 October 1837.
60 For the sale transactions, see BL, IOR: L/L/2, East India Company title
deeds.
61 Henderson and Palmer, ‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of London’,
p. 45.
62 BL, IOR: L/F/2/8, ff 233–4v, Petition of Michael Gorman including a copy of
the certificate.
63 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, p. 364, Finance and Home Committee 18 February 1835.
65 MID: East India Dock Company Book M, p. 422, Minutes 18 May 1835.
66 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, p. 620, Finance and Home Committee 24 April 1835.
67 Henderson and Palmer, ‘The Early Nineteenth-Century Port of London’,
p. 44.
68 MID, London Dock Company Court of Directors’ Minute Book December
1832–August 1836, pp. 233–9, Minutes 31 March 1835 Management of busi-
ness in tea, indigo, silk and piece goods, drug and spice warehouses.
69 BL, IOR: L/F/2/34, no.19 of September 1838, Petition of commodores and
labourers who had received notice of being pensioned at Michaelmas 1838.
70 TNA: HO 107/704/1, f. 48, Census return June 1841; BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5
no. 1511.
no. 3810.
no. 2405.
no. 700.
no. 4233.
75 TNA: HO 107/1047/2, f. 11 Census return June 1841; BL, IOR: L/AG/30/5
no. 1663.
76 BL, IOR: L/F/2/33, no. 53 of August 1838, Petition of Phillip Slater.
77 Tenth Report of the Inspectors Appointed under the Provisions of the Act 5 & 6 Will.
IV. c. 38, to Visit the Different Prisons of Great Britain. I. Home District (London,
1845), p. 510; TNA: HO 107/1525 f. 418, Census return March 1851; BL, IOR:
L/AG/21/5/7-9; The Times, 1 August 1862, p. 12a.

79 BL, IOR: L/F/2/30, no. 121 of May 1838, Petition of John Nott for an advance
of £60 to set up a school or some ‘small adventure’ in the country.
80 BL, IOR: L/F/2/28, no. 127 of March 1838, Petition of William Gregg.
81 BL, IOR: L/F/2/6, no. 120 of May 1836, Petition of Michael Green.
82 BL, IOR: L/F/2/13, no. 98 of December 1836, Petition of Robert Louttit.
83 Reports, Correspondence and Papers relating to Emigration from the United Kingdom
to the Colonies, 1828-38, Facsimile reproduction Irish University Press series of
British Parliamentary papers, 19 Emigration (Shannon, 1969), pp. 370–1. In
1835, 1001 people emigrated from London to the British colonies in North
America; 5150 to the United States; 309 to the Cape of Good Hope; and 1583
to Australia.
84 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/12, p. 123.
85 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, pp. 610-11, 628, Finance and Home Committee 3 and 10
September 1834; BL, IOR: L/AG/30/12, p. 123.
86 BL, IOR: L/F/1 and L/F/2, passim.
87 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24-27.
88 For the amounts given as commutation payments 1834–53, see BL, IOR:
L/AG/35/24-27.
89 BL, IOR: L/F/2/8, ff 35–6v, Petition of John Huggins; BL, IOR: L/F/2/8, ff
355–5v, Petition of John Connell.
90 BL, IOR: L/F/1/1, pp. 697–8, Finance and Home Committee 1 October
1834.
91 BL, IOR: L/F/1/2, pp. 608–9, Finance and Home Committee 15 April 1835.
The list of names does not appear to have survived.
92 TNA: HO 107/705/4, f. 33; TNA: HO 107/1058/3, f. 8; TNA: HO 107/698/5,
f. 12.
93 BL, IOR: L/F/2/39, no. 108 of April 1839.
94 BL, IOR: L/F/1/4, p. 707.
95 For the commutation petitions, see BL, IOR: L/F/2, passim.
96 BL, IOR: L/F/2/30, no. 123 of May 1838, Petition of James Botwright to
commute his pension to move to Jersey, with notes on precedents. Although
Botwright’s initial application was rejected, the commutation was granted as
a special case in July 1838. See BL, IOR: L/F/1/8, pp. 338–9, Finance and
Home Committee 4 July 1838.
97 For an example of the document which needed to be completed, see BL,
IOR: L/F/2/10, no. 152 of September 1836, Report form concerning Richard
Harris completed by warehouse surgeon James Hume Spry.
98 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24. Sevenoakes commuted his pension on 26 August 1835
to emigrate to America.
99 BL, IOR: L/F/1/3, p. 235, Finance and Home Committee 14 October 1835;
BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24.
100 BL, IOR: L/F/1/4, p. 416, Finance and Home Committee 31 August 1836.
101 Drouin Collection of Quebec Vital and Church Records at http://www.
ancestry.co.uk, accessed June 2009.
102 BL, IOR: L/F/2/5, no. 47 and 49 of February 1836, Petitions of Richard
Field.
103 BL, IOR: L/F/1/4, p. 197, Finance and Home Committee 29 June 1836.
104 New York Passenger Lists at http://www.ancestry.co.uk, accessed June 2009;
TNA: HO 107/705/2 f. 25v.
105 BL, IOR: L/F/2/16, no. 131 of March 1837, Papers from Forsyth, Richardson
and Co.; BL, IOR: L/F/2/20, no. 240 of July 1837; BL, IOR: L/F/1/6, p.
432, Finance and Home Committee 28 July 1837.
106 1850 United States Federal Census, and the Barber Collection of New York
newspaper death notices 1801–1890, at http://www.ancestry.co.uk, accessed
June 2009.
107 BL, IOR: L/F/1/11, pp. 244–5, Finance and Home Committee 11 December
1839. Luckins was granted a lump sum of £194.
108 For example, chairing a meeting for the London Democratic Association in
September 1838 (The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, 15 September
1838, p. 8c), and a supper to celebrate the birth of Thomas Paine (The
Operative, 10 February 1839). Newspapers accessed online September 2009 at
http://www.bl.uk.
109 History of Allamakee County at http://www.sharylscabin.com/Allamakee/
history2/chap10.htm, accessed September 2009. Luckins died in Lansing in
February 1861: Allamakee County, Iowa burial grounds, entries for Richard
and Charlotte Luckins in Old Oak Hill Cemetery 1861 and 1874 at http://www.
sharylscabin.com/Allamakee/cemetery/woodmansee.htm, accessed September
2009.
110 BL, IOR: L/F/2/30, no. 265 of May 1838, Petition of Samuel Benstead.
Nine
MANAGEMENT OF THE WAREHOUSE

LABOURERS AND PENSIONERS 1838–1858
IN SEPTEMBER 1834 the East India Company London warehouse es-

tablishment consisted of 2291 men ranked from keeper to labourer,
together with 281 pensioners. By October 1838, the balance of numbers
between workers and pensioners had been reversed and there were
2246 men on the warehouse pension list.1 The Company now had to
supervise only a small cohort of labourers but was faced with the task of
managing a very large group of warehouse pensioners differing widely
in age and scattered throughout the world. Moreover, the Company of-
ficials had to administer pensions operating under two different sets of
rules: pensioners who retired before the compensation scheme came
into operation were paid according to a less generous scale but were
still entitled to be paid welfare benefits if they had been subscribers to
the Labourers’ Fund. Charles Jones, who retired in 1825 on a pension
of 5s per week, received payments on the birth of two children in 1836
and 1841, whilst William Walker, who retired in 1830 on a pension of 7s,
received payments in 1836 for the birth of a child and the death of his
wife, and at his death in December 1876 burial money of five guineas
was paid to his daughters.2 Whereas the warehouse pension account
for the whole year ending April 1834 amounted to £6489,3 the quar-
terly pension bill at Midsummer 1841 was approximately £9000.4 The
number of pensioners did of course steadily decline as the men died:
at Lady Day 1841 there were 1548 warehouse weekly pensioners on the
books; by May 1852 there were only 903.5
The labourers who remained in Company service after the cessation
of commercial operations worked for the Military Store department
which in 1835 had been consolidated with the cloth and stationery
warehouses. The department was relocated in 1835 from Cutler Street

to the former Company spice warehouse at 108 Leadenhall Street which
had been specially converted. The cost of the alterations to the ware-
houses in Leadenhall Street amounted to £546 13s 4d, which was £14
17s 1d beyond the estimate because of the need to adapt old machinery
removed from the earlier Military Store in Cutler Street.6 Part of the
old Bengal warehouse in New Street was retained as a depository for
the Company records and it was also used as an extra store and work-
ing area by the Military Store department. Goods sent from India for
the Great Exhibition were stored at the old Bengal warehouse in 1851
and those for the Paris Exhibition in 1853; the warehouse was also used
for packing small-arms.7 The department was headed by John George
Bonner who had served as Colonel of the Madras Horse Artillery before
being appointed Inspector of Military Stores in 1832.8 Bonner was re-
sponsible for overseeing the purchase, inspection and transporting to
India of woollens and a huge range of stores and equipment, including
everything required by the Company’s military personnel. Small-arms
had to be procured and carefully examined by Company employees
before being passed for shipment. The inspector also had to organize
the supply of stationery to the home establishment and to all officials
in India.9
Bonner was assisted by Alexander Rothney, Sub-Inspector of Military
Stores since 1820. A description of Rothney’s managerial duties was
submitted to the Finance and Home Committee in 1838: he was in im-
mediate charge of receipt, inspection, issue and shipment in the Store
department, superintending the examiners, packers, commodores and
labourers and passing on Bonner’s orders to them; he was responsible
for the arrangement and safe custody of stores as well as ‘the exercise
of a vigilant control’ over the groups of workers ‘who are necessarily
subordinate to him’. Rothney had lost the help of two junior sub-inspec-
tors when the establishment was reduced in 1831, and since additional
work in the woollen, stationery, marine and medical departments had
devolved upon him since 1835 the Committee increased his salary from
£250 to £310 per annum.10
The workers under Rothney’s supervision were employed to unlade,
crane, open, sort, repack and send for export an immense quantity of
stores ‘too endless to enumerate’.11 There was a degree of specializa-
tion within the warehouse; some men worked exclusively with cloth and
woollens, and labourers on the stationery floor earned an allowance of
9d per day in addition to their ordinary pay of 2s 9d.12 Others earned an
extra 6d for marking, nailing down and preparing fittings for packing
cases.13 One labourer received a bonus of 1s a day to take responsibility
Management of the Warehouse Labourers and Pensioners, 1838–1858 185
for looking after the carts in transit to the wharf and for ensuring that
the goods were carefully treated and safely deposited.14 Other men
augmented their pay by undertaking skilled work examining stores
and arms. Commodore Richard Tucker was in charge of the Pattern
Room where examples of the various stores were kept and shown to
contractors wishing to submit tenders to supply the Company, and he
was given an extra £15 5s per annum for examining cordage, drums
and drum furniture.15 Labourer Richard Davis used skills gained during
his apprenticeship as a gun stocker before he joined the Company to
earn additional pay by helping to inspect weapons. The high quality of
Davis’s work prompted Bonner to recommend him for promotion to
assistant examiner in 1845, a position he retained until he retired aged
seventy-two in May 1856 when the size of the Small Arm Branch was
much reduced.16
The terms of employment for labourers were revised in 1838 and
1840 to reflect the great changes that had taken place in the East India
Company’s London operations and to ensure the continuation of ef-
ficient but fair management of the men. Weekly contributions to the
labourers’ fund were discontinued in December 1838, warehouse sur-
geons Lewis Leese and James Hume Spry retired, and it was decided
that it would be inexpedient to continue to provide free medical aid
to the warehouse labourers and writers. However, since these men had
been prohibited by their conditions of service from belonging to any
other welfare society, all other fund benefits were to continue for those
already in post. Thus the former contributors to the fund were still en-
titled to receive guaranteed rates of pension and sick pay, as well as
grants on the birth and death of children or the death of a wife, and
their widows were given an allowance and burial money if they died
in service.17 An annual donation of £1 payable at Christmas was given
to all those who had previously enjoyed medical aid at the Company’s
expense, including some categories of employee who had not been
contributors to the fund, namely assistant elders, examiners at the Store
department, East India House messengers, and attendants in the tea
room. This allowance was strictly limited to the staff currently in post.18
Revised regulations regarding the appointment and conditions of
employment for new labourer entrants to the Military Store depart-
ment were introduced in January 1840.19 Nominations to posts were
to be made by the Court according to the rota of patronage for the
current year, commencing with the Chairman and his Deputy, in the
same manner as other appointments made to the home establishment.
Since there were so few vacancies, nominations in practice appear to
have fallen only to the Chairman and Deputy.20 The nominee was to
be aged no more than thirty years and might be required to provide

baptismal documents as proof of this. All nominees had to produce
a medical certificate confirming a strong body and good health. The
current basic wage rate of 2s 9d for a six-hour day plus 3d per hour for
extra time was to be continued for new appointees. If unable to attend
work through illness, new entrants would be allowed the same rate of
sick pay as those currently employed, 10s 6d per week, and they might
be required to produce a medical certificate to confirm that their ab-
sence was necessary. If found ‘perfectly unfit’ for duty, the Finance and
Home Committee would consider applications for retirement if accom-
panied by a medical certificate. Those with satisfactory conduct who
had served not less than ten years would be allowed a pension of 6s per
week, rising by an extra shilling a week for each further five-year period
of service up to thirty years.
After 1840, the warehouse labourers fell into two distinct groups:
those who had been subscribers to the fund and who were still entitled
to many of its benefits; and the newer entrants who no longer had the
opportunity to participate in a full welfare scheme run by the Company,
but who nevertheless enjoyed a secure job with fair wages, sick pay, and
the long-term prospect of a pension. There was also some prospect
of gaining promotion to commodore or East India House messenger
throughout the 1840s and 1850s. The position of commodore was made
even more desirable in 1851 when extra time of 6d per hour was grant-
ed to men of that grade, whereas they had previously earned a flat rate
of daily pay no matter how many hours they worked.21
The Company continued to be a good and benevolent employer for
the labourers in the period leading up to 1858, but some of the initia-
tives which had marked it out as exceptional were no longer in place,
such as the in-house Savings Bank and, most important of all, the free
medical care for the men. However, men hurt or taken ill whilst on
duty were still assisted. For instance, in 1846, Robert Smith, a tempo-
rary labourer injured in an accident at the Military Store, was awarded
four weeks’ wages as well as £1 to pay for medicine.22 In 1849, the petty
disbursements for the Military Store in August included the sum of 7s
for Mr Merrick’s expenses in attending Dennis Crane who was ‘attacked
with Cholera’ whilst on duty at the warehouse and also 1s 6d for cab
hire to carry Crane to hospital.23
Opportunities to join the Company as a labourer after 1840 were
necessarily much more limited because of the drastic shrinkage in the
establishment, and men had to know someone with links to the patron-
age network of either the Chairman or his Deputy in order to stand
any reasonable chance of securing a post when someone retired, died
or quit. Thomas William John Corrigan was appointed as a labourer in

November 1845 on the nomination of Deputy Chairman James Weir
Hogg, having provided a letter from a doctor that he was ‘free from
diseases and capable of all the duties of a labourer in the Stores de-
partment’.24 Hogg’s patronage was probably the result of Corrigan’s
grandfather William Prosser having served the Company for forty-five
years between 1799 and 1844, first as a warehouse labourer and then as
a firelighter at East India House.25
In October 1842, the establishment of permanent labourers in the
Military Store Department totalled forty-eight, a far cry from the years
when the Company warehouse labourers had been counted in thou-
sands, and Bonner complained that this establishment was at times
insufficient to deal with the amount of work. Before the closure of
the Company’s commercial warehouses, he had been able to borrow
labourers from other departments, and since that help was no longer
available, he asked to be given authority to employ up to ten or fifteen
temporary labourers from time to time as necessary. The Finance and
Home Committee agreed, but instructed Bonner to recall capable ware-
house pensioners who were to be paid 2s per day plus 3d an hour for
extra time irrespective of how much they received as a pension. Payment
of their pensions was held in abeyance whilst they were thus employed.
The men were liable to discharge at a day’s notice and they were not en-
titled to claim an increased pension by virtue of their return to work for
the Company for an additional period.26 The directors’ resolution not
only provided the benefit of welcome employment for some pensioners
but also made good business sense since the Company was able to use
trusted men with experience of its working practices whilst saving on
the payment of their pensions.
This arrangement worked well enough for some years, but in July
1856 Bonner complained that twenty-seven of his most efficient per-
manent labourers had been drafted to East India House as assistant
messengers or were employed on special duties in the Military depart-
ment or in the cloth and woollen departments. This left him with only
twenty-one permanent and twenty-five temporary labourers to cope
with the increase in general stores business. Hitherto he had been able
to obtain the services of the required number of warehouse pension-
ers still able to do a fair day’s work as temporary labourers. However,
the supply of this extra help had become far from certain or satisfac-
tory since most of the surviving pensioners who quit the Company’s
service more than twenty years ago were now incapable of performing
the general work of the department because of their advanced age and
infirmities.27 The Finance and Home Committee sanctioned Bonner’s
employment of temporary men other than warehouse pensioners, and

set their pay at the same rate as the established labourers. In February
1857 a number of new posts were added to the permanent establish-
ment of the Military Store department to deal with increased business,
including six additional permanent labourers.28
The opportunity to work for the Company as a temporary labourer
must surely have proved popular with many of the pensioners especially
those unable to find regular employment elsewhere and those keen to
return to familiar surroundings. With the enforced closure of the com-
mercial warehouses, the men had been deprived of their experience of
work as a social relationship, described by Lummis as a ‘source of human
intercourse, conversation, humour and friendship’.29 The labourers had
worked together in teams, relying on their fellows literally to ‘pull their
weight’, with many spending years in the same warehouse, and this daily
interaction between the men was now lost to the majority of them.
It is important to realize, however, that the former Company labour-
ers did not become merely faceless names on a pension list. Labourers’
pensions were paid quarterly at the Pay Office at East India House with
a proportion of each payment given in advance: Lady Day pensions were
paid on 1 February; Midsummer on 1 May; Michaelmas on 1 August;
Christmas on 1 November.30 Since those residing within thirty miles of
London were expected to collect and sign for their money in person
on specified days, a large group of warehouse pensioners did maintain
regular personal contact with Company officials and with each other.
The Finance and Home Committee thought it important in 1834 that
the Pay Office should have, for at least the time being, the services of
someone ‘conversant with the persons and habits of the pensioners of
this class’ and recommended the retention of William Thomas, an assis-
tant elder in the tea warehouse, who had long been employed in paying
pensions for the warehouse department. Presumably Thomas’s famil-
iarity with many of the labourers was also a deterrent against fraudulent
claims for payment.
The individual attention given to the pensioners was maintained
throughout the period to 1858 and beyond, and there are snippets of
personal information about the men entered as annotations in the pen-
sion registers, sometimes with a reference to an article in The Times on
the matter. Thus the pensions clerk drew attention to William Cawley’s
bigamous marriage to his second wife’s daughter;31 John Weatherby’s
suicide when he was depressed at losing his job at the docks;32 Thomas
Belsey’s assault on his wife;33 William Darben’s arrest for being drunk
after thieves plied him with alcohol and stole his pension;34 and James
Nash’s death in the Bethnal Green lunatic asylum.35
Pensioners living within the thirty mile radius who were unable to
make the journey to East India House were allowed to execute a power
of attorney authorizing payment to a named person. A certificate signed
by the minister, magistrate, or churchwardens of the parish of residence
confirming that the pensioner was still alive had to be produced each
time the money was collected.36 Similar arrangements for remote pay-
ment were made for men living at greater distances from London,
and the pension registers contain certificates sent in from a wide geo-
graphical spread of places including Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Liverpool,
Birmingham, Worcester, Cornwall, and even Dusseldorf.37
The Company maintained a degree of flexibility regarding the pay-
ment of pensions. In March 1838, a petition arrived at East India House
from Susannah Stoakes, wife of Thomas Stoakes, a pensioned ware-
house labourer. After retirement, Stoakes had been employed at the
West India Docks, but in 1837 was transported to Van Diemen’s Land
for theft whilst at work. Since she was in bad health and reduced to a
state of utter destitution with her two children, Mrs Stoakes asked for
her husband’s pension to be continued to her. Rather than refusing
to countenance the transfer of the pension of a convicted felon, the
Finance and Home Committee ordered a routine report from the keep-
ers of the warehouses where Stoakes had worked: both William Johnson
and Henry Seally confirmed that his conduct was satisfactory whilst in
Company service. The Committee therefore agreed to pay his outstand-
ing pension to his wife and informed her that, upon production of a
certificate to show that Stoakes was still alive, it would consider doing
this again.38 Indeed, the Company did continue to pay the pension to
Stoakes’s wife, and then after her death in 1840 to his brother William
so that he could support the two children.39 In 1844, the Company ar-
ranged for the pension to be paid directly to Thomas Stoakes in Van
Diemen’s Land through the Colonial Office.40
Susannah Stoakes’s petition was just one of many hundreds from
pensioners and their families which were dealt with by the Finance and
Home Committee in the years between 1838 and 1858. In the first half
of 1838, each weekly Committee meeting was presented with about five
such petitions, each of which was accompanied by a careful report from
the warehouse-keeper who had been responsible for the labourer whilst
in service.41 These poor Londoners were treated as individuals by the
Company directors and officers regardless of their lowly social status,
and their concerns were taken seriously. A large proportion of petitions
asking for financial help came from the families of pensioners who
had died. Widows of labourers who had retired on compensation pen-
sions were not entitled to burial money as their husbands had signed
away all claim to such benefits. Yet the Company was sympathetic to the
women’s plight and often made charitable donations towards funeral
costs after calculating what would have been paid from the labourers’
fund, although the sums given were never as much as the amounts that
would have been granted under fund regulations. A number of fac-
tors were taken into account in the warehouse-keeper’s reports which
are annexed to the petitions: the behaviour of the labourer whilst in
service; the degree of destitution; the perceived moral character of the
widow; whether she was industrious; her state of health; and whether
her children were entirely dependent or able to contribute towards
their keep.
Some of the petitions revealed particularly distressing circumstances.
That of Elizabeth Coleman in May 1838 provoked an unusually strong
reaction from warehouse-keeper Henry Seally who commented ‘This is
a most deplorable case’. By the time Seally wrote his report on 21 May,
George Coleman had lain at his home unburied and without a coffin
for nine days, having suffered from dropsy for two years prior to death.
A donation of four guineas was rushed to Mrs Coleman on the author-
ity of director John Loch who undertook to obtain the sanction of the
Finance and Home Committee for this decision.42
When the Company began to receive belated petitions from widows
whose husbands had retired and died some years earlier, the Finance
and Home Committee decided that it was necessary to put some sort of
curb on its generosity. In January 1838, a petition was delivered from the
widow of Joseph Clarke who had retired in September 1834 and died in
March 1835. Mary Clarke had only just learned that the Committee had
granted money to several widows ‘with reference to the loss of that pro-
vision for Burials made by your Honors for the Honorable Company’s
Servants, their Widows and Families, previous to the expiration of their
Commercial Charter’. Notwithstanding a sympathetic report from
Seally that Mrs Clarke was of good character and in a most destitute
state, the Committee rejected her petition together with that of Frances
Bird because of the length of time since their husbands had retired.43
In April 1840, as the petitions continued to arrive, the directors de-
cided to create a formal limit for assistance to the widows of labourers
and ruled that in future no applications for relief would be entertained
where death had occurred more than five years after retirement.44 Thus
when Catherine Connell petitioned for help towards the funeral ex-
penses of her husband Maurice in October 1844, her case was rejected
because he had been pensioned in 1836.45
When William Hicks asked in August 1838 for a ‘trifle’ to help bury
his son, warehouse-keeper William Johnson believed his application
might have been prompted by his hearing of the Company’s charita-

ble donations to help widows with funeral costs. Johnson advised the
directors not to make any reference to the fund benefits if they felt in-
clined to make a grant in this or any similar case, warning that ‘It might
prove very inconvenient if the numerous Pensioners were to become
Petitioners for the several advantages of the Fund, which they have
signed an agreement to forego, & for which sixpence a week is included
in their Pension.’ The Committee heeded Johnson’s warning about cre-
ating an awkward and potentially costly precedent and rejected Hicks’s
petition.46
The Finance and Home Committee continued to deal with petitions
from warehouse pensioners and their families throughout the 1840s
and 1850s as well as overseeing the welfare of the labourers in the
Military Store department. The paternalistic link between the directors
and their warehouse labourers past and present was severed once and
for all by the Government of India Act of 1858 which replaced the East
India Company with the India Office, a Crown department headed by
a Secretary of State advised by a Council of India. It was a time of great
upheaval and change although there was some continuity of personnel
and practice. Seven members of the first Council of India were elected
by the Company directors, whilst the other eight were Crown appoin-
tees. Sir Charles Wood, the first Secretary of State for India, said that his
hardest task ‘was to break in the old Directors from being masters into
becoming advisers’.47 Responsibility for Company pensioners passed to
the India Office, and henceforward the labourers worked for the India
Store department which moved to new premises in Lambeth in the
1860s. The India Office introduced revised working conditions for the
labourers together with new admission regulations which were subject
to supervision by the Civil Service Commissioners.48
Some of the labourers who had served on the Company commercial
establishment carried through to the new era to serve different mas-
ters. One such survivor was Joseph John Hope who had followed his
father into the Company warehouses in February 1832, enlisting as a
junior labourer and drummer in the Royal East India Volunteers. He
was admitted as an established labourer in March 1835 at the age of
eighteen and became a labourer in the Military Store in 1838, later
transferring to East India House in 1848 as a messenger. Hope rose
to be an office-keeper in the India Office and lived to enjoy a long
retirement in Somerset with a pension calculated from the date of his
enrolment in the Volunteers, a beneficiary of the Company’s accurate
personnel records for all ranks of staff down to the most junior boys on
the warehouse establishment.49
***
The enforced cessation of commercial activities presented the East India

Company with new challenges. Having decided to provide compensa-
tion for its redundant warehouse servants, the Company was obliged to
administer thousands of pensions, with a significant proportion payable
to men now living outside London. That the directors felt a continu-
ing obligation to the men who had lost their jobs is evident from their
readiness to re-employ their warehouse pensioners whenever a suitable
opportunity arose and by their willingness to consider individual pe-
titions from former employees and their families. The small cadre of
labourers in the Military Store Department continued to enjoy good
conditions of employment, but the earlier initiatives which had marked
the Company as an exceptional employer, such as the provision of free
medical treatment and a subsidized in-house savings bank, were no
longer financially viable and were abandoned.
The paternal and flexible style of management exercised by the East
India Company directors did not long survive the arrival of the new ad-
ministrative structure under the Crown. When Sir Louis Mallet became
Permanent Under Secretary of the India Office in 1874, he expressed
his dismay at the ‘laxity’ which he believed pervaded the department.50
Mallet introduced an austere and disciplined regime which continued
under his successor Arthur Godley.51 The chain of benevolent manage-
ment stretching back 250 years was broken: ‘Mr. Company’s venerable
face, glowing with Burgundy and Benevolence’ had been eclipsed.52
The final chapter will consider contemporary assessments of the way
in which the East India Company treated its warehouse labourers and
evaluate the part played by benevolence in the Company’s management
of its London business operations.
Notes
1 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24.

2 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24; BL, IOR: L/AG/21/5/9, no. 122.
3 BL, IOR: L/AG/1/1/32, p. 693.
4 BL, IOR: L/AG/21/5/3, Warehouse pension receipt book 1841–4.
5 BL, IOR: L/AG/21/5/3 and BL, IOR: L/AG/21/5/5, Warehouse pension re-
ceipt books 1841–4, 1848–54.
6 BL, IOR: L/F/1/3, p. 380, Finance and Home Committee 2 December 1835.
7 BL, IOR: L/SUR, passim.
8 For Bonner’s career, see Harding, Smallarms, vol. 1.
9 Harding, Smallarms, vol. 1, pp. 72–4.
10 BL, IOR: L/F/2/27, no. 126 of February 1838; BL, IOR: L/F/1/7, p. 506,
Finance and Home Committee 21 February 1838.

11 BL, IOR: L/F/2/195, no. 188 of July 1856.
12 BL, IOR: L/F/1/3, p. 576, Finance and Home Committee 27 January 1836.
The rate of pay authorized on 11 February 1829 to labourers at the stationery
warehouse was 3s 6d per day for any length of attendance.
13 BL, IOR: L/F/2/14, no. 158 of January 1837, Letter from Bonner to the
Finance and Home Committee 23 January 1837.
16 Harding, Smallarms, vol. 1, pp. 107, 332.
17 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
18 BL, IOR: L/F/2/36, no. 101 of December 1838. For those eligible and the pay-
ments made, see BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
19 BL, IOR: L/F/2/97, no. 52 of February 1846, ‘Regulations for the appoint-
ment of Laborers at the Military Store Department dated 29th January 1840’.
21 BL, IOR: L/F/1/34, p. 214, Finance and Home Committee 4 June 1851,
Revision of the pay rates for commodores which had been in operation since
January 1829.
22 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4.
23 BL, IOR: L/F/2/127, no. 59 of September 1849. It appears from the index to
death returns for Whitechapel that Crane died in spite of the Company’s ef-
forts to secure treatment for him.
25 BL, IOR: L/F/1/20, pp. 798–9, Finance and Home Committee 2 October
1844. William Prosser’s wife Harriet also worked for the Company as a char-
woman until her death in 1842. There appear to have been at least three men
named William Prosser working for the Company in London in the early
nineteenth century and this is not the same man who appears in Chapter 3.
Thomas Corrigan was promoted to commodore in 1851, but his career with
the Company came to an abrupt end in December 1855 when he stabbed his
wife Louisa to death. He was sentenced to be hanged but was granted a last
minute reprieve and transported to New South Wales. He rebuilt his life in
Australia and became a newspaper editor.
26 BL, IOR: L/F/2/195, no. 188 of July 1856, which cites Committee proceedings
from 1842.
27 Ibid.
28 BL, IOR: L/AG/30/12, p. 427.
29 Lummis, Labour Aristocracy, p. 25.
30 BL, IOR: L/F/1/53, no. 285, Finance and Home Committee 3 September
1834.
31 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24; The Times, 9 November 1847, p. 7d.
32 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24; The Times, 1 June 1842, p. 9a.
33 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24; The Times, 13 August 1840, p. 7c.
34 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/24; The Times, 4 August 1843, p. 7b.
35 BL, IOR: L/AG/35/27.
36 See BL, IOR: L/F/2/19, no. 157 of June 1837 for a sample of the certificate.
37 BL, IOR: L/AG/21/5/1, Warehouse pension receipt book 1834–8.
38 BL, IOR: L/F/1/7, pp. 631-2, Finance and Home Committee 20 March 1838.
39 BL, IOR: L/F/1/10, p. 269 Finance and Home Committee 19 June 1839; BL,
IOR: L/F/1/14, p. 428, Finance and Home Committee 28 July 1841. William
Stoakes was also a former Company warehouse labourer: see pp. 60, 172.
40 BL, IOR: B/209, p. 178, Court Minutes 4 December 1844.
41 BL, IOR: L/F/2/27-32, Finance and Home Committee home correspondence
February to June 1838. Many papers are missing from the volume for January
1838 (BL, IOR: L/F/2/26).
42 BL, IOR: L/F/2/30, no. 241 of May 1838, Petition of Elizabeth Coleman.
43 BL, IOR: L/F/2/26, no. 27 of January 1838.
44 BL, IOR: L/F/1/12, p. 12, Finance and Home Committee 15 April 1840.
45 BL, IOR: L/F/1/20, pp. 845-6, Finance and Home Committee 16 October
1844.
46 BL, IOR: L/F/2/33, no. 31 of August 1838.
47 Quoted in Robin J. Moore, ‘Imperial India, 1858–1914’, in The Oxford History of
the British Empire, volume 3 The Nineteenth Century, ed. Andrew Porter (Oxford,
1999), p. 425.
48 BL, IOPP: MSS Eur F 249, Rules, regulations and memoranda compiled by
Henry G. Bedford, Chief Clerk, and his successors in the India Office Store
Department 1858–1909.
49 BL, IOR: L/MIL/5/485; BL, IOR: L/AG/30/4; note by Birdwood in Griggs,
Relics, p. 54. Hope died in 1897 at the age of eighty at Bridgwater in Somerset
(see General Register Office civil registration indexes for England and
Wales).
50 Donovan Williams, The India Office 1858–1869 (Hoshiarpur, 1983), pp. 102–3.
51 Arnold P. Kaminsky, The India Office, 1880–1910 (London, 1986), p. 12.
52 Kaye, ‘The House that John Built’, p. 120.
Ten
CONCLUSION: ‘GOOD MASTERS TO THE

LOWER CLASS OF THEIR DEPENDENTS’
THE EAST India Company’s treatment of its London labourers was sub-
jected to public scrutiny by contemporaries. After Dr James Mitchell
had gathered evidence about the Company’s health policy in the ware-
houses for submission to the Factories Inquiry Commission in 1833,
he commented that the Company’s policy of providing free medical
attention to the men was both ‘wise’ and ‘humane’.1 Yet in April of that
year, The Times received a letter of complaint allegedly signed by ‘One
of the “Labourers”’, levelling ‘divers charges against the Company, of
niggardliness, want of feeling, harshness, injustice, and so forth, mani-
fested towards the men employed in their several warehouses’. Never
a particular friend to the Company, The Times examined carefully the
‘allegations of moral, though not legal, wrongs in a public body towards
individuals whom fortune has placed within its power’. It concluded
however that ‘there never came before us, within our memory, a tissue of
complaints more utterly groundless and absurd, or of expressions more
acrimonious and offensive’. The newspaper rejected the correspon-
dent’s ‘violent invectives against the Court of Directors’ as it believed
the labourers were paid a fair wage, and any restriction imposed on the
men’s activities outside the warehouses was:
such as tends immediately to the protection of their goods from plunder,

or to the preservation of such a state of health or strength among their
labourers as is requisite for the adequate fulfilment of the physical duties,
the discharge of which entitles them to their weekly hire. It has generally
been said that the East India Company are good masters to the lower class
of their dependents, and certainly there is nothing in the ‘Labourer’s’
letter to countenance an opposite belief.2
The next day The Times published a letter from another unnamed
Company labourer who wished to ‘refute and fling back with contempt
the gross and false statement’ of the previous correspondent. The letter
listed some of the welfare benefits that the warehouse labourers enjoyed,
and concluded ‘there are many in the service that were they treated in
a superior manner have neither sense to appreciate nor gratitude to
acknowledge’.3
These positive assessments of the Company’s handling of the labour-
ers were echoed five years later by the commodores and labourers
who had received notice that they would be discharged on pension at
Michaelmas 1838: ‘your petitioners are deeply impressed with a sense
of gratitude for the kindness which has at all times been manifested
by your Honorable Court, towards their welfare’.4 Although it might
be argued that the men were merely choosing their words carefully to
flatter the directors and smooth the path of their petition, the fact that
the Company was indeed concerned about their welfare is borne out by
close examination of the surviving evidence.5
The data on the Company labourers’ health which had been submit-
ted to the Factories Inquiry Commission were re-examined in a number
of Victorian reports and publications. For example, the information
about the Company’s provision of medical care and pensions was dis-
cussed in a Parliamentary Select Committee report on civil service
superannuation, and the statistics on the incidence of sickness amongst
the warehouse labourers were used in a report on the health of the army
in India.6 The welfare scheme was cited as a model of good practice by
social policy experts, and the grant of pensions only to those incapable
of work was deemed financially prudent.7
Thirty years after its demise, the East India Company’s provision of
medical care to its warehouse labourers was praised by the physician
and social reformer Benjamin Ward Richardson, who had made a study
of occupational health. Richardson believed that the Company ‘had
learned how to make the health’ of its workers by implementing careful
selection at recruitment, free medical attendance, and the restriction of
heavier work to the young and fit.8 His assessment of the way in which
the labourers had been handled sums up the important role that be-
nevolence played in the Company’s business operations in London:
‘John Company’ … was not quite so bad and selfish a fellow as he was
generally supposed to be up to the very day of his death. ‘John Company’
no doubt had his faults, and he paid for the having. They were the death
of him. But ‘John’ had a few virtues, and one of his virtues was a certain
degree of care and consideration directed towards the labourers working
in London under his employ.9
Conclusion 197
Richardson’s comment serves to illustrate the chasm that existed be-

tween the East India Company’s actual behaviour as a caring employer
and its nature as perceived by many contemporaries, who condemned it
as a tyrannical, coercive imperial power. Periodicals such as Alexander’s
East India and Colonial Magazine and The British Friend of India Magazine
did not mince their words when writing about the Company: ‘these
traders surpass the Oriental despots in arrogance … for they are secure,
secret and irresponsible … The constitution of the Court of Directors
is such a medley of corruption, imbecility, and profligacy, that its vital
principle necessarily ever must be secrecy.’10
This deep mistrust of the directors and their conduct has carried
through to the present. Robins has asserted that ‘the East India Company
has to be assessed on the basis of its underlying activities rather than the
occasional philanthropy of its executives’,11 but this fails to appreciate
that benevolence was in fact an embedded feature of the Company’s
business practice in London which can be traced back through the min-
utes of the Court of Directors to the earliest days of the Company. The
underlying ethos of benevolence and paternalism spanned generations
of central administrators: this basic approach to management persisted
even as the personnel of the Court changed, and ‘the directors always
combined a sense of duty with the pursuit of private interest’.12
Although the Company directors delegated much of the daily run-
ning of the commercial operations in London to the warehouse-keepers
and their subordinates, the Committee of Warehouses, and ultimately
the Court of Directors, still had the task of sanctioning or overruling
the managers’ actions and recommendations. The same directors who
were dealing with administrative minutiae such as the granting of leave
of absence to individual labourers also shared in the responsibility of
governing a vast overseas empire. John Kaye described the directors
as ‘merchant-statesmen’,13 each aspiring to be ‘nothing less than the
twenty-fourth part of a king’,14 yet no home servant, past or present, was
regarded as too lowly to be accorded the directors’ consideration and
concern. The Times commented in 1834 that: ‘The Court of Directors
are ever ready and willing at all times to hear and redress all grievances
that shall appear before them, even from the humblest individual, and
they have been a pattern to all nations for their liberality and just and
honourable dealings.’15
The directors of the East India Company were not guided by any
preconceived management theories as business executives are today.
They worked from a body of written precedents built up piecemeal as
necessity dictated, precedents which were brought to their notice by ad-
ministrators with many years’ experience of the Company’s operations.
Many of the Company’s managerial strategies appear familiar to the

modern observer and they did in fact anticipate the conclusions of
some late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century management theo-
rists.16 The Company recognized the need to motivate its employees
in the same way as modern corporations do,17 seeking to engender
‘fidelity and zeal’18 by means of a dual approach of incentive and pun-
ishment. Having studied the operation of the London dock companies,
Sir Joseph Broodbank believed that the East India Company’s compara-
tive freedom from misconduct by its employees was explained by the
quasi-military system throughout its organization and the ‘higher emol-
uments of its service’: ‘These led to greater efficiency and attracted a
better type of official, with a corresponding improvement in the class
of labourer employed.’19 The East India Company pioneered manage-
ment structures and practices that were adopted and modified by other
City corporations: the founders of the Bank of England appear to have
looked to the Company for inspiration,20 and the constitution of the
West India Dock Company was largely modelled on that of the East India
Company.21 The redundancy package introduced as a consequence of
the 1833 Charter Act is a familiar feature of business operations in the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries but was ground-break-
ing at the time in the scope and scale of its provision. The East India
Company was unique amongst contemporary London institutions for
the comprehensiveness of the range of benefits offered to a very large
body of between 2500 and 3000 manual labourers, and for the fact that
much assistance was given as a right of employment rather than as a
discretionary grant.
Many of the management strategies which have been examined in pre-
vious chapters were prompted principally by the East India Company’s
need from the late eighteenth century to recruit and control a greatly in-
creased number of warehouse labourers. Selection procedures filtered
out any unsuitable men unwittingly put forward for labourer posts by
directors exercising their patronage. A strict hierarchical management
structure was put in place with closely defined rules for conduct backed
by careful documentation of daily routines. Discipline was reinforced
by the obligation of the fit and able labourers to serve as soldiers in the
Royal East India Volunteers in regiments officered by their managers.
Direct employment of the labourers meant that the Company had the
power to dismiss any man who was inefficient or dishonest, although
a general policy of ‘tempered’ management ensured that miscreants
were often given a second chance. Indeed, the permanent warehouse
labourers were given every incentive to remain in Company service, en-
joying an enlightened scheme of welfare benefits which in practice tied
Conclusion 199
them to their employer. Notwithstanding this exercise of a considerable

degree of control over the labourers, the Company does appear to have
succeeded in fostering amongst its home staff a sense of belonging to a
‘family’ and in generating a culture of mutual loyalty between the man-
agers and their subordinates at all levels of the hierarchy.
***
The evidence presented in this study has relevance far beyond the con-
fines of the historiography of the East India Company. It provides fresh
data which might be usefully exploited by researchers from a number
of different fields, for example, social, political, commercial and mili-
tary historians, and those studying organizational development. The
Company was a pioneer of enlightened personnel management, albeit
operating within the constraints of what the directors and administrators
considered to be good business practice. The East India Company treat-
ed the warehouse labourers fairly in respect of wages and generously in
respect of working conditions, and many of the archive materials which
have been examined here are hitherto neglected primary sources for
investigating the experience of the working classes in early nineteenth-
century London.
The Company’s strategy for managing the warehouse labourers de-
veloped from an intermingling of a predisposition to benevolence with
an intention to follow good business practice. Paternalism was always
tempered by consideration of the demands of commercial and corpo-
rate efficiency, but by successfully blending business and benevolence
into a single objective the East India Company set standards of decent
employment practice in London, and generations of directors did truly
deserve to be described as ‘good masters to the lower class of their
dependents’.
Notes

2 The Times, 25 April 1833, p. 3a.
3 The Times, 26 April 1833, p. 1b.
5 Whatever the men’s intentions, their petition failed to sway the Finance and
Home Committee which negatived their request for pecuniary assistance in
addition to a pension.
6 Report from the Select Committee on Civil Service Superannuation (1856); Report of
the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Sanitary State of the Army in India
(London, 1863).
7 Report from the Select Committee on Civil Service Superannuation, p. 190, Evidence
of William Farr.
8 Benjamin Ward Richardson, The Health of Nations – A Review of the Works of
Edwin Chadwick (London, 1887), vol. 1, pp. 60–1.
9 Ibid., p. 58.
10 The British Friend of India Magazine, vol. 3, no. 13 (February 1843), p. 23.
11 Robins, The Corporation that Changed the World, p. 18.
13 J. W. Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe (London, 1854),
vol. 1, p. 169.
14 J. W. Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Henry St George Tucker, late Accountant-
General of Bengal and Chairman of the East India Company (London, 1854), p. 325.
15 The Times, 21 October 1834, p. 2e. This willingness to deal with the minutiae of
business was also a feature of the proceedings of the directors at the Bank of
England, whose weighty responsibility for managing the National Debt did not
preclude debate on such matters as to whether or not to provide pens, ink and
paper in the banking hall for customers. See BOE: G4/1, Minutes of Court of
Directors 1 August 1694. I am indebted to Dr Anne Murphy of the University
of Hertfordshire for this reference.
16 For example, see Chapter 5 (Weber) and Chapter 7 (Fayol).
17 P. Bruce Buchan, ‘John Stuart Mill – Contributions to the Principles of
Management: The Intelligence Factor’, British Journal of Management 4 (1993),
pp. 69–76.
18 Ibid., p. 73. These requirements for the successful conduct of an industrial
enterprise were named by Company servant John Stuart Mill in his Principles of
Political Economy (London, 1848).
19 Broodbank, History of the Port of London, vol. 1, p. 121.
20 An idea being explored by Anne Murphy.
21 Broodbank, History of the Port of London, vol. 1, p. 101.
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L/AG/1/5/31, General Cash Journal, 1820–4
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L/AG/32/2/13, Bonds and contracts, 1834–5
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L/F/1, Minutes and Reports of the Finance and Home Committee, 1834–58
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HO 47/25/35 ff 211–15, Report of John William Rose, Recorder of London, on a
collective petition on behalf of Company servant John Jackson, 24 January 1801
HO 79/4, Home Office: Private and Secret Entry Books, 1819–44
HO 107, Census returns, 1841–51
PRO 61/254, Instructions for Government officers working in the East India Docks
and East India Company London warehouses, 1822
PROB 11, Probate copy wills
RG 9-12, Census returns, 1861–91
T 64/154, Report on abuses of sampling tea at the East India Company warehouse,
1816
WO 13/4458, Pay lists for the Royal East India Volunteers, 1805
WO 31/53, List of officers of the two regiments of Royal East India Volunteers
submitted for the King’s approval, November 1796
B Printed Works
(i) Official publications: Parliamentary accounts, papers and reports

Accounts presented to the House of Commons, from the East India Company, respecting their
Annual Revenues and Disbursements, Trade and Sales, &c. for Three Years (London,
1808)
Accounts respecting the Annual Revenues and Disbursements, Trade and Sales, of the East
India Company for Three Years (London, 1812)
Hansard, T. C., The Parliamentary Debates, New series (London, 1820–30); Third
series (London, 1830–91)
The Journal of the House of Commons, 90 (London, 1835)
Minutes of Evidence taken before the Right Honourable the House of Lords in the Lords’
Committees Appointed to take into Consideration so much of the Speech of His Royal
Highness the Prince Regent as relates to the Charter of the East-India Company (London,
1813)
Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on Evesham Election Petition (London,
1830)
Papers relating to East India Affairs… Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed 22nd
May 1810 (London, 1810)
The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time. Vol. XXIII Comprising
the period between the 5th of May and the Close of the Session, July 30, 1812 (London,
1812)
Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons Appointed to Enquire into the
Education of the Lower Orders of the Metropolis: with the Minutes of Evidence taken before
the Committee (London, 1816)
Report from the Select Committee on Civil Service Superannuation (London, 1856)
Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Sanitary State of the Army in India
(London, 1863)
Report … on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great
Britain (London, 1842)
Report relative to the Trade with the East Indies and China from the Select Committee of the
House of Lords (London, 1821)
Reports, Correspondence and Papers relating to Emigration from the United Kingdom to the
Colonies, 1828–38, Facsimile reproduction Irish University Press series of British
Parliamentary papers, 19 Emigration (Shannon, 1969)
Royal Commission on the Employment of Children in Factories, Supplementary Report,
Part 1, Parliamentary Papers, 19 (1834)
The Sessional Papers Printed by Order of the House of Lords, 37 Reports from Commissioners:
Hand-loom Weavers (London, 1840)
Sixth Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Departments of Customs &
Excise (London, 1820)
Tenth Report of the Inspectors Appointed under the Provisions of the Act 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 38,
to Visit the Different Prisons of Great Britain. I. Home District (London, 1845)
Bibliography 207
(ii) Official publications: East India Company records

Birdwood, George, Report on the Old Records of the India Office, with Supplementary Note
and Appendices (London, 1891)
Danvers, Frederick Charles, Report to the Secretary of State for India in Council on the
Records of the India Office (London, 1888)
East India Company, An Account of the Works Required, to be Performed in the Warehouses
Intended to be Built in Fenchurch Street, for the Service of the East India Company
(London, c. 1734)
East India Company, Invitation to Tender for Contract to Supply Worleys, 8 January 1819
(London, 1819)
Monthly Brigade Return of the Three Regiments, Royal East-India Volunteers, Commanded by
the Right Honorable Henry Dundas, Colonel en Chef, 31 July 1800 (London, 1800)
Papers Respecting the Plan of Compensations Proposed to be Granted to the Commanders and
Officers of the Maritime Service of the East India Company (London, 1834)
Proceedings of the Select Committee Appointed by the General Court of Proprietors, on the 6th
October 1813, to Consider and Report upon the Expediency of Augmenting the Allowances
to the Directors for their Attendance upon the Business of the Company (London, 1814)
Rules & Regulations for the Establishment and Management of a Fund to be Provided for
the Benefit of the Commodores, Writers, & Laborers in the Service of the United Company
of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, in Cases of Sickness, Infirmity, and
Misfortune (London, 1816)
(iii) Contemporary books, pamphlets, etc.

Auber, Peter, An Analysis of the Constitution of the East-India Company, and of the Laws
passed by Parliament for the Government of their Affairs (London, 1826)
‘A Barrister’, The Present Laws relating to Savings Banks in England (London, 1825)
Bentham, Samuel, Answers to the Comptroller’s Objections (London, 1800)
Brayley, Edward Wedlake, The Beauties of England and Wales, vol. 10, part 2 (London,
1814)
Brayley, Edward Wedlake, London and Middlesex, vol. 2 (London, 1814)
Britton, J., The Original Picture of London (London, 1826)
Burn, J. D., Commercial Enterprise and Social Progress: Or Gleanings in London, Sheffield,
Glasgow, and Dublin (London, 1858)
Campbell, R., The London Tradesman (London, 1747)
Cartwright, Charles, An Abstract of the Orders and Regulations of the Honourable Court of
Directors of the East-India Company (London, 1788)
Chadwick, Edwin, An Essay on the Means of Insurance against the Casualties of Sickness,
Decrepitude, and Mortality (London, 1836)
City of London Truss Society for the Relief of the Ruptured Poor throughout the
Kingdom, Plans, Laws and Regulations (London, 1818)
City of London Truss Society for the Relief of the Ruptured Poor throughout the
Kingdom, A List of the Governors, Governesses, and Donors (London, 1822)
Cock, Simon, Case of the London Dock Company (London, 1825)
Colquhoun, Patrick, A Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames, Containing
an Historical View of the Trade of the Port of London (London, 1800)
Colquhoun, Patrick, A Treatise on Indigence (London, 1806)
Considerations Respecting the Volunteer Corps to be Raised by the East-India Company;
Addressed to the Proprietors of East-India Stock (London, 1796)
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Cook, Thomas, The Universal Letter-Writer … to which is added, The Complete Petitioner
(London, 1808)
Crosby’s Merchant’s and Tradesman’s Pocket Dictionary (London, 1808)
Cunningham, Peter, Handbook of London (London, 1850)
Davis, William, Friendly Advice to Industrious and Frugal Persons Recommending Provident
Institutions, or, Savings Banks (London, 1817)
Dickinson, H., Instructions for Forming a Regiment of Infantry for Parade of Exercise,
Together with the Eighteen Manoeuvres, as Ordered to be Practised by His Majesty’s
Infantry Forces, Accompanied by Explanations and Diagrams (London, 1798)
A Digest of the Duties of Customs and Excise (London, 1818)
Dupin, Baron, The Commercial Power of Great Britain (London, 1825)
East India Dock Company, Schedule of Rates and Charges, and Regulations, of the East
India Dock Company (London, 1835)
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edn)
Engels, Friedrich, The Condition of the Working Class in England, ed. W. O. Henderson
and W. H. Chaloner (Oxford, 1971)
An Epitome of Customs and Excise on the Importation, and Drawback on the Exportation of
Foreign Articles with the Places where they may be Deposited (London, 1819)
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Death’ (1837) reprinted in Mortality in Mid 19th Century Britain, Richard Wall
(Farnborough, 1974)
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(London, 1815)
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(iv) Newspapers and periodicals

Alexander’s East India and Colonial Magazine
The Annual Register
Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register
The British Friend of India Magazine
The East-India Register and Directory
The Gentleman’s Magazine
The Law Advertiser
The London Review and Literary Journal
Morning Post and Fashionable World
The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser
Notes and Queries
The Olio
The Operative
The Times
The Whole Proceedings of the Sessions of the Peace, and Oyer and Terminer for the City of
London and County of Middlesex (London, 1730–1824); continued as Sessions’ Paper
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C Online primary sources
17th–18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers (http://www.bl.uk)

19th Century British Library Newspapers (http://www.bl.uk)
Hampshire Chronicle Files (http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk)
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (http://parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk/
home.do)
London Gazette (http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/)
MOTCO On-Line Maps and Prints (http://www.motco.com/)
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/)
The Times Digital Archive (http://www.gale.com/Times/)
The Times: Palmer’s Full Text Online (http://historyonline.chadwyck.co.uk/bho)
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PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 2007)
Schwarz, L. D., ‘Conditions of Life and Work in London, c. 1770–1820, with Special
Reference to East London’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Oxford,
1976)
Willson, Margaret, ‘The East India Company Warehouses, and Quays in the Port
and City of London 1680–1800’ (unpublished BA (Hons) thesis, King Alfred
College, 1986) [Copy held at BL, IOPP: MSS Eur C 441]
INDEX
Abington, William 128 assault 188

accidents 27, 44, 70–1, 75, 76, 81, 86, Astell, William 46, 124, 127, 132, 133,
129, 143, 186 143, 171
Accountant General’s Department 11, Asylum for Female Orphans,
77 Westminster 73
acorns 22 Atkins, George 170
Adair, James 105 attar of roses 22
Addington, Henry, first Viscount attorneys 52
Sidmouth, 122, 127 Attwood, Thomas 128
agate 22 Auber, Peter 29
Alexander, Henry 46 Australia 174, 176, 193 n.25
Alexander, Josias du Pré 46
Alexander’s East India and Colonial baggage 17, 22
Magazine 197 warehouse 20, 21, 35 n.5, 166
alkali 22 Baillie, John 46
Allan, Alexander 46 Baker, John Skinner 96
Allen, William 44 Baker, William 174
Allhallows Barking 102, 127 bakers 52, 53, 56
almshouses 17 Ball, Abraham 56
aloes 22 Ball, Samuel 100
alum 22 Ball, Thomas 103
amber 22 Bank of England 12–13, 53, 56, 72, 86,
ambergris 19 88 n.10, 89 n.42, 90 n.51, 114,
Amsterdam 41 123, 157, 198, 200 n.15
Anderson, John William 47, 62 n.42 Bannerman, John Alexander 46
Andrew, Thomas 91 n.74 Bantam 2
Andrews, Joseph 100 Barber, William 145
Angel Lodge, Colchester 87 Barfoot, Joseph Samuel 137 n.75
aniseed 31 Baring, Francis 46
Annaball, Joseph 173 bark 22
annotto 22 Barnard, Robert Markland 33, 122,
Annual Register 52 127–8, 145
aquafortis 22 Barrell, Henry 104
Arberry, William 59 Barrett, Samuel 146
architects 18, 34 n.2, 52 Barry, Patrick 129
armed forces in India 3, 71–2, 196 Batt, George Richard 56
Army Pay Office, Whitehall 170 beads 22
arrangoes 20, 22 Bebb, John 45, 46
arsenic 24 Belsey, Thomas 188
226 Index
benefit fund for East India Company Bohlen, Charles (junior) 179 n.46
labourers 54, 57, 75–82, 86, 87, Bolger, Edward 33
108, 147, 148, 151, 164, 166–7, Bombay 2, 20, 30
185, 186, 190, 196, 198 Bonaparte, Napoleon 128
management of 76 bonds 32
payments out 76–7, 82, 96, 143, 147, bones 22
183 Bonner, John George 80, 171, 184, 185,
rules 75–6, 107, 161 187
subscriptions 75–6 books (imported) 22
subsidies from East India Company booksellers 52
77–8 boot making trades 53
benevolence 1, 10, 13, 71–5, 82, 86, Boram, Isaac 107
140, 186, 192, 196, 197, 199 borax 22
Bengal 3, 6, 19, 30 Bosanquet, Jacob 46, 62 n.30, 89 n.45
Bengal and Coast warehouse 33, 150, botanical flower colourers 52
164, 166 Botolph Wharf 17, 20
Bengal warehouse (New Street) 19, 20, Botwright, James 181 n.96
21, 26, 27, 33, 43, 44, 48, 70, 96, Boucher, Joseph 103
97, 106, 143, 170, 172, 184 Boulton, Matthew 75, 76, 95, 132, 142
Bennet, Thomas 104 Bow Street patrols 56, 109
Bensley, William 46 Bowen, Huw 4, 8, 94
Benstead, Samuel 177 Bradford, John 145
Bentinck, William Henry Cavendish Bradford, William 104
Cavendish-, third duke of Bradshaw, John 59, 176
Portland 115 Brady, Nicholas 102
Bethnal Green lunatic asylum 188 Bragg, William 45
Bethnal Green Society 74 bricklayers 53, 55
Bickerstaff, John 102 Briggs, Mathew 47
bigamy 188 British Friend of India Magazine 197
Bihar 3 brokers 52, 146
Billings, William 146 Bromley St Leonard 74
Billiter Street (or Lane) warehouse 19, Broodbank, Joseph 18, 112 n.75, 198
21, 27, 102, 106–07, 169, 171 Broome, Arthur 74
Binks, Samuel 38 n.83 Brown, Daniel 68
Binks, Sarah Ann 30 Brown, George 101
Bird, Frances E. 190 Brown, James 171
Bird, Thomas 164 Brown, John 170
Black Book or, corruption unmasked 149 Brown, Sergeant Major 129
Blackwall 17, 18 Brymer, Peter 59
warehouses 23–4, 41, 43, 68, 100, Buccleugh, Duke of 59
107, 169, 171, 173 Buchan, P. Bruce 7
Blades, William 103 Building Act (1774) 27
Blanch, John 102 bullion 2
Board of Commissioners for the Affairs Bunn, John 59
of India (Board of Control) 3, 4, Bureau, James 92 n.93
12, 47, 121, 161, 162–3, 165, 167 Burges, John Smith 46
boat builders 173 Burgess, John 99
Bohlen, Charles 169 Burgoyne, George 47
Index 227
Burke, William 47 Charter Act (1833) 3, 12, 13, 25, 79,

Burls, Harriet 30 133, 152, 157, 174, 198
Burls, John 38 n.83 Chartist movement 147
Burroughs, John 102 charwomen 30, 58, 72, 144, 193 n.25
Burrows, William 106 cheesemongers 53
Burton, Thomas 108 chemists 52
Butcher, Robert 150 China 2, 3, 4, 5, 20, 24, 44
butchers 52, 53, 56 china dealer 56
Butler, Henry 45 China root 22
Butler, William 82, 83 chintz 45
cholera 79, 186
cabinet makers 53, 173 church building and funding of
Cain, Peter J. 7 services 74
Calcutta 2 Churton, Thomas 103
Caldwell, William 48, 58 cinnamon 18, 22, 172
calico 22, 31 City of London Truss Society 91 n.84
calico glazers and printers 53 Civil Service commissioners 191
Cameron, Peter 107 Civil Service superannuation 196
Campbell, Robert 46 Clapham Sect 74
camphor 22 Clark, Andrew 109
Canada 59, 126, 141, 166, 174, 176, 177 Clark, Joseph 104
canes 22 Clarke, Arthur 64 n.81
Canning, George 123, 136–7 n.59 Clarke, Benjamin 99, 111 n.32 & 34
Canton see China Clarke, Joseph 190
caravans 24, 26 Clarke, Mary 190
Card, William 164, 178 n.23 Clarke, William Stanley 46
Carey, James 110 n.18 Cleeve, Thomas 174
Carmania wool 20, 22 Clerk, Robert 46
carmine 22 clerks 52, 53, 54
Caroline of Brunswick 127 East India Company 32, 58, 158, 167,
carpenters 52, 53 168, 169
carpets 19, 22 Clive, Robert 71
Cartwright, Charles 77, 121 cloth drawers and overlookers 80, 158,
carvers and gilders 173 161
cashew 22 cloth warehouses 18, 21, 161, 166, 183
cassia buds 22 Clough, Samuel 104, 105, 111–12 n.54
castor oil 31 cloves 18, 22
Cato Street conspiracy 123 club foot 75
Cawley, William 188 Cluse, Sarah 179 n.47
census returns 10, 13, 49, 58, 150, 175, Cluse, Thomas 169–70
177 Clutterbuck, Mr 80
Chadwick, Edwin 78, 81 coachmen 53
chandlers 56 coal dealers 56
Chapman, William 137 n.75 Coast and Surat goods 6
Charter (1600) 1–2 Coast and Surat warehouse 20, 21, 32,
Charter Act (1793) 3, 117 33, 117
Charter Act (1813) 3, 24, 88–9 n.29, Coast warehouse 96, 145
121, 157 cochineal 22, 31
228 Index
Cock Hill warehouses 20 Secret Committee of

Cockerell, Samuel 18 Correspondence 122–3, 145
coco/cocoa nuts 23 Superintending Military Committee
coculus indicus 23 116, 124, 133
Coe, John 43 commodores 33–4, 58, 59, 68, 105, 122,
coffee 5, 6, 20, 102, 103 169, 186 see also labourers
coffee-house keepers 56 duties 33, 79, 98
Cole, Thomas 103 petitions 161–4
Cole, William 102 Commutation Act (1784) 20
Coleman, Elizabeth 190 Complete Petitioner 142
Coleman, George 190 Connell, Catherine 190
Coleman, Luke 56 Connell, John 175
Collibear, Thomas 48 Connell, Maurice 190
Collins, Leonard 56 Constable, Benjamin 173
Collins, Michael 104 Contingent Fund 32
Colonial Office 189 Cook, Thomas 142
Colquhoun, Patrick 140 cooks 56
columbo root 23 Cooper, James 44
comb dealers 56 Cooper’s Row warehouse 19, 21, 97,
Commercial Road 23 119, 169
Commissioners for the Reduction of coopers 53, 59, 149
the National Debt 83 Copeland, William Taylor 146
Committees of the Court of Directors copper 17, 20
2, 11 coral 23
Committee of Accounts 121 Corbett, Richard 52
Committee of Buying and Corrigan, Louisa 193 n.25
Warehouses see Committee of Corrigan, Thomas William John 187,
Warehouses 193 n.25
Committee of Correspondence 12, Corsell, John 101, 104
113 Cosby, Henry 102
Committee of Shipping 91 n.84 cotton 6, 20, 23, 24, 31, 41
Committee of Warehouses 5, 11, 12, Cotton, Joseph 46, 150, 155 n.57, 165
28–9, 43, 45, 49, 77, 82, 97, 98, Council of India 191
99, 105, 106, 108, 115, 119, 126, Court of Directors 2, 28–9, 131, 157–8,
141, 146, 147, 197 161–3, 165, 185, 195, 197 see also
Finance and Home Committee 12, East India Company – directors
75, 80, 81, 97, 143, 161, 162, 165, minutes of 11, 197
166, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, cowries 23
186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191 Crane, Dennis 186, 193 n.23
records of 12, 82, 97, 101, 141, cranes 26–7
142, 143, 149, 163 Creevey, Thomas 123
Joint Committee of the House and crier at sales 143
Warehouses 115 Cromie, Robert 103
Joint Committee of Shipping and Crowley Ironworks, County Durham
Warehouses 113 75, 80
Joint Committee of Warehouses Cruft, John 56
and Superintending Military Crutched Friars 30
Committee 117 Crutched Friars warehouse 20, 21, 32,
Index 229
99, 102, 105, 145, 165, 169, 171 drugs 5, 6, 20, 31, 41
cubebs 23 warehouses 19, 20, 21
Cunard, Samuel 66 n.144 drunkenness 76, 98, 105, 146, 158, 174,
Cunningham, James 116, 135 n.26 188
Cunningham, Peter 20 Dundas, Henry, first Viscount Melville
Cussans, William 56 131
Custom House 17, 44, 129 Dunscombe, Edward 68
customs and revenue 13 Dutch East India Company 41
Board of Customs 55 Dutton, John 103
commission of enquiry (1820) 28, Dyer, John 45
100 dyers 29, 53
enquiry into East India Company tea
warehouses (1818) 145–6 Eales, John 97
officials 17, 28, 99, 100, 108 Eames, Joseph 27
Cutler Street warehouses 18, 20, 21, 22, earthenware 20, 23, 56
25, 26, 70–1, 82, 101, 105, 143, East India College, Haileybury 83
169, 171, 173, 176, 184 East India Company
Cutlers Gardens 35 n.7 administrative organisation 2, 95, 198
archives 10–11
Daniell, James 46, 62 n.35 bureaucracy 95
Darben, William 188 charitable donations and
Darrell, Lionel 46 discretionary grants 68–9, 71,
Davis, Richard 185 74–5, 81, 82, 99, 114, 143, 190–1
Davis, Samuel 46 contemporary perceptions of 7, 67,
Davis, Thomas 102 195–7
Dean, Richard 164 destruction of records 11, 68
debtors 77, 82, 146–7, 155 n.58 directors 2, 3, 7, 12, 13, 44–7, 146,
Deller, William 48 157, 189, 191, 195, 197, 199
Despard, Edward Marcus 131 dissolution of (1874) 3
Devaynes, William 46, 74, 89 n.45, 114 economic role in Britain 1, 4–7, 8
Dickinson, Henry 32–3, 117, 122, 131 electoral malpractice allegations
Disney, Robert 68, 169 149–50
diwani 3, 19 exports from Britain 2, 4, 17, 24
Dixon, John 103 see also entries for individual
Dobby, Peter 172 commodities
dock labourers 12, 86, 109, 112 n.55, factory system 2
140, 145, 151, 171–2, 188 historians’ interpretations of 7–9,
casual 95, 151 197
permanent 54, 55, 95, 150, 151, 172 history of 1–3
preferable 54, 151, 172 impact on London 5, 8, 9, 25–6
wages 172 imperial role 3, 7
docks and dock companies 9, 12, 86, imports from Asia 2, 4, 17, 19 see also
95, 109, 110 n.23, 128, 171–2, 198 entries for individual commodities
Doe, Edward 27 maritime service 44, 60, 106, 157,
door-keepers 58, 68 158–9
Douglass, John 103 military recruitment and service 17,
Drake, Hugh James 48 44, 54, 95
dropsy 190 mint 17, 21
230 Index
monopoly of trade 1–2, 3, 4, 7, 24, Eland, Thomas 56

157, 171 elders and assistants 33, 58, 82, 100,
overseas employees 2, 7, 73 101, 145, 158, 167, 168, 169, 185,
Pay Office 188 188
payment of customs and revenue duties 33, 96–7, 99
duties 4, 28 elephants’ teeth 23
precedents used in decision making Eley, Christopher Frederick 128, 138
97, 143, 191, 197 n.91
properties in London 8, 12, 17–26 Elliston, James 104
re-export of goods 20, 41 Ellmers, Chris 109
record keeping 11, 95–7, 98, 109, 191 Elphinstone, William Fullarton 33, 46
redundancy programme 157–69 Embery, Charles 45
retrenchment 41 embezzlement 32, 84
sales of East India goods 5, 6, 20, 30, emeralds 23
166 emigration 174–7, 181 n.83
shipping 17, 22, 24, 30 Evans & Co. 91 n.84
Ascension 18 Evans, Christopher 18
Duke of Montrose 30 Evans, John 57
Fortitude 44 Everest, George 132
Northanmpton 30 Evesham election (1830) 154 n.53
Sarah Christiana 30 Ewell, Surrey 73
Sir William Pulteney 30 Excise Office 114
Stafford 44 export warehouse 17, 21
Union 30
Walpole 30 Factories Inquiry Commission (1833)
Worcester 30 43, 51, 78, 97, 195, 196
stockholders 2, 4, 116, 123, 132, 157 Faircloth, John 110 n.18
transportation of goods in London farmers 52, 53
23–4, 26, 184–5 Farquhar, Robert Townsend 46
winding-up of commercial Farr, William 77, 81
operations 166–9, 198 Fayol, Henri 140
East India Dock Company 9, 12, 23–4, feathers 23
69, 86, 90 n.53, 95, 150, 171, 172 Fee Fund 99–100
East India Dock Road 23 Feltham, John 25–6
East India Docks 12, 23–4, 26, 128 Fenchurch Street warehouse 18–19, 20,
East India House 5, 8, 9, 10–11, 17, 18, 21, 25, 27, 30, 102, 164, 169, 171
21, 22, 25, 30, 51, 58, 68, 73, 82, Fenwick, Mary 30
96, 106, 114, 115, 128, 143, 157, Fenwick, William 38 n.83
158, 171, 185, 186, 187, 191 fever 79
East India Wharf 21, 40 Ffrench, Geoffrey 86
Eastern Dispensary, Aldgate 73, 74 Field, Elias 66 n.145, 177
Eastham, Richard 100, 104, 111 n.40 Field, John (historian) 57
Eden, Sir Frederic 76, 114 Field, John (labourer) 103
Edmonstone, Neil Benjamin 46, 48 Field, Richard 59, 141, 176–7
Edmonstone, W. 138 n.85 Finlayson, James 33
Edwards, Adam 173 Finsbury election (1832) 149
Edwards, John 70–1 fire prevention 27, 55
Eland, Sarah 56 firelighters 187
Index 231
Fitch, James 150 Gibbons, Matthew 111 n.49

Fitzgerald, Robert 104 Giles, Mary 48
Flinn, Dennis 47, 81 Gillray, James 118
Flynn, Martin 102 ginger 23, 31
food prices and supplies 69, 74, 114 ginger-beer makers 56
food riots 130 ginseng 23
Foot, Samuel 103 glass dealers 56
Forbes, Thomas Rogers 70, 81 glaziers 53
Forsyth, Richardson and Co. 59, 166, Glories, John 104
177 glovers 48–9, 53
Fort St George see Madras Godley, Arthur 192
Forward, John 104 Goodhall, Henry Humphrey 32
fossils 23 Goodiff, James 171
Foster, William 8 Gordon Riots (1780) 114
Fox, John 73 Gorman, Michael 172
France 114, 176 see also French Government of India Act (1858) 3, 191
Revolution; war with France Gowan, William 132
Fraser, Simon 46 Grant, Charles 46, 74
fraud 32, 84 Grant, Robert 149
free trade lobby 4 Green, Michael 47, 173
Free Trade Wharf 35 n.7 greengrocers 53
freemasonry 87 Gregg, William 44, 173
French, William 100 Grey, Thomas de, second Baron
French Ordinary Court warehouse 20, Walsingham 47
21, 30, 169, 171 Griffin, George 142
French Revolution 114 Griffin, Sarah 142
friendly societies 75, 76, 77, 80, 86, 87, Gritten, James 103
107–08, 114, 164, 185 grocers 53
‘Fund for the Benefit of the East India gum 23, 104
Company’s Laborers’ see benefit Arabic 31
fund for East India Company olibanum 31
labourers gumlac 18
Furneaux, Henry 82 gun-making and allied trades 53, 185
Gallaway, John 56 Hackney, Joseph 170

galls 23, 102 Hadgcraft, Samuel 101, 104
gamboges 23 Haider Ali 44
Gamgee, Joseph 175 hair (imported) 23
gardeners 52, 53 hairdressers 52, 53
Garrett, Richard 106, 172 Halfpenny, William 102
Garrett, Thomas 32 Halifax (Canada) 66 n.144
Gast, Elizabeth Ann 143 Hall, John 69, 94
Gast, Frederick 143 Hansell, John 163
gate-keepers 59, 68, 79, 163, 169 Hardie, David 26–7
General Court of Proprietors 2, 116, Harding, David 12
123, 132 Hardy, William 45
George, Prince of Wales 122 Harper, Thomas 128
Gibb, George 56 Harrington, Lord 121, 128, 129
232 Index
Harris, Charles 171 Hopkins, Thomas 100, 102

Harris, Richard 181 n.97 horns 23
Hasker, Lydia 30, 58 hours of work 55, 67
Hasker, Thomas 38 n.83, 58 house of correction 103
Hasker, Thomas John 58 housekeepers 30, 158
Hatfield, Thomas Stockton 47 Hows, William Cecil 154 n.53
hatters 53 hoys and hoy masters 17, 158
Hawes, John 144 Hudleston, John 46
Hawes, Mary Rachael 144 Hudson, John 48
Haydon Square warehouses 19, 20, 21, Huggett, George 104
100, 102, 103, 163, 169, 171, 173 Huggins, John 175
Haynes, Henry 82 Hughes, Hugh 56
Hayward, Henry Gould 48 Hughes, Patrick 137 n.75
Hayward, John 56 Hughes, Thomas 71
health 51–2, 70, 75–9, 80, 86, 87, 97, Hume, Joseph 47
169–70, 176, 186, 196 Hunt, Henry 45
Heaver, William 44 Hunt, John 104
hemp 23, 31 Hunter, John 46
Henderson, Anthony R. 9, 69 Hunterian Society 80
hernia 51–2, 79, 170, 176
Hetherington, Henry 148 Imeson, George 38 n.83, 51, 63 n.73
Hickes, James 46 Imeson, Lucy 30, 51, 63 n.73, 158
Hicks, William 190 India 2–3, 17
hides 23, 24, 31 India Act (1784) 3
Higgs, James 144 India Board see Board of Control
Highland Society of Scotland 81 India Office 3, 73, 191, 192
Highlord’s Court 27 destruction of records by 11, 96, 97
Hill, James 108 India Office Records 10, 11–12
Hill, Joseph 105 India Store Department 191
Hill, William (Old Bailey trial 1817) indigo 5, 6, 20, 23, 28, 31, 68, 102, 103,
103 104, 106
Hill, William (Old Bailey trial 1829) influenza 79
104 Inglis, D. 48
‘history from below’ 10 Inglis, Hugh 46, 62 n.35
Hitchcock, Tim 10, 142 Inglis, James 48
Hobart, Henry 56 Inglis, John 46
Hobsbawm, Eric 151 Inns of Court 114
Hodges, Richard 137 n.75 Iowa 177
Hogg, James Weir 187 Ireland 47, 74, 173–4
holidays 55, 69 iris root 23
Holland, Henry 18 iron 2, 17, 20
Holmes, Thomas 103 Irvine, Mr 44
Home Office 127, 148 ivory 23
Hooper, John 56
Hope, Benjamin 46 Jack, John 47
Hope, Joseph John 178 n.23, 191, 194 Jackson, George 172
n.49 Jackson, John (director) 46
Hopkins, Anthony G. 7 Jackson, John (labourer) 102, 105
Index 233
Jackson, Josiah 60 duties 34, 58, 68, 184–5

Jackson, Randle 116, 135 n.28 ‘extra’ (temporary) 43–4, 96, 97, 103,
Jackson, William Adair 46 119, 165, 186, 188
Jacobinism 115 families of 30, 48, 51, 58, 76–7, 82,
Jacobsen, Theodore 34 n.2 99, 106, 141–5, 150, 164, 173,
japanned ware 23 176–7, 183, 185, 187, 188–91, 193
Jeffers, John 104 n.25
Jenks, George 103 height requirements 49–50, 124
Jersey 176 hours of work 55, 67, 69
jewellers 53 junior 43, 67
jewels 23 leave of absence 82, 96–7
Jewry Street warehouse 20, 21, 100, 102, literacy rate 57–8
169, 171 military duties 113–34
Johnson, Benjamin 49, 60 nomination by directors 44–9, 53,
Johnson, Henry 33, 97, 106, 122, 143, 185–7
145 numbers employed 40–3, 94, 110 n.3,
Johnson, John 137 n.75 166–9, 183, 187–8
Johnson, Paul 75 occupations – former and
Johnson, William 81, 97, 106, 143, 150, supplementary 52–3, 56, 59, 108–09
166, 169, 170, 172, 189, 190–1 occupations taken up after
Jones, Charles 183 redundancy 170–3
Jones, William 112 n.64 pensions 72–3, 78, 81, 84–5, 108, 144,
Jupp, Richard 18, 34 n.2 161–6, 174–7, 183, 186, 188–9
petitions 10, 57–8. 82, 97, 141, 142–4,
Kaye, John 73, 197 165, 170, 173–4, 177, 189–91
Keay, George 169 promotion opportunities 58–9, 67,
keemoo shells, 31 186
Kelly, Thomas 103 property ownership 56–7
Kerley, Elijah 48 redundancies 152, 157–77
Kiernan, Bryan 176 relationship with managers 140–52,
King, Richard 59 195–9
Kirkman, Henry John 57 residential addresses 50–1, 80, 96,
Kitson, Joseph 102 107–08, 189
koossoon flower 31 sense of identity 150
service profile 60, 159–60, 161
‘labour aristocracy’ 54, 151 sworn as special constables 147
labourers 4, 8–10, 52, 53, 54 voting in Parliamentary elections
admission regulations 49–50, 51–2, 149–50, 154 n.53
85, 117, 124, 185–6 wages 54–5, 67–9, 78, 184–5, 186,
age profile 49, 52, 159, 161 187, 193 n.12
appointment of 34, 40–52, 185–8 Lacey, Thomas 47
birth places of 47–9, 173–4 lacklake 31
black 48 lacquer ware 20, 23
certificates of good conduct 172 Lamb, John 103
deaths 70–1, 80, 96, 143–4, 169–70, Lane, Ann 48
188, 190, 193 n.23 Lane, Richard 48
deference 142 lapis 23
dismissals 98, 99, 100, 101 Law Advertiser 83
234 Index
Lawler, Patrick 104, 105 London Dock Company 9, 86, 150, 172
Lawson, James 38 n.83, 143–4 London Docks 128
Lawson, Sarah 30, 144 London Gazette 83
Le Mesurier, Paul 46, 47, 73 London Hospital 74, 81
lead 2, 17, 20, 29 London Huguenot Hospital 73
Leadenhall Street 17, 21, 129 long ells 4, 29
warehouses 19, 184 Lord Clive Fund 71
‘Leadenhall Volunteer’ 118 Lord’s Cricket Ground 128, 132
Leary, Dennis 27 Louttit, Robert 174
Leaworthy, John 47 Lovell, William 68
Leese, Lewis 64 n.75, 79–81, 82, 124, Lowen, William 102
150, 176, 185 Luckins, Charlotte 177
Leese, Lewis (junior) 51, 64 n.75, 78–9, Luckins, Richard (or Lucking) 148, 177
80 Lummis, Trevor 151, 188
legal quays 17 Lumsden, John 46
Legg, William Bishop 48 Lushington. Stephen 46
Lem, Joseph 18 Lyon, Hugh 47, 62 n.43
Leonard, Jeremiah 44 Lyons Quay 21
Lighterness, James 105–06
Lightfoot, Joseph 99, 145 mace 23, 102, 105
Lime Street Square 21 madder 22
Limehouse 74, 90 n.53 Madeira 176
Lincoln, John 56 wine 31
Lindsay, Hugh 46 Madras 2, 3, 20, 30
linen drapers 53 Maimonides, Moses 75
literacy 57–8 Mallard, John 104
Lloyd, Thomas Gore 122 Mallet, Louis 192
Loch, John 46, 190 Malthus, Thomas Robert 83
London 20, 21, 25–6 management principles and strategies
areas where Company labourers re- 9–10, 67, 86–7, 94, 109, 113, 140,
sided 48, 50–1, 107 195–9
City authorities 5, 115, 129, 146, 147 mangoes 22
civil disturbances and unrest 114, manna 22
115, 121, 123, 127, 129–30, 147 Manship, John 46
decline in number of residential manslaughter 71
dwellings 20- 2, 50 maps and charts (imported) 22
economic impact of East India Marine Society 74
Company 4, 5 mariners 44, 52, 53, 74, 158–9
food riots 130 promotion of religion amongst 74
migration to 47–8 Marjoribanks, Campbell 45, 46, 48
multiple occupations of workers 56 Marsh, Thomas 163–4, 178 n.19
political meetings 147, 182 n.108 Marshall, James 104
schools 74, 90 n.53, 151 Maslin, Thomas 103
education of girls 74 Mason, Joel 173
working-classes 10, 114, 129–30, Mason, John (labourer) 137 n.75
131–2, 151, 199 Mason, John (writer) 32
London Democratic Association 182 Mason, Sarah 145
n.108 Masterman, John 46, 165
Index 235
mathematical instrument makers 52 minerals 23

Matheson, Thomas 107 Mitchell, James 78, 81, 195
Matthews, George Augustus 126 Money, William Taylor 46, 123, 137
Mayberry, Henry 103 n.70
Mayhew, Joseph 104 Montreal 59, 166, 176
McBarron, Francis 150, 155 n.58 Mordaunt, George 32, 33
McCowen, Henry 171 Mordaunt, John 32
McLaren, John 82 Morgan, Jenkin 48
medals (imported) 22 Morning Post and Fashionable World 115
medical examinations 51–2, 124, 176 Mornington, Lord 118
medical provision 70, 75–81, 185, 186, Morris, John 46
195, 196 Morrish, Thomas 46
Megevan, Charles Abraham 48, 57 Morrison, John 108
Mell, George 102 mother of pearl 22, 103
Melvill, James Cosmo 141, 144 Mui, Hoh-cheung and Lorna H. 8
Merchant Seamen’s Orphan Asylum 74 Mullins, Isaac 102
Merrick, Mr 186 munjeet 22
messengers 58, 68, 79, 82, 106, 143, murder 71, 193 n.25
158, 169, 170, 171, 185, 186, 187, Murray, John 49
191 musicians 44, 53, 56, 128
Metcalfe, Thomas Theophilus 46 musk 19, 22
Metropolitan Benefit Societies Asylum muslin 26, 31
75 Muspratt, John Petty 46
M’Ginnis, Arthur 102 myrrh 22
Middleton, William 56
migration to towns 47 nankeens 5, 6, 20, 24–5
Military Department 187
records of 11, 12 Nash, Edward 100
Military Fund Office 21 Nash, James 188
Military Store Department 13, 80, 106, Nash, John 103
147, 166, 171, 177, 183–8, 191, National Archives 13
192 National Union of the Working Classes
examiners 59, 184–5 148
exported goods 24, 29, 184–5 naval store warehouse 19, 21, 169
labourer recruitment 185–8 Needham, Thomas 60
labourer regulations (1838–40) Nevill, George 171
185–6 New Lanark 142
packers 184 New Street warehouses 20, 21, 22, 26,
Pattern Room 185 71, 118, 119, 126, 127, 131, 147,
small-arms 184 171
staff establishment 184, 187–8 Newgate gaol 101, 102, 103, 105, 111
milkmen 53, 56 n.32
Mill, John Stuart 200 n.18 Newington, William Peat 48
Miller, John 103 Newland, William 96
millers and millwrights 53, 148 Newman, Thomas 104
Millet, George 46 Nightingale, John 101, 103
Mills, Charles 46, 89 n.45 Nix, John 102
Mills, Charles (junior) 46 Northumberland, Duke of 113, 134 n.3
236 Index
Nott, John 44, 173, 181 n.79 Pattison, George 150

nutmegs 22, 100, 101, 102, 103 Pattison, James 46
nux vomica 22 pay see wages
Payne, George Richard 103
Oatridge, Daniel 144 Peacock, Ensign 138 n.98
occupational health see health Peacock, William Robert 176
ochre 22 pearls 22
office-keepers and porters 68, 158, 191 Peirce, John 57
oils 22 Pennington, Percival 175
Old Bailey trials 13, 45, 56, 71, 99, 100, penny papers 148
101–05, 108, 109 pensions 72–3, 78, 81, 84–5, 108, 144,
punishments 101–05 157–9, 161–6, 186, 187
Oldenburg, Grand Duchess of 26 administration of payments by East
Oliver, Joseph 87 India Company 183, 188–9, 192
Oram, Nicholas 173 commutation scheme of East India
orange water 22 Company 158, 174–7
orchal 22 pepper 2, 5, 6, 18, 22, 24, 104, 107
ores 23 pepper warehouses 19, 20
Original Picture of London 26 Percy, Hugh, first Duke of
Orissa 3 Northumberland 113, 134 n.3
otto of roses 22 perfumery 56
Outrage, Daniel 144 perquisites 55, 99–100, 110 n.23
Ovenden, Robert 137 n.75 philanthropy 73–4, 197
overtime 55, 67, 68, 123, 124, 147, 186 Phillipps, Samuel March 148
Owen, Henry Butts 138 n.85 Phillips, James 106
Owen, Robert 142 piece goods 5, 6, 19, 20, 22, 31, 172
pilfering 59, 106–07, 146
painters (house) 53 detection 98–101, 107
paintings and pictures (imported) 22 methods 100–01
Palmer, Sarah 9, 69 rewards for informants 100
paper 100, 103 plague victims 71
hangers 173 plants and shrubs 23
hangings 22 plate 23
makers 53 Plowden, Richard Chicheley 46, 141
Parker, William 141 Pocock, William 102
Parliament 123, 165, 196 police 173
elections 149–50 political reform 148, 177
reform of 148 London meetings 147
supervision of East India Company 3, Pollard, Sidney 67
4, 24, 69, 167 Poor Law 147, 151
Parry, Edward 46 Poor Man’s Guardian 148
Parry, Richard 46 Poplar Fund 71, 158
Parry, Thomas 46, 129 Poplar Hospital 71
paternalism 7, 10, 13, 67, 73, 141–2, Popoff, James 38 n.83
175, 177, 191, 197, 199 Popoff, Jane 30
Patriotic Fund 129 poppy oil 31
patronage 3, 7, 12, 13, 34, 43–9, 58–9, porcelain 2, 20, 99
94, 141, 171, 185, 186–7, 198 Port of London Authority 12
Index 237
porters 52, 53 Reid, Thomas 46, 73, 89 n.45, 141, 145

Portland, Lord 115 Republican 148
Portugal 176 rheumatism 170
Poulson, William 80 rhubarb 107
Pratt, Absalom 59, 176, 177 rice 31
Pratt, John Tidd 93 n.121 Rice, John 43
precious stones 19 Rice, William 96
Premery, John 103 Richards, Samson 57, 156–7, 178 n.1
Prescott, Charles Elton 46 Richardson, Benjamin Ward 196–7
Price, Robert Hall 48 Rickards, Thomas 101, 104
printers 53, 54 Robarts, Abraham 46, 48–9, 73–4, 89
private trade 3, 5, 6, 19, 20, 24–5 n.45
private trade warehouses 19, 20, 21, 48, Roberts, John (director) 46, 62 n.35,
49, 59, 60, 81, 82, 97, 106, 163, 119, 126
166, 169, 170, 171, 172 Roberts, John (labourer) 44
privilege trade 14 n.27, 31 Roberts, William 60, 66 n.152
prize goods 6 Robins, Nick 8, 197
Proben, Thomas 141 Robinson, George Abercrombie 46
prohibited goods 20, 31 Robnett, John 57
Prosser, Harriet 193 n.25 Rooke, James 145
Prosser, William (born c. 1777) 187, Rooke, Stephen 59
193 n.25 Rothney, Alexander 184
Prosser, William (born c.1793) 44 Row, Isaac 111 n.33
Province, Susan 178 n.21 Rowe, James 56
Province, William 164 Rowlands, John 165–6, 179 n.29
Public Advertiser 71–2 Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the
publicans 53, 108, 146 Ear, Soho 81
pulmonary diseases 79, 80, 144, 164 Royal Dockyards 55, 57, 86, 95
Royal East India Volunteers 9, 13, 49,
Quakers 119 51, 96, 109, 113–34, 147, 148,
Quebec 59, 166, 176 150, 191, 198
acts of Parliament concerning 114,
radicalism 114, 130, 148 117, 119, 121, 123
Raikes, George 46 adjutants 116, 127
Rainsley, Thomas 102, 105 allegation of involvement in Despard
Ratcliff 35 n.7 conspiracy 131
fire (1794) 19 artillery corps 119
warehouses 19, 21, 25, 70, 169 assistance from royal army 116
Ratherbee, Charles 43, 60 band 44, 126, 128, 138 n.91, 144
Ratherbee, Edward 43, 60 chaplains and church services 127
Ratherbee, Edward William 43, 60 composition 115, 120, 125, 136 n.51
rattans 23 courts martial 126
Ravenshaw, John Goldsborough 46, 148 disbandment 122, 133
Rawlins, John 102 discharges 96, 122, 124, 126, 129, 130
Reardon, Robert 102 discipline 126–7
redundancies 157–77 drummers 40, 43, 59, 126, 164, 170,
cost of compensation 161, 162 178–9 n.23, 191
Reeves, James 103 embodiment 115–17, 122–5
238 Index
expenditure on 116, 119, 121–2, 123, St Katharine Dock Company 55, 69, 86,
132–4 94, 171
injuries 129 St Luke Middlesex 57
manoeuvres outside London 129 St Mary Axe 127
medals 128 St Peter Cornhill 127
music composed for 128 sal ammoniac 23
oath of allegiance 130 salaries see wages
obligation of labourers to serve 117, sale by inch of candle 5, 15 n.29
124 salep 23
officers (commissioned and non- Salmon, Ody & Co. 91 n.84
commissioned) 116, 122 Salmond, James 116, 135 n.25
parades 127–8 saltpetre 5, 6, 24, 31
pay and gratuities 116, 122, 123, 124, warehouses 19, 21, 25, 70, 169
133–4 Samms, John 73
policing duties 129 Samson, Thomas 82, 83
raising of third regiment (1798) sassafras 23
118–19 Saunders, Philip 48
recruitment 123–5 saunders wood 23
refusal of labourers to serve 119, 120 Saunderson, Charles 149
register of private soldiers 12, 96, 124 savings banks 73, 83
training and drill 116, 117, 118, 127 East India Company Savings Bank 75,
uniforms 116, 118, 133 82–5, 144–5, 151, 186
weapons 116, 118, 119, 129, 131, 132, Savory, George 104
138–9 n.112 sawyers 53
Royal Exchange vaults 18 scammony 23
Royal Navy 24, 106 Scholes, Sergeant 126
Royal Perpetual Almanack 57 schoolmasters 52, 53, 54, 56
Royle, Henry 145 schools 73, 74, 90 n.53, 151
Rumball’s warehouse 20, 169 Schwarz, Leonard 55, 56
rupture trusses 78, 79 see also hernia Scotland 47, 74, 174
Rushock, Herefordshire 57 Scott, David 46, 47, 49, 52, 58–9, 116,
Russell, Francis 4 117, 118, 131
Russell, Samuel 101, 102 Scott, David (junior) 46
Russia Company 89–90 n.51 Scott, Henry, third Duke of Buccleugh
Rutt, John 104 59
Scott, James 101
saddlers 53 Scourfield, William 103
saffron 23 Seally, Henry 98, 110 n.22, 143, 144,
sago 23 174, 175, 189, 190
sailors see mariners Seamen’s Hospital 74
St Ann Limehouse 74 second-hand clothes dealers 56
St Bartholomew’s Hospital 71 Secretary of State for India 191
St Botolph Aldgate 20, 127 seeds 23
St George in the East 102 Seething Lane warehouse 20, 21, 102,
St Helen’s warehouse 18, 21, 35 n.5, 169
102, 169 self-help 75
St Helena 44 Sellman, Mr 101
St Katharine Cree 102, 127 senna 31
Index 239
servants 52, 53 Somers Quay 21

Sevenoakes, John 176 ‘soup shops’ 69, 114
Sewell, John 119 South Sea House 108
Shailer, Samuel 100, 102 Southeast Asia 2, 17
Shaw, John 44 Southwark warehouse 18
shawls 23, 104 Sowden, Henry 84
Sheehan, Edward 44 Spankie, Robert 149
shellac 31 Spence, Thomas 130
Shenston, Joseph 104 Spencer, George John, second Earl
Shepherd and Shepherdess public house Spencer 59
118 spice warehouses 19, 20, 169, 184
Shervill, Thomas 103 spices 2, 5, 6, 19, 146, 172
Shipway, George 58 Spitalfields Soup Society 74
shoemaking trades 47, 52, 53, 56, 77, Spry, James Hume 79–80, 124, 150, 185
173 Squire, Philip 100
shopkeepers and shopmen 53, 56 Stanhope, Charles, third earl of
Shore, John 101 Harrington 121, 128, 129
Shuler, Charles 45 Stanton, William 45
Sidmouth, Viscount 122, 127 Startin, James 163
silk 2, 5, 6, 19, 20, 23, 24, 31, 41, 103, stationery 184
104, 105, 169, 170, 172 warehouse 21, 166, 183, 193 n.12
silk weavers 74 stay makers 53
silver 2 steel 20
silversmiths 52 Steel, John 101
Simms, James 104 Steele, Samuel 103
Simons, William 5, 24–5, 33 Stepney 57
Skeel, John 137 n.75 Stewart, Charles 45
skilled and semi-skilled labour 151 Stoakes, Susannah 189
skins 23 Stoakes, Thomas 60, 189
Slater, Phillip 173 Stoakes, William 60, 172, 189
Smallwood, James 173 Stockwell, John 32, 59, 150
Smith, Edward (labourer tea ware- Strarie, William 112 n.64
house) 68 strike action 148–9, 154 n.49
Smith, Edward (labourer private trade Stuart, James 46
warehouse) 170 Sturdy, William 103
Smith, George 46, 126 succades 23
Smith, John 98–9, 110 n.22 sugar 5, 6, 23, 24, 31, 41
Smith, Robert 186 Sugar Loaf Court 19
smiths 53 Sugg, Elizabeth 143
Snellgrove, Dinah 179 n.45 suicide 188
Snellgrove, John 169 Sullivan, James 137 n.75
‘social risk’ 75 Sumatra 2, 18
Society for Bettering the Condition of Sumner, William 26
the Poor 74 Sunday schools 73, 74
Society of Friends 119 sunn 31
Soho Works, Birmingham 75, 76, 95, Surat 2
142 sureties 32
soldiers 44, 52, 53 surgeons see warehouse surgeons
240 Index
surgical instrument makers 52 Tipu Sultan 44

surveyors of shipping 158 Toone, Sweny 46
tortoiseshell 23
tailors 52, 53, 56, 59, 77, 101 Tottman, Benjamin Thomas 150
talc 23 trade unions 147
tallow chandlers 53, 173 trade with Asia 2–3, 4, 5, 17, 24, 157,
tally-shop 146 166
tamarinds 23 transportation to colonies 101, 102,
Tarrant, Elizabeth 30, 51, 63–4 n.74, 103, 104, 105, 111 n.35 & 49,
158 111–12 n.54, 189
Tarrant, James 38 n.83, 51, 63–4 n.74, Travers, Benjamin 80, 150
158 Travers, John 46
Tarrant, James (junior) 158 tripe dealers 56
Tatem, George 46, 62 n.35 Troke, William Henry 57
Taylor, John Bladen 46, 62 n.35 Tucker, Henry St George 46
Taylor, Joseph 81, 143 Tucker, Richard 185
tea 2, 5, 23, 24 turmeric 23
brokers 146 turners 53
dealers 108, 146 Twining, Richard 46
duties 20
sales 6, 20, 41, 166, 167 unemployment and underemployment
sampling 146 54, 170, 173
shipment direct from China to United States of America 174, 175, 176,
Canada 59 177
stocks held in London 20, 24 Upsher, William 102
theft of 98–105, 146
warehouses 18–19, 20, 21, 60, 68, Van Diemen’s Land 111–12 n.54, 189
81, 98, 100, 106, 108, 145–6, 169, varicose veins 51
172, 188 Venables. John Hankin 101
tenders for goods 29, 185 venereal disease 76
Terry, Stephen Newman 59 Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie 41
textiles 2, 5, 18, 19, 20, 41 vermicelli 23
Thames 7, 17, 19, 21, 23–4 vermillion 23
theatre workers 56 vermin 30
Thelusson, George Woodford 46 volunteer regiments 114, 132 see also
Thom, William 73 Royal East India Volunteers
Thomas, William 188 Bank of England Volunteer
Thompson, E. P. 142 Regiment 123, 137 n.68
Thornhill, John 46 Chiswick Armed Association 132
Thornton, Abraham 51–2 Custom House Volunteers 129
Thornton, Robert 46, 119, 121 Royal West India Regiment of
Thornton, William see Astell, William Volunteers 134 n.2
ticket writers 163
Times 83, 113, 126, 127, 131, 147, 149, Wade, John 149
165, 188, 195–6, 197 wages 54–5, 58, 67–9, 78, 172, 184–5,
Timson, Robert 56–7 186, 187, 193 n.12, 199
tin 17 waiters 53, 56
tincal 31 Walker, William 183
Index 241
Waller, John 102 sale of warehouse property 25, 166,

Wallis, George 164 169
Walsh, Charles 137 n.75 security measures 27, 28
Walsh, Fitzmaurice 165 stocks of goods 24–5
Walsh, Maurice 178 n.23 surgeons 51, 73, 76, 78–81, 82, 124,
Walsingham, Lord 47 126, 185
Walworth 57 theft from 59, 98–107, 146
war with American colonies 113 timekeeping 96–7
war with France 3, 24, 41, 74, 86, 106, transfers of employees 98
113, 121, 127, 129 working environment 69–70
Ward, Charles 173 watch making trades 48, 53
Ward, William 44 watchmen 56, 68, 82, 108, 113, 114,
warehouse-keepers and 163, 171
superintendents 29–30, 32–3, 59, Waterer, Yearly 137 n.61
81, 115, 144, 166, 167, 168, 169, watermen 158
170, 172, 174, 175, 184, 189, 190 Watson, John 59
duties 30, 184 Watts, John 44
dwelling houses of 29–30 Weaklin, George 45
salary and allowances 30, 32 Weatherby, John 188
warehouses 5, 17–34, 114, 115 weavers 52, 53, 56, 74
allegations of corruption 145–6 Wedgwood, Josiah 96
appointments 32–4, 40–52 welfare initiatives 44, 54, 75–82, 86,
attendance records 97 148–9, 185, 186, 192, 196, 198 see
bonded 17, 22, 55 also benefit fund for East India
closures 60, 156–77 Company labourers
construction of 17–26 Wellard, George 60
discipline 94, 96, 97–8, 105–06, 140, Wellesley, Richard, second earl of
198 Mornington 118
government officials based in 28 West India Dock Company 9, 54, 69,
guarding of 113–15, 123, 147 83, 95, 109, 119, 145, 148–9, 171,
job security 54, 151 172, 189, 198
layout 27–8, 98 Westcott, Benjamin 45
lighting 27–8 Western, J. R. 132
machinery 26–7, 70 Whale, Henry 108–09
management hierarchy 28–30, 32–4, wheelwrights 53
98, 141, 142, 198 Whitecross Debtors’ Prison 146, 173
opening hours 55, 69 Whiteway, William 44
paperwork 30, 32, 33, 58, 96–7, 98, Wigram family 46
99, 109, 169 Wigram, William 45, 46
pensioners 13, 150, 177, 183, 187–92 Wilkins, William (labourer) 101, 103
political infiltration into 147–8 Wilkins, William (Surveyor) 70
reception of cargoes 30 Williams, Robert 46
redundancies 152, 157–74 Williams, Stephen 46
refreshments in 99, 146, 147, 153–4 n.34 Willman, Thomas Lindsay 128
registers 11, 95–6 wills and legacies 13, 56–7, 145
‘rubbing down’ 99, 100, 101, 109 Wilson, John 145
rules and regulations 49–50, 57, 67– Windsor, Henry 170
8, 85, 95, 99, 107–08, 109, 198 Windus, Edward 114, 134 n.5
242 Index
wine merchants 52 Woolley, Samuel 71

Wise, James 59 Worcester 48–9, 74
Wissett, Robert 29 Wotton, John 48
wood (imported) 23, 24 wrappers, packaging, and waste
Wood, Charles 191 materials 99–100, 106, 111 n.33
Wood, James 45 Wray, Cornelius 175
Wood, Mr 48 Wright, Peter 48
Wood, Trueman 100, 103, 111 n.35 Wright, Robert 73
Woodford, Thomas 104 writers 32, 58, 59, 68, 158, 167, 168, 169
Woodhouse, John 45
Woods, T. 138 n.85 yardsmen 163
wool 20 Youd, John 103
woollen goods 2, 29, 35 n.5 Young, Edward 171
woollen trade 4

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WORLDS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY Volume 5

The East India Company’s London Workers

The editors welcome submissions from both established scholars and

Previously published titles:

THE BOYDELL PRESS

First published 2010

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd

The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy

This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Figures and tables vi

2 The East India Company Warehouses 17

3 The Warehouse Labourers 40

4 Management Strategies: Incentives, Rewards and 67

5 Management Strategies: Systems of Internal Control 94

6 The Royal East India Volunteers: The ‘Union of 113

7 The Relationship between the East India Company 140

8 The Warehouse Closures 156

9 Management of the Warehouse Labourers and 183

10 Conclusion: ‘Good Masters to the Lower Class of 195

1 Plan of East India Company London properties in 1806 21

1 Proceeds of goods sold at the East India Company 6

11 Deposits held in the East India Company’s Savings 85

This book is based on my doctoral thesis submitted to the University of

The East India Company: an outline history

By 1800 the East India Company was a commercial organization of

and Madras.10 The subsequent development into something more than

The importance of the East India Company in the home economy

territorial expansion would generate surplus revenues in India in spite

beyond conception … The India House, and their numerous warehouses,

Commodity Sale proceeds Commodity Sale proceeds

Private trade goods Private trade goods

and labourers in these establishments, both in the city of London and

Debates about the role of the Company

The transformation of the East India Company into an imperial agency

Contemporary commentators were seldom neutral and tended to

the Company can no longer be portrayed as being a creaking, mercantil-

A history of the Company by Nick Robins published in 2006 claimed

references to the men who were employed to handle the goods.45 No

Scope of this study

established at the turn of the nineteenth century were able to look at

India House in London, much of which is still available in the collections

Structure of the study

1 BL, IOR: A/1/2, Charter 31 December 1600.

THE EAST INDIA COMPANY WAREHOUSES

THE MERCHANTS of the East India Company began trading in 1600

Throughout the Company’s earliest days, warehouse space was

warehouse establishment made in 1785 listed the following: the Bengal

Figure 1: Plan of East India Company London properties in 1806

way out of town, and leave their counting-houses and warehouses to

acorns madder (used in medicine or

coco or cocoa nuts plants and shrubs

Much of the Company’s building activity in the early nineteenth cen-

Figure 2: Elevation of the front of Fenchurch Street warehouse, 1806

Even the remote Ratcliff saltpetre warehouse was constructed ‘with

The warehouses and their contents were considered so impressive that

The commissioners found that the Crown warehouse-keepers had not

a firm and efficient superintendance and controul over the provision of

After 1814, the Committee of Buying and Warehouses superintended

dwelling houses attached to their warehouses. The purpose-built