East India Company

A joint-stock company founded in 1600 with a royal charter granting it a monopoly of English trade with much of Asia. Initially a trading organisation, the East India Company gradually acquired territorial power in India, developing its own army, civil administration, and courts. During the nineteenth century it effectively governed large parts of India on behalf of the British state. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, its governing functions were transferred to the Crown in 1858, and the Company was formally dissolved in 1874.