1 - Science under the Company before Company Science

Summary

This chapter introduces the early modern East India Company and its modes of engaging with the sciences in the period before the mid eighteenth century. Two aspects of science and the early modern Company are emphasized. First, before 1757, the Company generally contracted out many of the navigational, historical, medical, mathematical and other areas of expertise that supported and were supported by overseas trade. As an institution, the Company did directly own and manage a vast amount of information related to logistics, regulations and accounting. However, although the Company also depended upon technical and scientific expertise, it did not directly fund, manage or organize the other branches of science upon which its operations depended. Thus, in this period, and following a general pattern of early modern “contractor states,” science generally grew and developed under the Company, if not at the Company. Second, science under the Company found space to grow by way of the peculiar structure and organization of Company trading that historians have called the “internal free trade.” The Company’s practice of allowing individuals to profit under the “private trade” would be especially important to the growth of the curiosity and manuscript trade between Britain and Asia in this period.