RICHEST EAST INDIA MERCHANT THE THE LIFE AND BUSINESS OF JOHN PALMER OF CALCUTTA 1767-1836 Anthony Webster Worlds of the East India Company  Volume The Richest East India Merchant The Life and Business of John Palmer of Calcutta  1767–1836 Worlds of the East India Company ISSN 1752–5667 Series Editor H.V Bowen (University of Leicester) 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 attention 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 who have interests 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, School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH The Richest East India Merchant The Life and Business of John Palmer of Calcutta  1767–1836 Anthony Webster The boydell press © Anthony Webster 2007 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 Anthony Webster 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 2007 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN  978 84383 303 The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library This publication is printed on acid-free paper Disclaimer: Printed in Great Britain by Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire To view these images please refer to the printed version of this book CONTENTS List of illustrations vii Preface ix Maps xii The world of John Palmer The prince of merchants 23 The management of John Palmer & Company: Strategies, structures and problems 44 Parenthood and patronage: Race, kinship, society and Anglo-Indian business culture 65 John Palmer and the politics of the East India Company 87 6 Ruin and failure 1820–1830 110 John Palmer’s life and legacy 132 Appendices: The state of John Palmer & Co.’s affairs following failure 145 Notes 151 Bibliography 179 Index 185 illustrations Plates (placed between pages 86 and 87) View of the Loll Bazaar opposite the house of John Palmer, by J.B Fraser, c1825–26 © British Library Board All rights reserved (shelfmark X644 16) Portrait of John Palmer, with thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for permission to use this picture Major William Palmer with his second wife and children, by J Zoffany (c mid 1780s) © British Library Board All rights reserved (shelfmark F 597) The bust of John Palmer, Calcutta Town Hall The bust of John Palmer: inscription The bust of John Palmer: full view Maps (placed on pages xii–xiv) The British presence in India c1805 British trade in Asia 1780–1830 Calcutta in the age of John Palmer Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook To view these images please refer to the printed version of this book In memory of Jackie Ryding PREFACE The background to this book goes back to the early days of my academic career, as a PhD student at the University of Birmingham in the late 1970s My dissertation topic was British imperialism in south-east Asia during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focusing particularly on the role of trade in promoting British interest in the region from the principal British possessions in India, Calcutta, Madras and Bombay The main actors were the agency houses, those peculiar and colourful organisations which combined banking, trade, agency shipping and plantation agriculture to establish themselves as the wealthiest and most powerful commercial interests influencing British policy during the period Leaders in the field such as the biographer of Thomas Stamford Raffles, C.E Wurtzburg, and the historian Nicholas Tarling, identified John Palmer & Company as probably the agency house which was most active in south-east Asia Pursuing their lines of research I was introduced to the extensive collection of John Palmer’s correspondence in the Bodleian Library, Oxford Even at the time, I was most surprised that this rich archive had not been used to produce a dedicated biography or business history of the most prominent and wealthiest British merchant in the east, a man described by no less than a Governor-General as ‘the Prince of Merchants’ Certainly the sixty volumes of letters were about much more than the dry transactions of a complex business; they contained the details of a rich and eventful family and social life, offering fascinating insights into Anglo-Indian colonial society during an early and turbulent period The trajectory of my career meant that I did not have another opportunity to resume my interest in Palmer until 1998, when to my relief and astonishment I discovered that the potential of his papers had still not been realised It was then, with support from Edge Hill College, my employer at the time, that I embarked upon the research which is the foundation of this book I have tried to organise the work so that personal, social and commercial aspects of John Palmer’s life are all covered; so rich are the sources that to have confined my efforts to a clinical analysis of the evolution of his firm would have been to them a grave injustice I have attempted to write a book that is rather more than a traditional business history My aim has been to capture the man’s personality, values, attitudes, relationships and the social milieu in ...Worlds of the East India Company  Volume The Richest East India Merchant The Life and Business of John Palmer of Calcutta  1767–1836 Worlds of the East India Company ISSN 1752–5667... society and Anglo-Indian business culture 65 John Palmer and the politics of the East India Company 87 6 Ruin and failure 1820–1830 110 John Palmer s life and legacy 132 Appendices: The state of John. .. rise and development of East India Company rule in India, the Company’s conquest of new territories and the growth of its trade to China and south -east Asia, together with an explanation of the