East India Company

East India Company, founded in 1600; erected its first factories on the mainland in 1612 at Surat, but its most profitable trade in these early years was with the Spice Islands, Java, Sumatra, &c.; driven from these islands by the Dutch in 1622, the Company established itself altogether on the mainland; although originally created under royal charter for purely commercial purposes, it in 1689 entered upon a career of territorial acquisition, which culminated in the establishment of British power in India; gradually, as from time to time fresh renewals of its charter were granted, it was stripped of its privileges and monopolies, till in 1858, after the Mutiny, all its powers were vested in the British Crown.

Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)