East India Company - Events in East London 2nd - 10th October

Do you have ancestors who were involved with the East India Company?

An East India Company Exhibition opens next week at the Mile End Arts Pavilion, Ashcroft Road, London E3 5TW.  The event (free) is being organised by the Brick Lane Circle, a voluntary organisation supporting the Bangladeshi community in the UK and can be seen from Monday 4th - Sunday 10th October.

There are also a couple of associated walks taking place this weekend - advance booking necessary (07574224891 or email: bricklanecircle@yahoo.co.uk):

• Saturday 2 October 2010, 3-5 pm, called City of London and West End, by Nick Robins (author of The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational)
• Sunday 3 October 2010, 2-4 pm, called Invisible Empire and East India Company Dockside by Dr Georgie Wemyss (author of The Invisible Empire: White Discourse, Tolerance and Belonging)

For readers who would like to find out more about the East India Company, a large number of records from the East India Company (and its successor the India Office) can be found at the British Library in London (and not ias with most govenrment records). The catalogue is searchable online in the Access to Archives catalogues. Many of these records have been made available online via the Families of the British India Society (FIBIS), who also have a members' only database.  A full list of FIBIS available records can be found here.

The National Archives also has several relevant records, especially for those in the military. It also has cabinet papers relating to Empire, Indian independence etc.

The subscription site FindMyPast has a useful description of British India Records and further records available to subscribers only.

Thanks to Emma Jolly for alerting me to these events and for clarifying some of the above.  Emma is a genealogist at Genealogic, and a British Library approved researcher for the Asia, Pacific and African collections, who is working on a new book on the British in India.  Her website has a further list of relevant record sources here.

Rosemary Morgan
London Roots Research
http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/rosemarymorgan