East India Company
There is a clear indication of the East India Company on the map, with the seal located very close to where Bombay is presented. Tracking the influence of the East India Company allows us an insight into Britain’s relationship with India. The East India Company sought Bombay as a vital trade route destination in India, given its influential position on the harbour. Consequently, much construction took places during the early 1800s, with ‘£400,000 a year [being] spent on road building, and by 1850s there existed an estimated 1600 miles of roads suitable carts’[1] leading from Bombay to other areas such as Agra and Madras. Thus, it is evident that there was a move to make Bombay more well-connected in order to further its potential as a trade hub.
Furthermore, the fortification of Bombay was a strategic move by the British, since the East India Company allowed for the British to be in direct control of Bombay’s economic situation. A mass increase of the Company’s men at Bombay saw ‘26500’[2] men stationed in Bombay. Rather than working for the Company’s trading, ‘these forces ruled and controlled the areas under direct Company jurisdiction, and held in thrall those other areas within the Company’s orbit’[3] which points again to Britain’s expansionist plot, given the growth of the Empire in the latter half of the 19th Century.