The Company Weavers of Bengal The East India Company and the Organization of Textile Production in Bengal 1750-1813

Abstract

This study is concerned with the organizational changes that took place in the production of cotton textiles in Bengal in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It attempts to relate these to changes in the life and conditions of the artisans who supplied the East India Company's investment, particularly from 1750 to 1813. The work draws largely on newly discovered eighteenth-century Bengali manuscripts in the India Office Library and other contemporary sources to put forward new reasons for the decline of the weaving industry in the period under review. Readership: scholars and students of Indian history and the history of textiles.