MRP: people

People

Sir George Oxenden

As president of the English East India company in Surat between 1663 and 1669, Sir George Oxenden left a private correspondence with his elder sister, Elizabeth Dalyson, and with other kin, close friends, and commercial partners. The correspondence, now in the British Library, provides a starting point from which to explore their lives. Bound in still bright red Indian leather, the volumes are the work of Oxenden’s copyists, his factory writers, rather than autograph manuscripts. The communication is largely one way, with Oxenden’s own voice often to be inferred from the tone and substance of his correspondents.

A careful reading of the correspondence reveals the existence of two connected joint stock companies formed in 1655 by Oxenden and five former colleagues from Surat, in the decade prior to Oxenden’s presidency. Two slightly divergent lists of subscribers to the two ventures were subsequently discovered by this author in the National Archives in chancery papers related to the ventures. In 1655 the English East India company was in disarray, its monopoly had expired, and the eastern markets were up for grabs. Yet, the ventures have little visibility in the historiography, and are the subject of only a brief footnote by Sir William Foster.