Records of factories and residencies

Record Holding >> Records of factories and residencies

The Factory Records, as the name indicates, are records of the commercial establishments of the East India Company in Western India from Sind in the North to Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast. When the East India Company started their business in the East, their places of business were known as ‘Factories’. Surat was their Headquarter or Chief Factory in the Western India. Factory also included Commercial Residency, Mahi Commercial Residency, etc.

A ‘Residency’ meant an establishment which had to look after the interests of the East India Company at the Courts of Native Rulers. As such the duties of the Residency were more or less of a political nature.

Factory and Residency Records mainly register the business transactions of the Company, but incidentally refer to Political events in the country. To this category belong the records of Surat Factory(1780-1781), Thana Factory (1776-1817), Bankot Factory(1766-1814), Karwar Factory (1751-1752), Sind Factory (1762-1764), Mokha Factory(1722-1785), Basra Factory (1763-1811) and Gombroon Factory (1741-1757).The Surat Diaries consist of 218 volumes extant from1660 to1809.

Records of Factories and Residencies in Mumbai Archives can be classified as follows:-

In Western India – These are as follow:-

• North of Mumbai: the Factories of Surat and Broach, and the “Commercial Residency, Northward”, a term which covered Surat, Broach, Cambay and Kathiawad;
• In the neighborhood of Mumbai: the Factories of Caranja, Belapur and Tanna (Thana);
• Inland; the Calian (Kalyan) and Poona Residencies;
• On the coast south of Mumbai: the Residencies of Raree (Redi) and of Fort Victoriaat Bankot, and the Factory of Bankot, all in what is now the Ratnagiri district, the Factory of Karwar, in North Kanara, and the Malabar Commercial Residency;
• The Sind Factory, the letters of which are dated sometimes from Tatta, sometimes from Shahbandar.

Outside India – These comprise the Residencies and Factories at Mokha, on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea, Basra, Bushrie, Gombroon, now better known as Bandar Abbas, Diego Garcia Island, which lies in the Indian Ocean far south Bombay, and Bantam, in Java.

• Surat Presidency and Factory
• Broach Factory
• Commercial Residency, Northward
• Karanja (“Caranja’) Residency
• Belapur (‘Bellapoor’) Factory
• Thana (‘Tanna’) Factory
• Kalyan (‘Callian’) Residency
• Poona Residency
• Redi (‘Raree’) Residency
• Fort Victoria (Bankot) Residency
• Bankot Factory
• FKarwar (‘Carwar’) Factory
• Sind (‘Scind’) Factory
• Mokha Factory
• Mokha Residency
• Basra actory
• Basra Residency
• Bushire Residency
• Gombroon Factory Residency
• Diego Garcia Island

For more details about above Factory residency diaries, please contact Mumbai Archives.

1. Kolhapur Residency – Files (1854 to 1948).
2. Janjira Residency – 35 Files (1937 to 1947).
3. Jawhar Residency – 80 Files (1914 to 1941).
4. Rewa Kantha Residency – 15 Files (1890 to 1926).
5. Rajpipla Residency – 70 Files (1933 to 1946).
6. Baroda Residency – About 100 files (1936 to 1946)
7. Gujarat State Agency and Baroda Residency – About 900 Files (1866 to1927).