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History Taster Lecture

Date: Tuesday 20th February 2024

Time: 16:30-17:30 (GMT)

Who is this lecture open to?: Year 12 and 13 students, parents, teachers and advisers

Where: Virtual Webinar

Speaker: Dr Luna Sabastian

Lecture Title: The English East India Company and the Conquest of India

In 1947, India and Pakistan gained freedom from British colonial rule.

British India was only the second colony to gain independence from the British, after the United States of America over a century and a half earlier. The loss of India would precipitate the demise of the British Empire, the biggest empire the world has ever seen, and lastingly marginalise Britain on the world stage. But how could England, a tiny island nation on the edge of Europe, come to rule India, a land the size of a subcontinent, much more populous and much more prosperous than England – indeed, in the seventeenth century, one of the most prosperous and productive countries in the world?

In this session, we will find answers to this question by reviewing the long history of the British encounter with India from the landing of the first British merchant ships in the early 1600s to the beginning of Crown rule in 1858.