At which one among the following places did the British East India Company found its factory in the year 1611?
- (a)Madras
- (b)Masulipatam
- (c)Bombay
- (d)Balasore
Correct — B, Masulipatam. The English East India Company opened its first factory (a fortified trading warehouse) on the Coromandel coast at Masulipatnam in 1611, two years before the better-known Surat factory of 1613. Masulipatnam was then a busy port of the Golconda kingdom, prized for its painted textiles, which made it the Company's natural first foothold on the eastern seaboard.
- (a)Madras — Madras came later — the Company acquired the site and built Fort St George there only around 1639-40, nearly three decades after 1611.
- (c)Bombay — Bombay was not an early Company factory; it passed to the English Crown in 1661 as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry and was leased to the Company only in 1668.
- (d)Balasore — Balasore, in Odisha, did become a Company factory in Bengal, but it was set up later in the 1630s, not in 1611.
In the early seventeenth century the English East India Company set up 'factories' — fortified trading stations where a factor (agent) stored goods for export. Its earliest factories clustered on India's coasts, with Masulipatnam (1611) and Surat (1613) coming first, followed by the presidency towns.
The tempting answer is the far more famous Surat (1613) or a presidency capital. The question pins the year to 1611, which predates Surat and every presidency town, so the answer has to be the earlier Coromandel port of Masulipatnam.
- The Company's first factory was at Masulipatnam (1611) on the Coromandel coast, then part of the Golconda kingdom.
- The Surat factory followed in 1613 after Emperor Jahangir's firman.
- Madras (Fort St George) was founded around 1639, Bombay came to the Company in 1668, and Calcutta grew from a 1690 settlement.
- A factory here meant a trading warehouse, not a manufacturing unit in the modern sense.
- Confusing the first factory (Masulipatnam, 1611) with the first western-coast factory (Surat, 1613).
- Assuming the presidency capitals of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta were the earliest factories — they came decades later.
Asked as 'first / earliest factory' pinned to a year, with the trap option being Surat or a presidency town.
In the year 1613, where was the English East India Company given permission to set up a factory (trading post)?
- (a) Bangalore
- (b) Madras
- (c) Masulipatnam
- (d) Surat
Answer(d) Surat
Same concept — the sites of the Company's earliest factories. UPSC fixes the 1613 firman at Surat and lists Masulipatnam among the options; this NDA item pushes back two years to 1611, when the first factory was actually at Masulipatnam.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Emperor Jahangir's firman of 1613 allowed the English East India Company to build a factory at which port?
- (a)Masulipatnam
- (b)Surat
- (c)Hooghly
- (d)Cambay
Answer(b) Surat — Jahangir's 1613 firman permitted the Company's first factory on the western coast.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Fort St George, the English East India Company's fortified settlement founded around 1639, is located at
- (a)Bombay
- (b)Calcutta
- (c)Madras
- (d)Masulipatnam
Answer(c) Madras — Fort St George became the nucleus of the Madras presidency.