In transcribing the following paragraphs from the Internet Archive online version of The Imperial Gazetteer’s entry on British India — modern South Asia — I have expanded the divided the long entry into separate documents, expanded abbreviations for easier reading, and added paragraphing and links to material in the Victorian Web. The charts are in the original. This discussion of British India has particular importance because it immediately precedes the 1857 Mutiny and the subsequent major shift in its status as it came under the direct control of the British government rather than that of the East India Company, a private company.— George P. Landow]
The silk fabrics of India are inferior to those of China; but, in 1842-43, there were exported from Bengal to Great Britain to the amount of 24,02,894 rupees (240,290), constituting about two-thirds of their entire ex port. By far the most important manufactures, as regards the extent to which they are produced by the natives of India, are cotton piece-goods, the best of which are made along the Coromandel coast. They are sent chiefly to Arabia, Persia, Pegu, Penang, and the Indian Archipelago; but their manu facture has sustained a progressive diminution within the last 35 years.
Two women spinning white threads. 1780-1858. Watercolor gouache on mica, 97 x 149 mm. New York Public Library Digital Collections NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b13976376. Click on image to enlarge it.
In 1816-17, nearly all India was supplied with home-manufactured cotton goods, and the same were exported to the United Kingdom to the value of 1,659,438. In 1842 43, the export from India to Great Britain reached only the value of 40,267; the native cotton goods, both as to home and foreign supply, having by that period become, in a great measure, supplanted by British cotton manufactures. In 1847, the British plain, printed, and coloured cotton fabrics cleared to Calcutta alone, from the ports of London, Liverpool, and the Clyde, amounted in the aggregate to 112,615,737 yards, valued at 1,329,476; besides cotton twist 11,198,369 pounds, worth 526,303. In 1849, the cotton goods exported from Great Britain to India amounted in value to 3,501,891.
Diapers and other cotton fabrics are, however, still produced at Dacca, once noted for its muslins; chintzes, and a variety of other woven goods, at Calcutta and Burdwan. The silks of Amritsir, Lahore, Mooltan, and other towns in the Punjab, and of Moorshedabad, in Bengal, are of old celebrity. The shawls made from the wool of the Tibet goat by the Hindoo population of Cashmere; the leather, arms, paper, and lacquered wares of the same region; the arms made at Lahore; similar goods, pottery, turbans, Tatta silks, &c., fabricated in Scinde; the muslins of Cicacole, woollen carpets of Ellore, cottons of Tinnevelly, and gold chains and jewellery of Trichinopoly, in the Madras territories, deserve especial mention.
Ship-building has declined at Calcutta, but it has lately risen to high importance at Moulmein. At Bombay are docks for the construction of vessels of the first class, and the Indian mercantile navy contains numerous ships of acknowledged excellence. (For further notices of manufactures, see Hindoostan.)
Sources of this section: Mill’s History of British India; Prinsep’s Bengal and Agra Gazetteer, 1841; M’Gregor’s Report on British India 1848; Stocqueler’s Handbook for India; Board of Trade Report, 1849; Papers on Imports and Exports, 1846; Reports on Sugar and Coffee Planting, and on the, Growth of Cotton in India; Report of the Indian Law Commissioners, 1847; Report on Idolatry in India, 1849; E. India Revenue Report, 1848-49; Acts of the Government of India; Calcutta Review, 1850-51.)
Bibliography
Blackie, Walker Graham. The Imperial Gazetteer: A General Dictionary of Geography, Physical, Political, Statistical and Descriptive. 4 vols. London: Blackie & Son, 1856. Internet Archive. Inline version of a copy in the University of California Library. Web. 7 November 2018.
Last modified 5 December 2018