Meike Fellinger
Short reports (up to 10 min each) on:
a) state of research to date
b) plans for future research
c) plans for future study visits / conferences
a) state of research to date
- During the last weeks, I did (and continue to do) some deep reading into the literature
on both EIC official and private trade, focusing on individual merchants (Holden Furber,
H.B. Morse, P.J. Marshall, Soren Mentz, Linda Colley, Anthony Webster, and so forth).
- I am currently catching up reading on the institutional changes, practices and problems
particularly of the China trade. Here, I am mostly interested in the changes in supply
mechanisms, privilege trade and the role and liberties of supercargoes. I still need to
find more literature about the personal entanglements and business activities between
EIC supercargoes (operating in the Canton trade) and land-based merchants/agents in
India as well as about their potential clients in Europe (jewellers, auctioneers, family
members, ...).
- I am following the archival traces of a range of Canton supercargoes, their connections
in London, the goods they were trading with (through privilege trade, intra-Asian trade)
and their business activities in India.
- I am currently building up a database with the names and details of all supercargoes
bound for Canton from roughly 1700 to 1830. Using the online database of The British
Library, A2A, Newspaper databases online, Oxford dnb, and many more search engines
as well as the ‘Chronicles of the East India Company’ by H.B. Morse.
(I probably need to enlarge my scope at some point in order to look also at those
supercargoes who went back and forth between India and Canton/Macao).
- Many of the supercargoes I am following at the moment grew up in families that might
well be described as ‘commercial dynasties’. Usually more than one brother or other kin
served in the EIC as well. These connections could be useful to find out about joint
commercial activities and potentially more archival material!
b) plans for future research
- I need to start spending some time in the London archives. The British Library and The
National Archives, Kew, are the places where I will start my empirical research.
- I am therefore planning to stay in England from the beginning of April to mid-June in
order to have time before the term starts (3 weeks at least) to find new sources.
- I need to find out whether there is archival material on supercargoes in Canton or
Macao. This is not unlikely given the fact that after 1770, British supercargoes did not
leave anymore after the trading season for England. Instead, they lived from February to
July in Macao.
c) plans for future study visits / conferences
In mid-April, there is the 3rd Global History Conference at the LSE in London. I will
attend a range of penals linked to my own and to the broader interests of the team.
I did a pre-selection of project-related panels for everybody of you who is interested to
join. The timetable is now online under:
http://wwwdup.uni-leipzig.de/~eniugh/congress2011/programme/timetable