The Lord Chamberlain's Office is a department within the British Royal Household. It is concerned with matters such as protocol, state visits, investitures, garden parties, royal weddings and funerals. It is also responsible for authorising use of the Royal Arms
The British Library is a research library in London that is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the largest libraries in the world.
The British Library was created on 1 July 1973 as a result of the British Library Act 1972. Prior to this, the national library was part of the British Museum, which provided the bulk of the holdings of the new library, alongside smaller organisations which were folded in
of the British Asiatic Society
Edward Gerrard, founder of the London taxidermy firm Edward Gerrard & Sons, was an employee of the British Museum's zoological department, as an attendant.
The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations are now also responsible for training surgeons and setting their examinations.
The East India Company was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and colonised part of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world. The EIC had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three Presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time.
Originally chartered as the 'Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies', the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo, dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea and opium. The company also rules the beginnings of the British Empire in India.
The company eventually came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control on India in the form of the new British Raj.
The company subsequently experiences recurring problems with its finances, despite frequent government intervention. It was dissolved in 1874 under the terms of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act enacted one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigial, powerless and obsolete. The official government machinery of the British Raj had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its armies.