Departures podcast episode 3 – The Company Men in India

Episode 3: The Company Men in India

Since the 1960s, large numbers of people have come to Britain from the Indian subcontinent. But for the preceding 350 years almost all migration was in the other direction. From the beginning of the 17^th century when the first ships of the English East India Company set sail from London, India was seen as a place of fabulous wealth where huge fortunes could be made. As the Company’s trading posts around India flourished and the Company gained ever more political control, competition for Company jobs became intense. Tens of thousands of men from Britain ventured out to live an expat life in a country that was completely different to anything they had previously known. Most never returned.

Mukti Jain Campion speaks to historians William Dalrymple, Professor Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Dr Kate Teltscher and to Gurminder Bhambra, Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies at the University of Sussex, to find out more about the Company men who went to India and how their actions brought profound change for both Britain and India.

A Culture Wise Production for the Migration Museum

Producer: Mukti Jain Campion

Readings: Adrian Preater

Music: Shakira Malkani

About our Departures podcast:

Departures is a new podcast from the Migration Museum exploring 400 years of emigration from Britain.

What would it take for you to leave your home? To leave everything and everyone you know to move to another country and start again. Over the past 400 years, that’s exactly what millions of British people have been doing. Today, the news headlines are full of stories of migrants trying to come to Britain. But for most of this country’s history, it’s actually been the other way round. And Britain’s emigration rate remains one of the highest in the world. Why has such a small island nation produced so many migrants and how have they shaped the world we live in today? In a new podcast series, Mukti Jain Campion speaks to people who are shedding new light on this often hidden history.

Listen and subscribe to Departures on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

This podcast accompanies the Migration Museum’s exhibition Departures: 400 Years of Emigration from Britain.

Find out more about our Departures podcast

Image: Portrait of an East India Company Official by artist Dip Chand (© The Picture Art Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)

Audio

Annual Lecture 2024 – Sunder Katwala asks: ‘Does the history of migration shape its future?’
For our 2024 Annual Lecture, Sunder Katwala, Director of the thinktank British Future, asked us to consider: if we engage and educate people about the history of immigration, how much can we hope or expect to change how we talk and think about its future? Listen and read the full transcript of Sunder’s lecture. Read more
Departures podcast: 400 years of emigration from Britain
Departures is a new podcast from the Migration Museum exploring 400 years of emigration from Britain. Read more
Departures podcast episode 2 – Maidens’ Voyage
In the early 17th century shiploads of young women were despatched to America by the Virginia Company of London. It was hoped they would marry the English planters in Jamestown and help grow the new colony. But who were these young women prepared to travel thousands of miles across the ocean in search of a husband? And how did they fare? Mukti Jain Campion talks to Jennifer Potter, author of The Jamestown Brides: The Bartered Wives of the New World. Read more

Video

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Contemporary artist STIK has made a video for us to celebrate our reopening, featuring amazing drone footage of WALL and our current exhibitions. Read more
Jewish Museum Object Talk – Dunera
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Moving Stories: Lewisham – a creative competition for young people aged 9-18
Over the past year, young people from across Lewisham have been designing exhibits responding to what migration means to them as part of Moving Stories: Lewisham, a creative competition we ran during Borough of Culture, supported by Landsec. This video tells the story of the competition, featuring interviews with the six shortlisted teams and footage of the finals event. Read more

Publications

Migration and Museums – a review for the Migration Network 2020/21
The Migration Museum commissioned a review to provide an overview of migration-related work being undertaken by museums and heritage sites nationally, to explore some of the motivations for the museum sector to address migration and the challenges faced in doing so, and to provide an initial basis and context for participants in the Migration Network 2020/21 to explore further. Read more
Signposting to refugee and asylum seeker support organisations in London
A downloadable guide featuring a selection of organisations supporting refugees and asylum seekers in London. Read more
Exploring how migration changes the places where we live
Migration has a major impact on local communities. In a series of videos produced as part of Migration Making Places, Making People: New Narratives of Inclusion, a partnership project between COMPAS, The Open University, the Migration Museum Project and Counterpoints Arts, key policymakers, researchers and practitioners discuss issues ranging from solidarity to challenges migrants face and… Read more