Answer: A factory was a fortified trading centre of the English East India Company, with warehouses for goods and residences for its officers.
- The East India Company was founded in 1600. With the permission (farman) of the Mughal emperor Jahangir it set up its first factory at Surat in 1613; Sir Thomas Roe obtained further trade concessions.
- Factories were later started at Masulipatnam, Madras (Fort St. George, 1639), Hugli, Kasimbazar, Patna, Rajapur and Calcutta (Fort William).
- Mumbai, received by the British king Charles II as dowry, was given to the Company in 1668 and became its main centre on the west coast.
- The factories were headed by a chief or president; they bought goods like cotton cloth, indigo, saltpetre and spices for export. Gradually they kept soldiers and became bases of British political power in India.
