The East India Company, which was by 1800 a commercial organisation of unrivalled size and complexity managing a vast empire in Asia, also played a crucial role in the British economy, particularly in London, where the Company was the largest employer of civilian labour in the early nineteenth century, with thousands of workmen in its metropolitan warehouses. This book provides a detailed examination of the management strategies used by the Company to control its London warehouse labourers and to maintain acceptable levels of commercial and corporate efficiency. It shows how benevolence...