Published articles

 

• William Paxton 1744-1824; The history of an East Indian Fortune : by Willem G. J. Kuiters
  • William Paxton was the son of the clerk of a wealthy scottish wine-merchant. He left the Navy as a Midshipman at the end of the Seven Years war and tried his luck in India as a free-mariner on one of the country ships. He returned seven years later and requested employ in the East India Company's Civil Service as Assay Master. A year later Paxton sailed out for India again. He eventually became Mint Master on the Company's Bengal establishment but made his most impressive career as an agent acting for European private traders. He founded the first and certainly one of the most successful agency houses in Calcutta and acquired an important private fortune. He left India for good in 1785. Back in Britain he established the British branch of his Agency business and became active in banking. He bought an estate in South Wales, Middleton Hall, on which he laid out a beautiful park.
    Bengal; Past and Present, vol. 111 (Calcutta 1994) pp. 1-22; I wrote a more elaborate text on William Paxton that can be read here

 

• Reactions to change. European society in Bengal under the East India Company flag, 1756 - 1773: by Willem G. J. Kuiters
  • The rise to political power in India put extensive administrative responsibilities in the hands of the East India Company. These responsibilities were often difficult to combine with the essentially mercantile affairs of the Company and soon outgrew what the Company's existing administrative apparatus could handle. This situation was keenly felt by the Europeans living under the Company's flag in Bengal itself before the situation received attention in Britain itself. The Company's power was widely abused and vehemently contested by its own servants in this early period of British rule. This article explains why and how.
    Itinerario 1999 3-4

 

• Law and Empire: The Armenians contra Verelst, 1769-1777 : by Willem G. J. Kuiters
  • The extension of British power over large parts of India in the second half of the eighteenth century put the British judicature before the difficult task to provide a legal framework to include those parts in the structure of a British Empire. The Armenian cases against the former Governor of Bengal Harry Verelst offer a glimpse of the difficulties encountered in trying to come to grips with this task in a country where other systems of law and legal customs had long been in existence. The cases received ample coverage in the contemporary press. The Armenians? presence in London defending their cause in the Commons and before the principal courts of justice helped to awaken the interest of the public to the problems of governing the British possessions in the East.
    The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History Vol.28 No.2 (May 2000) pp. 1-22