Josiah Child
1630 – 1699 English merchant, governor of the East India Company, economic writer
Governor of the English East India Company who turned it toward armed force and monopoly, and an early writer on trade.
- Affiliations
- East India Company
Sir Josiah Child was a wealthy London merchant who came to dominate the English East India Company as its governor in the 1680s. He pushed the company from a trading venture toward a territorial and military power, arguing it should hold forts, revenue, and troops in India. His policy led to a disastrous war with the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the late 1680s. He also wrote on trade and interest rates in works such as A New Discourse of Trade, defending the company's monopoly and a low legal interest rate. His career shows how a chartered company began to act like a state.
In the timeline
- 1600 Founding of the English East India Company the governor who reshaped it into an armed power
- 1600 The English East India Company receives its royal charter later governor who militarized the company