John Prinsep

John Prinsep (23 April 1748 – 30 November 1830) was born the son of a vicar in rural Oxfordshire, England, with limited horizons for advancement.

He joined the East India Company as a cadet, travelling to Bombay, and was soon engaged in mercantile pursuits, eventually becoming the earliest British merchant to plant indigo, and becoming extremely wealthy in the process.

Prinsep subsequently returned to England, where he became a London alderman and a member of parliament, but he eventually lost both large fortunes he created.

A servant of the East India Company, Prinsep became close friends with Warren Hastings, an opportune relationship which served him well.

Prinsep also traded on his background in the textile business, opening a cotton fabric printing plant in Bengal, as well as acting for ten years as the chintz contractor for the East India Company, an enormously successful venture.

By this time Prinsep had set himself up in regal digs in the village of Monirampur close to the Phulta waterworks which supplied Calcutta with drinking water.

As soon as Prinsep began generating returns on his early investments, he did what other successful English merchants had done: he bought the ships with which he traded.

"[13] Prinsep simultaneously urged a government policy of opening up the India market to the free competition of British merchants, a policy eventually adopted, but one which he was not able to participate in due to financial reversals resulting from the market crisis occasioned at the end of the American War of Independence.

"He did so with the belief that a 'richer tribute may by such means be drawn from Bengal than is furnished by the present almost worn out system of investing it in manufactures which are every day falling in estimation at home since European industry has adopted such variety of imitation and improvement on the fabricks of the East.

[15] John Prinsep subsequently launched himself on an auspicious political career, as well as purchasing an enormous frescoed mansion at 147 Leadenhall Street, London, which would later become part of the East India Company's offices, as well as Thoby Priory in Essex.