A 1862 envelope addressed to The Agra and The United Service Bank

Agra Bank was founded in 1833 in Agra. It primarily catered to military and the government officials. In the mid-1850s the bank established its head office in Calcutta. It had branches in Madras, Bombay and Lahore alongside a London agency. The bank moved to London in 1857 and was rechristened The Agra and the United Service Bank. In 1864 it took over a member of the London Bankers' Clearing House, Masterman, Peters, Mildred and Company, and renamed itself Agra and Masterman's Bank. It became a leading exchange bank by 1866. The collapse of Overend Gurney and Company, a wholesale discount bank, led to a banking panic. Consequently, Agra Bank was liquidated in 1900.

The Calcutta head office of the bank is now known as Currency Building and after restoration and renovation, acts as an art museum and is used for exhibitions.

The  envelope above traveled from Jhansi (18 Mar) Via Gwalior (19 Mar) to Agra (20 Mar) 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agra_Bank

https://www.incredibleindia.gov.in/en/west-bengal/kolkata/the-currency-building

Port Canning Land Investment, Reclamation and Dock Company (PCC) was incorporated, to undertake work essential to the Port Canning Municipality (PCM). PCC was granted exclusive concessions and rights as part of the deal. 

Port Canning Municipality (PCM), established in 1862 is the first and possibly the only municipality that went bankrupt in India. The municipality had grand plans for parks, wharves, jetties, tramways, railway stations, dockyards which didn’t materialise. 

The origins of PCM are interesting. In 1853, Bengal Chamber of Commerce feared that the silting of Hooghly River may result in Calcutta Port becoming unnavigable and a search for an auxiliary port ensued. Matla estuary, 45 kms south-east of Calcutta, amongst Sunderbans was chosen where the waters of Bidyádharí, Karatoyá, and Athárabánká rivers converged. Henry Piddington, a storm expert warned that the site is unsuitable for a port as a cyclone may destroy the port. Nevertheless, about 9000 acres of lands was acquired; 8260 acres in the first instance and 650 acres in the second. The port was named after than Governor General Charles Canning who subsequently became the Viceroy. The municipality had taken loans and issued debentures worth of INR 1Mn. A railway line from Calcutta to Port Canning was built for INR 6M. 

PCC issued equity which had a premium of INR 12,000 in Bombay and INR 10,000 in Calcutta; this was an era of another wild equity boom. A number of reasons made the port unviable, and the final nail was the cyclone of November 2, 1867, which destroyed the port. 

As a result PCC was put into liquidation in 1870 and PCM faced bankruptcy.

Source: Research Paper

 The Bank of Western India opened in Bombay, India in 1842. Its purpose was primarily to finance trade and deal with different currencies. In 1845, the bank took the name of the Oriental Bank and set up branches in Colombo (1843), Calcutta (1844), Shanghai (1845), Canton (1845), Singapore (1846), and Hong Kong (1846). 

The bank became the first note-issuing bank in Hong Kong. In 1846 the bank issued currency for Ceylon, printed by Batho & Bingley, London. In 1849 The Oriental Bank took over the failed Bank of Ceylon which had printed currency notes in 1844. 

In 1851 it was granted a Royal charter in England as the Oriental Bank Corporation (OBC) focusing in Ceylon on providing loans to coffee plantations. The bank further expanded to Australia, Japan, Mauritius, South African and United States. In 1860s, it was considered a powerful and prestigious Eastern exchange bank.

However, in the 1870s the bank had ballooning non-performing loans from coffee plantations. The yields in Ceylon coffee plantations fell  due to rust disease caused by Hemileia vastatrix, a fungus. The plantation owners could not make good on their debts. 

Some banking analysts opine that the bank was hit by unhedged exchange  rate risk as it had borrowed sterling which was gold and loaned rupees  which was silver based. When silver/gold parity changed, it was exposed  to exchange rate risk. 

OBC was forced to be bailed out by the Government of Ceylon. In 1884 OBC suspended payment and was liquidated in a Chancery proceeding. Simultaneously, in 1885, Government took over the issue of currency.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Bank_Corporation

https://notes.lakdiva.org.lk/british/obc/

https://www.historyofceylontea.com/ceylon-publications/ceylon-tea-articles/colombo-to-haldummulla-sri-lankas-entres-of-free-banking.html

In the mid-19th century, Aden was a desolate volcanic outcrop. The British had captured it in 1839 to serve as a coaling station, but there were no roads, no housing, no fresh water, not even basic comforts. Into this unlikely setting stepped a Bombay Parsi merchant named Cowasjee Dinshaw (1827–1900), who transformed Aden into a thriving hub of empire and earned a name that still lingers: Adenwalla, the man of Aden.

Born in Bombay in 1827, Dinshaw came from the enterprising Parsi community that had already produced trading pioneers like Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy. By the 1850s, he had crossed the Arabian Sea and set up a trading house in Aden, dealing in grain, cotton, and cloth. But Dinshaw was more than a merchant. He quickly grasped that Aden was destined to be more than a dusty outpost, it could be the supply hub of the Indian Ocean world, connecting India with the Red Sea, East Africa, and Europe.

His foresight and honesty won him the trust of the British. When remittances from London were delayed, Dinshaw advanced money from his own coffers; when supplies ran short, he filled the gap. To the garrison, he was not just a trader, he was its banker, quartermaster, and lifeline.

Dinshaw also brought modern amenities to Aden. At great personal expense, he imported machinery from Europe to produce ice, potable water, and salt, luxuries the city had never known. For residents used to the relentless heat, the arrival of cold water and ice was nothing short of miraculous.

His ventures expanded far beyond Aden. His firm, Cowasjee Dinshaw & Bros., stretched its reach to Zanzibar, Djibouti, Mombasa, Hodeidah, and the Somali coast, making him one of the most important Indian Ocean merchants of his day.

Dinshaw’s wealth was matched by his generosity. In Aden, he funded schools, housing, wells, and dharamsalas for travelers and the poor. In Bombay, he contributed to hospitals, schools, and Parsi charitable institutions. To ensure that his work endured, he established the Cowasjee Dinshaw Charitable Trust, which continues to support causes more than a century after his passing.

So profound was his impact that his name became synonymous with Aden itself, Adenwalla. His descendants preserved his records - letters, contracts, and photographs, now known as the Cowasjee Dinshaw Collection of the Adenwalla Archive.

In Bombay, the Cowasjee Dinshaw Agiary, built by his family, still stands as a rare architectural link between Aden and India.

When Cowasjee Dinshaw died in 1900, he left not just a business empire but a city transformed by his vision. He had turned barren rock into a bustling port, given its people ice, water, and opportunity, and shown that commerce and philanthropy could go hand in hand.

For Aden, he was its maker. For Bombay, a benefactor. For his community, he remains Adenwalla, a name still spoken with respect, more than a century after his passing.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowasjee_Dinshaw_Adenwalla https://peterpickering.wixsite.com/aden/cowasjee-dinshaw https://zoroastrians.net/2020/06/08/the-cowasjee-dinshaw-collection-of-the-adenwalla-archive/ https://www.bombaywalla.org/archives 

Life and Times of Sir Hormusjee C. Dinshaw by AN Joshi

In 1851, brothers Salomon and Johann Georg Volkart established the firm of Volkart Brothers, with offices in Winterthur, Switzerland and Bombay, India. Their timing was prescient. European powers were deepening their colonial engagements in Asia, and India was emerging as a major hub for cotton and other commodities. The Volkart brothers recognized the potential of serving as intermediaries between Indian producers and global markets, and quickly positioned themselves as trusted merchant bankers and commodity traders.

From the outset, the company pursued a dual strategy: exporting Indian products like cotton, coffee, cocoa, spices, coir, and rubber to Europe, while importing machinery, paper, soap, textiles, and other European manufactured goods into the Indian market. This two-way trade proved highly profitable. When the American Civil War (1861–1865) disrupted cotton supplies, Volkart Brothers capitalized on soaring global demand for Indian cotton with presence deep in hinterland like the town of Beawar. Their reputation grew not only as traders, but also as financiers who extended credit and modern trading practices to Indian partners.

The company expanded rapidly. By the late 19th century, Volkart had opened offices in Colombo, Cochin, Karachi, and London, establishing a strong presence across Asia and Europe. In India, their network grew to over 80 branches, making them one of the largest European trading houses on the subcontinent. By 1926, the firm employed more than 7,600 people worldwide and had become the fourth largest cotton merchant globally. More than a commercial enterprise, Volkart Brothers embodied what historians now describe as “cosmopolitan capitalism”, a business model that blended Swiss capital and management with Indian enterprise and resources, straddling colonial boundaries in pursuit of global trade.

The company also left a strong industrial imprint in southern India. In Kerala, Volkart Brothers invested heavily in the coir industry, setting up large-scale factories in Alappuzha. These units modernized coir manufacturing and provided employment to thousands. Decades later, after the decline of European merchant houses, these assets were absorbed into the Kerala State Coir Corporation, and today, some former Volkart sites are being redeveloped into heritage museums that preserve the memory of Alappuzha’s industrial past.

By the mid-20th century, however, changing global trade patterns and India’s independence reshaped the fortunes of foreign trading houses. Volkart Brothers faced the challenge of redefining themselves in a world where nationalist policies and industrialization were replacing colonial-era trade networks. In 1954, another step was taken: Volkart Brothers joined hands with Tata Sons to form Voltas Ltd., headquartered in Mumbai; an anagram of “VOL” and “TAS”. Voltas inherited Volkart’s engineering and air-conditioning businesses, and a year later, the New York Times reported that the new venture would “take over Volkart jobs in India.” This marked a transition from commodity trading to industrial and engineering services, aligning with India’s economic priorities.

While Voltas thrived and became a household name in India, today the country’s leading air-conditioning and cooling company, Volkart Brothers’ global commodity operations continued for some decades. By the 1980s, their independent role had diminished, and in 1989, their merchant trading activities were absorbed into Paul Reinhart Ltd., another Swiss trading house linked by family ties, involved in agriculture trading primarily cotton. Their coffee division evolved into Volcafe, now part of ED&F Man, ensuring that the Volkart name lived on within the architecture of modern commodity trading giants.

Even after their trading empire wound down, the legacy of the Volkart family endures through the Volkart Foundation, established in 1951, which remains active in cultural and philanthropic work. In India, the name survives most visibly through Voltas, a Tata company that continues to acknowledge its Volkart roots. In Kerala, the coir factories and warehouses built by the firm are being restored as heritage sites, physical reminders of how a Swiss merchant house became entwined with the industrial and social fabric of a coastal Indian town.

Sources:

 https://historicalleys.blogspot.com/2023/06/volkart-brothers-swiss-connection.html https://www.voltas.in/about/history 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkart_Brothers 

https://www.bennykuriakose.com/alappuzha-heritage-project-1/kerala-state-coir-corporation https://www.nytimes.com/1955/01/04/archives/tatas-in-new-concern-voltas-ltd-will-take-over-volkart-jobs-in.html 

https://www.edfman.com/about/our-history/