Muslin trade in Bengal
Muslin, a cotton fabric of plain weave, was hand woven in the region around Dhaka and exported to Europe, the Middle East, other markets, for much of the 17th and 18th centuries. Bengal has manufactured textiles for many centuries, as recorded in ancient hand-written and printed documents; the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions Arab and Greek merchants trading between India and the Red Sea port of Aduli and Ethiopia in the second century CE. Cloths including muslin were exchanged for ivory and rhinoceros-horn at that time. Muslin was traded from Barygaza – an ancient port of India located in Gujarat – to different parts of Indian subcontinent before European merchants came to India; the Romans prized muslin using bullion and gold coins to buy the material from Deccan and South India. They introduced muslin into Europe, it became popular. A Chinese voyager, Ma Huan, wrote about five or six varieties of fine cloths after visiting Bengal in the early fifteenth century. Under Mughal rule, Bengal was a center of the worldwide muslin and pearl trades.
During the Mughal era, the most important center of cotton production was Bengal around its capital city of Dhaka, leading to muslin being called "daka" in distant markets such as Central Asia. Bengal exported cotton and silk textiles to markets such as Europe and Japan. Bengal produced more than 50% of textiles and around 80% of silks imported by the Dutch from Asia, for example. In the early sixteenth century, a Portuguese apothecary named Tomes Pires mentioned that Bengal muslins were traded to Thailand and China. Bengali muslin was traded throughout the Muslim world, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. By 1580, some Portuguese traders settled at Dhaka and Sripur, from where they started exporting muslin and silk goods to Europe and Southeast Asia. During Ottoman rule from the sixteenth century onwards, large quantities of muslin was exported to the Middle East. Muslin turbans were favoured by the Ottomans. In the sixteenth century, Portuguese started trading textiles from the Indian subcontinent through the Persian Gulf including high quality of muslins.
In the seventeenth century, the Portuguese trade declined. In the early seventeenth century and Dutch merchants arrived at the Indian Subcontinent sailing via the Red Sea. At the same time, Armenian merchants from Iran came to the Indian subcontinent travelling on land through Qandahar and Isfahan, they traded textile goods including muslin from Bengal to Aleppo of Syria. In an official inventory of Istanbul market dated from 1640, 20 types of muslins were found and the highest value found there is 1600 silver pence; as the business expanded, European companies became interested in founding their own factories in Dhaka. The Dutch made their factory in Dhaka in 1663, the British in 1669 and the French in 1682; the Ostend Company came to Bengal at the beginning of the eighteenth century. They purchased textiles through their own officials; when they found the business profitable, they made settlements in Dhaka. Available statistics show that in 1747 the trade of Dhaka cotton goods, including local trade valued twenty-eight and a half lakh rupees.
Bengal was conquered by the British East India Company after the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and the British Bengal Presidency was founded in 1765. British colonization forced open the Bengali market to British goods, while at the same time Britain implemented protectionist policies such as bans and high tariffs that restricted Bengali imports to Britain. Raw cotton was imported without taxes or tariffs to British factories, which used them to manufacture textiles, many of which were exported back to Bengal. British economic policies led to deindustrialization in Bengal. British colonization was followed by the Great Bengal famine of 1770, which killed a third of the Bengali population. From 1787 to 1788, Dhaka suffered from severe natural calamities - heavy rainfall - and famine broke out. After the disaster, more emphasis was given on agriculture to reduce the effects of the famine. Tax was revoked on the exportation of grains. So, people became more interested in agricultural works than weaving as the wages of labourers and other people working in agriculture rose.
From 1782 to 1787 the industrial revolution began in Britain, fine cotton was produced locally. During British colonial rule, the muslin industry declined due to various colonial policies, which supported imports of industrially manufactured textiles from Britain. A heavy duty of 75 percent was imposed on export of cotton from Bengal; these measures lead to the decline of muslin trade in Bengal. In 1811, Bengal was still a major exporter of the Indian Ocean. However, Bengali exports declined over the course of the early 19th century, as British imports to Bengal increased, from 25% in 1811 to 93% in 1840. Textile industry in Bangladesh History of Bengal Ahmedullah, M, From Muslin To Museum: The Rise and Fall of Bengal’s Textile Empire-1,2 & 3, Alochonaa Allen, B. C.. Dacca: Eastern Bengal District Gazetteers. Delhi: LOGOS Press. ISBN 978-81-7268-194-4. Khan, Muhammad Mojlum; the Muslim Heritage of Bengal. Kube Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84774-062-5. Asher, Catherine B.. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press.
Pp. 281–. ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7. Eaton, Richard M.. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760. University of California Press. Pp. 202–. ISBN 978-0-520-20507-9. Islam, Our Story of Dhaka Muslin, 67, AramcoWorld, pp. 26–32, OCLC 895
Stonehaven
Stonehaven is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It had a population of 11,602 at the 2011 Census. After the demise of the town of Kincardine, abandoned after the destruction of its royal castle in the Wars of Independence, the Scottish Parliament made Stonehaven the successor county town of Kincardineshire. Stonehaven had grown around an Iron Age fishing village, now the "Auld Toon", expanded inland from the seaside; as late as the 16th century, old maps indicate the town was called Stonehyve, Pont adding the alternative Duniness. It is known informally to locals as Stoney; the town is served by Stonehaven railway station, lies just to the east of the A90 road. Stonehaven is the site of prehistoric events evidenced by finds at Fetteresso Castle and Neolithic pottery excavations from the Spurryhillock area; the town lies at the southern origin of the ancient Causey Mounth trackway, built on high ground to make passable this only available medieval route from coastal points south to Aberdeen. This ancient passage connected the Bridge of Dee to Cowie Castle via the Portlethen Moss and the Stonehaven central plaza.
The route was that taken by the Earl Marischal and Marquess of Montrose when they led a Covenanter army of over 9000 men in the first battle of the English Civil War in 1639. The settlement of Stonehaven grew and prospered and was known as Kilwhang. With'Kil' meaning hill and'whang' the name, or sound of a whip the name is derived from the cliffs above the original settlement and the sound of wind whistling around their meagre shelters; the Covenanters were imprisoned in Dunnottar Castle. A memorial to them can be found in Dunnottar Church. Other castles in the vicinity are Fetteresso Castle and Muchalls Castle, both of which are in private ownership and not open to the public; the oldest surviving structure in Stonehaven is the Stonehaven Tolbooth at the harbour, used as an early prison and now a museum. Dunnottar Castle, perched atop a rocky outcrop, was home to the Keith family, during the Scottish Wars of Independence, the Scottish Crown Jewels were hidden there. In 1296, King Edward I of England took the castle only for William Wallace to reclaim it in 1297, burning down the church in the process with the entire English garrison still in it.
In 1650, Oliver Cromwell sacked the castle to find the Crown Jewels following an eight-month siege. However, just before the castle fell, the Crown Jewels were smuggled out by some ladies who took them by boat to a small church just down the coast in the village of Kinneff, where they remained undetected for eleven years. Stonehaven was a Jacobite town in the Fifteen and it was a safe base for the retreating Jacobite army to stay overnight on the night of 5–6 February 1716. In the Forty-Five Stonehaven, part of the Episcopalian north-east, was again ‘reliably Jacobite’ and it was one of the north-eastern ports where reinforcements, plus money and equipment were periodically landed from France. After 1709, when Dunnottar Parish Church was taken over by the Church of Scotland Episcopalian services were held in the tolbooth until a meeting house was built in the High Street in 1738. Following the failure of the Forty-Five, the Duke of Cumberland ordered the building's demolition. Services were held in a house in the High Street.
Near the Cowie Bridge, at the north of Stonehaven, was a fishing village known as Cowie, which has now been subsumed into Stonehaven. Somewhat further north are the ruins of Cowie Castle. To the west of Stonehaven is the ruined Ury House a property of the Frasers. A fossil of the oldest known land animal, Pneumodesmus newmani, a species of millipede, was found at Stonehaven's Cowie Beach in 2004. Stonehaven is 15 miles south of Aberdeen in a sheltered position on Stonehaven Bay between the Carron Water and the Cowie Water. Stonehaven lies adjacent to a indented bay surrounded on three sides by higher land between Downie Point and Garron Point; the harbour, consisting of two basins, was improved in the 1820s by the engineer Robert Stevenson and became an important centre of the 19th century herring trade. At the western edge of Stonehaven west of the A90 road lies the village of Kirkton of Fetteresso. Nearby to the south, Fowlsheugh is a coastal nature reserve, known for its 230 foot high cliff formations and habitat supporting prolific seabird nesting colonies.
Stonehaven has grown since the oil boom in Aberdeen. The increasing demand for new, middle class housing has seen four new estates being appended to the town, creating an expanse of suburbs and Stonehaven has been bypassed since 1984; because of its location at the confluence between two rivers, Stonehaven is prone to flooding following heavy rain. Aberdeenshire Council has held meetings about the possible construction of flood defences. Stonehaven has three Churches of Scotland: Dunnottar Parish Church, Stonehaven South Parish Church and Fetteresso Parish Church, an evangelical Church of Scotland; the town is home to City Church South, Stonehaven Baptist Church, St James' Episcopal Church and St Mary's Catholic Church. Arduthie Primary School is one of the three primary schools in Stonehaven serving a large portion of the north and east of the town as well as the surrounding countryside to the north-west. Dunnottar Primary School was founded in 1889, it is linked to the notable parish Church and to the historic Dunnottar Castle and is located at the edge of the old town.
It serves the old town and the majority of the
Bengal
Bengal is a geopolitical and historical region in South Asia in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest such formation in the world. Politically, Bengal is divided between Bangladesh and the Indian territories of West Bengal and Assam's Barak Valley. In 2011, the population of Bengal was estimated to be 250 million, making it one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Among them, an estimated 160 million people live in Bangladesh and 91.3 million people live in West Bengal. The predominant ethnolinguistic group is the Bengali people, who speak the Indo-Aryan Bengali language. Bengali Muslims are the majority in Bangladesh and Bengali Hindus are the majority in West Bengal and Tripura, while Barak Valley contains equal proportions of Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims. Outside Bengal proper, the Indian territories of Jharkhand and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are home to significant communities of Bengalis.
Dense woodlands, including hilly rainforests, cover Bengal's eastern areas. In the littoral southwest are the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest and home of the Bengal tiger. In the coastal southeast lies Cox's Bazar, the longest beach in the world at 125 km; the region has a monsoon climate. At times an independent regional empire, Bengal was a leading power in Southeast Asia and the Islamic East, with extensive trade networks. In antiquity, its kingdoms were known as seafaring nations. Bengal was known to the Greeks as Gangaridai, notable for mighty military power, it was described by Greek historians that Alexander the Great withdrew from India anticipating a counterattack from an alliance of Gangaridai. Writers noted merchant shipping links between Bengal and Roman Egypt; the Bengali Pala Empire was the last major Buddhist imperial power in the subcontinent, founded in 750 and becoming the dominant power in the northern Indian subcontinent by the 9th century, before being replaced by the Hindu Sena dynasty in the 12th century.
Islam was introduced through trade with the Abbasid Caliphate. The Islamic Bengal Sultanate, founded in 1352, was absorbed into the Mughal Empire in 1576; the Mughal Bengal Subah province became a major global exporter, a center of worldwide industries such as cotton textiles, shipbuilding, 12% of the world's GDP, larger than the entirety of western Europe. Bengal was conquered by the British East India Company in 1757 by Battle of Plassey and became the Bengal Presidency of the British Raj, which experienced deindustrialization under British rule; the Company increased agriculture tax rates from 10 percent to up to 50 causing the Great Bengal famine of 1770 and the deaths of 10 million Bengalis. Bengal played a major role in the Indian independence movement, in which revolutionary groups were dominant. Armed attempts to overthrow the British Raj began with the rebellion of Titumir, reached a climax when Subhas Chandra Bose led the Indian National Army allied with Japan to fight against the British.
A large number of Bengalis died in the independence struggle and many were exiled in Cellular Jail, located in Andaman. The United Kingdom Cabinet Mission of 1946, split the region into India and Pakistan, popularly known as partition of Bengal, opposed by the Prime Minister of Bengal Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and nationalist leader Sarat Chandra Bose, they campaigned for a independent nation-state of Bengal. The initiative failed owing to British diplomacy and communal conflict between Hindus. Pakistan ruled East Bengal becoming the independent nation of Bangladesh by Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971. Bengali culture has been influential in the fields of literature, shipbuilding, architecture, currency, commerce and cuisine; the name of Bengal is derived from the ancient kingdom of Banga, the earliest records of which date back to the Mahabharata epic in the first millennium BCE. Theories on the origin of the term Banga point to the Proto-Dravidian Bong tribe that settled in the area circa 1000 BCE and the Austric word Bong.
The term Vangaladesa is used to describe the region in 11th-century South Indian records. The modern term Bangla is prominent from the 14th century, which saw the establishment of the Sultanate of Bengal, whose first ruler Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah was known as the Shah of Bangala; the Portuguese referred to the region as Bengala in the Age of Discovery. The modern English name Bengal is an exonym derived from the Bengal Sultanate period. Most of the Bengal region lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, but there are highlands in its north and southeast; the Ganges Delta arises from the confluence of the rivers Ganges and Meghna rivers and their respective tributaries. The total area of Bengal is 232,752 km2—West Bengal is 88,752 km2 and Bangladesh 147,570 km2; the flat and fertile Bangladesh Plain dominates the geography of Bangladesh. The Chittagong Hill Tracts and Sylhet regions are home to most of the mountains in Bangladesh. Most parts of Bangladesh are within 10 metres above the sea level, it is believed that about 10% of the land would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by 1 metre.
Because of this l
Cotton mill
A cotton mill is a building housing spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Although some were driven by animal power, most early mills were built in rural areas at fast-flowing rivers and streams using water wheels for power; the development of viable steam engines by Boulton and Watt from 1781 led to the growth of larger, steam-powered mills allowing them to be concentrated in urban mill towns, like Manchester, which with neighboring Salford had more than 50 mills by 1802. The mechanization of the spinning process in the early factories was instrumental in the growth of the machine tool industry, enabling the construction of larger cotton mills. Limited companies were developed to construct mills, the trading floors of the cotton exchange in Manchester, created a vast commercial city. Mills generated employment, drawing workers from rural areas and expanding urban populations.
They provided incomes for women. Child labor was used in the mills, the factory system led to organized labor. Poor conditions became the subject of exposés, in England, the Factory Acts were written to regulate them; the cotton mill a Lancashire phenomenon, was copied in New England and in the southern states of America. In the 20th century, North West England lost its supremacy to the United States to Japan and subsequently to China. In the mid-16th century Manchester was an important manufacturing centre for woollens and linen and market for textiles made elsewhere; the fustian district of Lancashire, from Blackburn to Bolton, west to Wigan and Leigh and south towards Manchester, used flax and raw cotton imported along the Mersey and Irwell Navigation. During the Industrial Revolution cotton manufacture changed from a domestic to a mechanized industry, made possible by inventions and advances in technology; the weaving process was the first to be mechanized by the invention of John Kay's flying shuttle in 1733.
The manually-operated spinning jenny was developed by James Hargreaves in about 1764 speeded up the spinning process. The roller spinning principle of Paul and Bourne became the basis of Richard Arkwright's spinning frame and water frame, patented in 1769; the principles of the spinning jenny and water frame were combined by Samuel Crompton in his spinning mule of 1779, but water power was not applied to it until 1792. Many mills were built after Arkwright's patent expired in 1783 and by 1788, there were about 210 mills in Great Britain; the development of cotton mills was linked to the development of the machinery. By 1774, 30,000 people in Manchester were employed using the domestic system in cotton manufacture. Handloom weaving lingered into the mid-19th century but cotton spinning in mills relying on water power and subsequently steam power using fuel from the Lancashire Coalfield began to develop before 1800; the first cotton mills were established in the 1740s to house roller spinning machinery invented by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt.
The machines were the first to spin cotton mechanically "without the intervention of human fingers". They were driven by a single non-human power source which allowed the use of larger machinery and made it possible to concentrate production into organized factories. Four mills were set up to house Paul and Wyatt's machinery in the decade following its patent in 1738: the short-lived, animal-powered Upper Priory Cotton Mill in Birmingham in 1741; the Paul-Wyatt mills spun cotton for several decades but were not profitable, becoming the ancestors of the cotton mills that followed. Richard Arkwright obtained a patent for his water frame spinning machinery in 1769. Although its technology was similar to that of Lewis Paul, John Wyatt, James Hargreaves and Thomas Highs, Arkwright's powers of organization, business acumen and ambition established the cotton mill as a successful business model and revolutionary example of the factory system. Arkwright's first mill – powered by horses in Nottingham in 1768 – was similar to Paul and Wyatt's first Birmingham mill although by 1772 it had expanded to four storeys and employed 300 workers.
In 1771, while the Nottingham mill was at an experimental stage and his partners started work on Cromford Mill in Derbyshire, which "was to prove a major turning point in the history of the factory system". It resembled the Paul-Wyatt water-powered mill at Northampton in many respects, but was built on a different scale, influenced by John Lombe's Old Silk Mill in Derby and Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory in Birmingham. Constructed as a five-storey masonry box. Arkwright recruited large disciplined workforces for his mills, managed credit and supplies and cultivated mass consumer markets for his products. By 1782 his annual profits exceeded £40,000, by 1784 he had opened 10 more mills, he licensed his technology to other entrepreneurs and in 1782 boasted that his machinery was being used by "numbers of adventurers residing in the different counties of Derby, Nottingham, Stafford, York and Lancashire" and by 1788 there were 143 Arkwrig
Dulwich Park
Dulwich Park is a 30.85-hectare park in Dulwich in the London Borough of Southwark, south London, England. The park was created by the Metropolitan Board of Works from former farmland and meadows. While the initial design was by Charles Barry, it was refined by Lt Col J. J. Sexby, it was opened in 1890 by Lord Rosebery. In 2004–6, the park was restored to its original Victorian layout, following a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund; the park is listed Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Dulwich Park contains a café. Various types of recumbent bicycles are available for hire. Cars have not been permitted to drive inside the park since 2003, with the exception of disabled badge holders, but there is a free car park at the College Road entrance; the gates and lodges surrounding the park are listed Grade II on the National Heritage List. On 20 December 2011, a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, Two Forms that resides in the park, was cut from its plinth and stolen by suspected scrap metal thieves.
It is home of a minor running club. A Parkrun takes place each Saturday. There is an active bowling club. Bowling has operated on the green in the middle of the park since 1900. Old College Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club London Borough of Southwark — Dulwich Park Dulwich Park Friends
Cloth merchant
In the Middle Ages or 16th and 17th centuries, a cloth merchant was one who owned or ran a cloth manufacturing or wholesale import or export business. A cloth merchant might additionally have owned a number of draper's shops. Cloth was expensive and cloth merchants were very wealthy. A number of Europe's leading banking dynasties such as Medici and Berenberg built their original fortunes as cloth merchants. In England, cloth merchants might be members of one of the important trade guilds, such as the Worshipful Company of Drapers. Alternative names are clothier, which tended to refer more to someone engaged in production and the sale of cloth, whereas a cloth merchant would be more concerned with distribution, including overseas trade, or haberdasher, who were merchants in sewn and fine fabrics and in London, members of the Haberdashers' Company; the obsolete term merchant taylor describes a business person who trades in textiles, a tailor who keeps and sells materials for the garments which he makes.
In England, the term is best known in the context of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, one of the livery companies of the City of London, nowadays a charitable institution best known for the Merchant Taylors' schools - the Company preserves the ancient spelling "taylor" in its name. Alderman Robert Aske Sir William Gardiner John Kendrick Henry Machyn, diarist Jack O'Newbury William Paterson Thomas Spring of Lavenham Sir Thomas White Le Bourgeois gentilhomme Merchant Retail
Kolkata
Kolkata is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River 75 kilometres west of the border with Bangladesh, it is the principal commercial and educational centre of East India, while the Port of Kolkata is India's oldest operating port and its sole major riverine port; the city is regarded as the "cultural capital" of India, is nicknamed the "City of Joy". According to the 2011 Indian census, it is the seventh most populous city. Recent estimates of Kolkata Metropolitan Area's economy have ranged from $60 to $150 billion making it third most-productive metropolitan area in India, after Mumbai and Delhi. In the late 17th century, the three villages that predated Calcutta were ruled by the Nawab of Bengal under Mughal suzerainty. After the Nawab granted the East India Company a trading licence in 1690, the area was developed by the Company into an fortified trading post. Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah occupied Calcutta in 1756, the East India Company retook it the following year.
In 1793 the East India company was strong enough to abolish Nizamat, assumed full sovereignty of the region. Under the company rule, under the British Raj, Calcutta served as the capital of British-held territories in India until 1911, when its perceived geographical disadvantages, combined with growing nationalism in Bengal, led to a shift of the capital to New Delhi. Calcutta was the centre for the Indian independence movement. Following Indian independence in 1947, once the centre of modern Indian education, science and politics, suffered several decades of economic stagnation; as a nucleus of the 19th- and early 20th-century Bengal Renaissance and a religiously and ethnically diverse centre of culture in Bengal and India, Kolkata has local traditions in drama, film and literature. Many people from Kolkata—among them several Nobel laureates—have contributed to the arts, the sciences, other areas. Kolkata culture features idiosyncrasies that include distinctively close-knit neighbourhoods and freestyle intellectual exchanges.
West Bengal's share of the Bengali film industry is based in the city, which hosts venerable cultural institutions of national importance, such as the Academy of Fine Arts, the Victoria Memorial, the Asiatic Society, the Indian Museum and the National Library of India. Among professional scientific institutions, Kolkata hosts the Agri Horticultural Society of India, the Geological Survey of India, the Botanical Survey of India, the Calcutta Mathematical Society, the Indian Science Congress Association, the Zoological Survey of India, the Institution of Engineers, the Anthropological Survey of India and the Indian Public Health Association. Though home to major cricketing venues and franchises, Kolkata differs from other Indian cities by giving importance to association football and other sports; the word Kolkata derives from the Bengali term Kôlikata, the name of one of three villages that predated the arrival of the British, in the area where the city was to be established. There are several explanations about the etymology of this name: The term Kolikata is thought to be a variation of Kalikkhetrô, meaning "Field of Kali".
It can be a variation of'Kalikshetra'. Another theory is. Alternatively, the name may have been derived from the Bengali term kilkila, or "flat area"; the name may have its origin in the words khal meaning "canal", followed by kaṭa, which may mean "dug". According to another theory, the area specialised in the production of quicklime or koli chun and coir or kata. Although the city's name has always been pronounced Kolkata or Kôlikata in Bengali, the anglicised form Calcutta was the official name until 2001, when it was changed to Kolkata in order to match Bengali pronunciation; the discovery and archaeological study of Chandraketugarh, 35 kilometres north of Kolkata, provide evidence that the region in which the city stands has been inhabited for over two millennia. Kolkata's recorded history began in 1690 with the arrival of the English East India Company, consolidating its trade business in Bengal. Job Charnock, an administrator who worked for the company, was credited as the founder of the city.
The area occupied by the present-day city encompassed three villages: Kalikata and Sutanuti. Kalikata was a fishing village, they were part of an estate belonging to the Mughal emperor. These rights were transferred to the East India Company in 1698. In 1712, the British completed the cons
