Presidencies and provinces of British India Presidencies and provinces of British India The Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of India and still earlier, Presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in the subcontinent. Collectively, they were called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods: In 1608, Mughal authorities allowed the English East India Company to establish a small trading settlement at Surat (now in the state of Gujarat), and this became the company's first headquarters town. It was followed in 1611 by a permanent factory at Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast, and
Commercial Bank of India of the Companies Act of England, where the company was registered under the Indian law and was not registered in England, but was carrying on business in England. Commercial Bank of India The Commercial Bank of India, also known as Exchange Bank was a bank which was established in Bombay Presidency (now Mumbai), in 1845 of the British Raj period. The bank failed in the crash of 1866, after successfully operating for 20 years. The bank had eight branches, exclusive of the head office at Bombay, viz: London, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Foochow, Shanghai, Hankow, Yokohama and Singapore, with an agency