For over a century the world's second most populous country was run by a commercial firm with headquarters in the City of London - the East India Company.
Its merchants first went to India in search of exotic spices, but they ended up by supplanting the mighty Mogul dynasty.
The Company built new cities like Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. Young men like Warren Hastings flocked to India to make an easy fortune. Relations between the races were carefree. Inter-marriage was common.
The Company had its own army and fought epic wars to unify the sub-continent. In the hills of Afghanistan, it also suffered one of the worst defeats ever inflicted on a British army. And in 1857, after two and a half centuries, the East India Company was destroyed by the great Mutiny which almost lost Britain her Indian Empire.
