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Court Minutes, 13 Apr - 28 Sep 1803 : Minutes 1803/04/13-1803/09/28.

Published
Marlborough, Wiltshire : Adam Matthew Digital, 2017.
Physical Description
1 online resource
Additional Creators
Adam Matthew Digital (Firm)
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IOR/B: Minutes of the East India Company's Directors and Proprietors (1599-1858). The Court Minutes constitute the central record of the business transacted at meetings of the Court of Directors and of the General Court of Proprietors. The minutes follow the pattern of annual elections to the Court of Directors, with the administrative year running April to April. The minutes of the General Courts of Proprietors are included in the same volumes as the minutes of the Court of Directors up to April 1833 (IOR/B/185), and thereafter in a separate series of General Court Minutes (IOR/B/255-273). Both sets of minutes end in 1858, when the East India Company's executive functions were transferred to a Secretary of State for India operating through the newly created India Office. Before October 1807, the Court Minutes also include copies of dissents entered by individual directors against the orders and resolutions passed by the Court as a whole. Later dissents appear in the separate series Appendix to Court Minutes: Dissents (IOR/B/237-246).The 'old', 'new' and united Companies operated with similar administrative structures, with a body of proprietors (shareholders) electing an executive body known as the Court, which consisted of 24 directors. The meetings of the directors were known as Courts of Committees until April 1699 (IOR/B/41), a committee in this sense being an individual director to whom the day-to-day management of the Company was committed, jointly with the Governor and 23 others according to the various charters granted from 1600 to 1698.For most of the seventeenth century, the volumes of Court Minutes also contain minutes of committees in the modern sense, that is, groups of directors appointed to consider and deal with specific aspects of administration (see, for instance, IOR/B/29). From the 1680s, the minutes of such committees were normally recorded separately from the minutes of the Court - see class IOR/D. From 1695 (IOR/B/41) the Court Minutes have lists of the directors appointed in April or May to serve on committees for the following year.The Court of Directors recorded its business in a regular pattern, listing letters read or received; notes of action taken, including reference of matters to committees of the Court; warrants signed for payment; reports and recommendations submitted by the committees; and drafts of letters to be sent out after approval.;Part of subseries IOR/B/1-236: Court Minutes of the Old, New and United Companies (1599-1858). Although the list of Court Minutes suggests a fairly regular and uniform series of volumes, closer examination reveals a number of gaps and peculiarities of arrangement.In the first two decades and again in the 1650s, volumes overlap in date and apparently do not connect with each other. This is partly because of losses and partly because there are separate series of minutes for different subscriptions to voyages.Users should be aware of some quirks in the series of Court Minutes as they are now constituted. The surviving series of United Company minutes from 1710 to 1858 (IOR/B/51-236) has been formed from parts of two separate sets of minute books which are of different sizes and pagination sequences. The first part of the series comprises the set of 'Court Books', 1709-1833 (IOR/B/51-185). The second part comprises a set of 'Minute Books' of Apr 1833 - Sep 1858 (IOR/B/186-236). The Court Book series appears to have been discontinued in 1833 and the Minute Books were then used as the primary record of the directors' meetings. Pre-1833 volumes of Minute Books were destroyed.
AMDigital Reference: IOR/B/137.
Original Version
Reproduction of: Court Minutes, 13 Apr - 28 Sep 1803 13 Apr - 28 Sep 1803.
Location of Originals
The British Library
Copyright Note
The British Library Board
View MARC record | catkey: 24149162