ABSTRACT
At one of the last Haileybury Visitation Days, on 28 June 1852, the Duke of Cambridge caused uneasy amusement by proposing the health of the Governor and Directors of the Bank of England, instead of the Chairman and Directors of the East India Company; 1 he persisted firmly in his mistake, regardless of courteous efforts to put him right. We might sympathise with him more readily today than did his fellow-diners, since from our point of view the two organisations had much in common. Each had a Court of twenty-four Directors, and a General Court of the Proprietors of Stock, with quasi-parliamentary debates; speeches made in both General Courts were reprinted as pamphlets. Each was initially a straightforward profitmaking enterprise which came gradually to assume functions that are now regarded as belonging solely to government.
