ABSTRACT

Sources: Calcutta: CHEONG [1973], p. 65 (1819-1821); Calcutta Gazette or Oriental Advertiser (1791); Bombay Courier (1822-1829); The Bengal Weekly Messenger, Calcutta (1825); Oriental Observer, Calcutta (1828-1833); Calcutta Courier (1832-1839); Calcutta Weekly Gazette or Civil, Military and Commercial Register (1840-1843); Calcutta Courier and Civil, Military and Naval Gazette (1842); The Economist, London (1849-1874, 1885-1896, 1901-1914); China Mail, Hong Kong (1857); Indian Daily News / The Overland Summary of the Indian Daily News, Bengal Hurkarn and Indian Gazette (1875-1885, 1897-1901) Bombay: Bombay Courier (1823-1843); Bombay Gazette (1843-1846, 1848-1869; quotations of the Oriental Bank Corporation); Bombay Times (1847/48; 1870-1872); The Economist, London (1873-1914). Concordance: WdW IV, pp. 233-273

Currency in British India: In the three British presidencies there were three major sorts of silver rupees among the several hundred coins circulating on the Indian subcontinent during the 18th century: the Sicca rupee in Bengal, the Surat or older Bombay rupee in Bombay and the Arcot rupee in Madras. In order to standardize the monetary system in its presidencies, the London directorate of the East India Company fixed the Sicca rupee with a weight of 10.69 grammes of fine silver as the standard monetary unit for all its Indian possessions on April 25th 1806, but for the time being the directorate could not realize this plan. It was not until 1818 that a rupee of the same value as the Sicca rupee of 1806 was introduced, namely the Madras rupee of 16 annas at 12 pies. Additionally, a Bombay rupee of the same value was established in 1824. In contrast to this, the Sicca rupee of 11.40 grammes of fine silver, also of 16 annas at 12 pies, was used as currency unit in Bengal from 1818. By means of the Act XVII of August 17th 1835 the previous Madras or Bombay rupee was declared the only legal tender in British India from September 1st 1835 as ‘Company’s rupee’ (10.69 grammes of fine silver) of 16 annas at 12 pies. On September 26th 1836 it was officially introduced in Ceylon (confirmed by the Order in Council and Proclamation of June 18th 1869) and on Mauritius (see p. 541) on August 12th 1876 as well; apart from this, its area of circulation gradually also covered British Beludshistan, the mountain districts of Arakan, Northern and Southern Burma and the various semiautonomous states of Indian rajas, as well as large parts of Eastern Africa. By means of the Act XIII of 1862 the company’s rupee – keeping its weight of fine silver – was renamed ‘Government rupee’, and government paper money was established. When in the 1870s the fall in silver prices began and the resulting speculations in the 1880s had negative effects on the exchange rate stability, the Government rupee was fixed at the value of 16 pence sterling or the sovereign or pound sterling in gold at the value of 15 Government rupees by means of the Indian Coinage and Paper Currency Act of June 26th 1893. So, the Government rupee was linked to the pound sterling. By the Currency Act of September 15th 1899 the sovereign was declared legal tender in British India. From that time the exchange rate on London was entirely stable. After that, the place of the previous silver standard of India was taken over by a system that combined particular characteristic features of the gold standard (in foreign trade) with the silver standard and bimetallism (in all domestic affairs; MAHLBERG [1920], p. 38; SONNDORFER [1910], p. 338). The official intro-

Original quotations at Calcutta and Bombay:

[a] On the basis of the Bombay-London quotation, these rates have been converted for the documentation into rupees per 100 dollars.