Home > Services > Serviced offices and Hall event management
 

Serviced offices and Hall event management

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long history of leasing office space

Between 1698 and 1709 the Hall was leased to the East India Company. The East India Company was established in 1600 as a joint-stock association of English merchants trading to the 'Indies'.  A period of rivalry with a 'New' Company after 1698 resulted in the formation in 1709 of the United Company. This 'new' East India Company was transformed during the second half of the eighteenth century from a mainly commercial body with scattered Asian trading interests into a major territorial power in India with its headquarters at Calcutta. The political implications of this development eventually caused the British Government to institute a standing Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India (or 'Board of Control') to exercise supervision over the Company's Indian policies. This change in the Company's status, along with other factors, led to the Acts of Parliament of 1813 and 1833, which opened the British trade with the East Indies to all shipping and resulted in the Company's complete withdrawal from its commercial functions. The Company continued to exercise responsibility, under the supervision of the Board, for the government of India until re-organisation under the Government of India Act 1858.

 

Old Court Room refurbishedThe East India Company left Skinners' Hall in 1709, and presented the Skinners' Company with the mahogany East India table which is still in use in The Old Court Room.