The diversity of India’s corporate history, is peppered with names  such as The Assam Company, Andrew Yule, Williamson Magor, Harrisons Malayalam, Bengal Chemicals, and His Master’s Voice. These were based in Calcutta, the biggest were managing agencies, holding companies that ran dozens of businesses.

Andrew Yule, founded in 1863, managed 37 companies, including tea gardens, power utilities, jute mills, coal mines, a railway, and a steamship company. The first copy of independent India’s Constitution was printed on paper specially made by India Paper Pulp, a Yule subsidiary. In 1902, Andrew Yule even took over the zamindari of Midnapore, spread over 6,216 sq km, promoting forests, fisheries and agriculture. Andrew Yule lost its zamindari after Independence, but remains a thriving government-owned company and  it was not nationalised the usual way: the government bought out the British shareholders in 1974.

The Tatas ran Tata Iron & Steel as agents till the concept was abolished in 1969. In 1913, on the eve of World War I, there were at least a dozen such agencies, including Shaw Wallace, Duncan, Octavius Steel, Williamson Magor, Balmer Lawrie, and Gillanders.

While many managing agencies ran tea estates, the world’s oldest commercial tea company, The Assam Company, was founded in London in 1839, based on the success of a Briton who brought the tea plant to Assam. While the initial focus was on tea, its founders knew Assam also had lime, coal, and oil, and did not want to limit their business options. So the word “tea” was kept out of the name. Today, its registered office is in a modern building on Kolkata’s Chowringhee, next to Bishop’s House, a building even older than the company (it was built in 1814).

Many foreign companies and managing agencies were taken over by Marwaris who had made Calcutta their home since the early 19th century. Ghanshyam Das Birla took on the Scots who ruled the jute business. Brij Mohan Khaitan, partnered Williamson Magor, the largest tea group, and came to control it. The Khaitans own Eveready Industries, maker of tea and batteries.

The freedom struggle spurred Indian entrepreneurs, who wanted to prove that business success was not just a Western domain. Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works, India’s first drugs company, started in 1893, has faded into obscurity. Bengal, the crucible of India’s pharmaceutical industry, today has no big names in the field.

Music legend HMV, now Saregama and part of the RPG Group, technology shifts have almost killed the business – but not the name. The audio recording studio can still be hired for a song, and for the chance to play the piano that iconic director Satyajit Ray used to compose music for his movies.

Incorporated in 1850 as the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, added “industry” to its name in 1950, as the shift to manufacturing changed the character of its membership. Its origins, in the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce, a traders’ body started in 1834, make it India’s oldest such organisation.

The shift away from Calcutta is clear. Mumbai is India’s commercial capital. Delhi houses the major industry lobbies and attracts more migrants than Mumbai did in the 20th century.