East India Company

Topic: East India Company

1. Verified Sourced Facts

• The local wiki page gives an:

“Investment Timeline for Sir Henry Neville”

• The same page states:

“March 1614: Sir Henry Neville admitted to the East India Company, described as “a very worthy gentleman, and may do many good offices” for the organization.”

• The specific date of the March 1614 admission entry is March 31, 1614. The British History Online calendar entry for this date can be found at the March 1614 page of the East Indies, China and Japan calendars (link preserved in Notes on Access below).
• The same page states:

“May 1614: "Half of Sir Henry Neville's adventure of 800l. in the joint stock to be set over to Sir Jas. Stonehouse."”

• The same page states:

“May 1618: Permission granted for Sir Henry Neville and George Thorpe to each invest 300 pounds.”

• The same page states:

“August 1619: A payment of "100l. to be paid to Sir Henry Neville for timber."”

• The same page states:

“All entries link to the British History Online calendar of State Papers (Colonial series), specifically East Indies, China, and Japan volumes 2-3.”

• Identity distinction: the March 1614 and May 1614 entries almost certainly refer to the elder Henry Neville (1563-1615), while the May 1618 and August 1619 entries must refer to his son, Sir Henry Neville III (1588-1629), because the elder Neville died on 10 July 1615.

• Neville's own Winwood correspondence gives a direct contemporary witness for the East India venture before the company's royal charter. In a letter dated 1600-11-12 N.S., Neville writes:

“There is a company erecting of such as shall trade to the East-Indies, and a fleet already desseined for it, whereof the Charge will arise to 50000 l.”

• In a later Winwood letter dated 1600-11-25 N.S., Neville writes:

“The indian voyage goeth on a mayne, the charge will be about 54000 l.”

• These Winwood/Neville references do not prove that Neville had already invested in the company in 1600, but they do prove that he was tracking the formation and financing of the East India voyage as live political-commercial intelligence.

• Chester Dunning's article on the Russia Company is related but distinct. It concerns a 1612-1613 North Russia protectorate scheme, not Neville's East India Company investment entries. Dunning does, however, help contextualize the wider commercial-company world by discussing Russia Company, East India, Persian trade, and Sir Thomas Smith.

• A 2026-04-28 full-text check of Dunning strengthens that contextual link: Dunning identifies Sir Thomas Smith/Smythe as governor of the East India Company and, from 1607, governor of the Russia Company; the commercial background to the North Russia scheme included revived Persian trade through Muscovy and competing routes toward the Orient. This is context for overlapping company worlds, not proof that East India and Russia Company records are interchangeable.

2. Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Information

• No Ken Feinstein Twitter/blog material is isolated in this packet at present.

3. Quoted Source Text

Local East India Company page

• “Investment Timeline for Sir Henry Neville”
• “a very worthy gentleman, and may do many good offices”
• “Half of Sir Henry Neville's adventure of 800l. in the joint stock to be set over to Sir Jas. Stonehouse.”
• “Permission granted for Sir Henry Neville and George Thorpe to each invest 300 pounds.”
• “100l. to be paid to Sir Henry Neville for timber.”

Neville / Winwood letters

• “There is a Company erecting of such as shall trade to the East-Indies, and a Fleet already desseined for it, whereof the Charge will arise to 50000 l.”
• “The indian voyage goeth on a mayne, the charge will be about 54000 l.”

Dunning commercial-company context

• “Sir Thomas Smith, governor of the East India Company”
• “became governor of the Russia Company”
• “Persian trade through Muscovy”

4. Citations

• “East India Company.” Henry Neville Research Wiki, 26 Oct. 2020, http://nevilleresearch.com/index.php?title=East_India_Company.
• wiki_east_india_company.md, local preservation of the wiki page.
• Neville, Henry. Letter to Ralph Winwood, 1600-11-12 N.S. Local transcript: Neville_Letter_1600-11-12_NS.txt. XML witness: Neville_Letters_Corpus_v8.xml.
• Neville, Henry. Letter to Ralph Winwood, 1600-11-25 N.S. Local transcript: Neville_Letter_1600-11-25_NS.txt. XML witness: Neville_Letters_Corpus_v8.xml.
• Dunning, Chester. “James I, the Russia Company, and the Plan to Establish a Protectorate Over North Russia.” Albion, vol. 21, no. 2, Summer 1989, pp. 206-226. Staged PDF: Neville_Russia.pdf.
• russia_company_north_russia_protectorate.md, dedicated packet for the Dunning article and North Russia protectorate scheme.

5. Notes on Access

• The 1600 East India venture references are direct Neville-letter evidence from the local Winwood corpus.
• The 1614, 1618, and 1619 investment/timber entries remain anchored through the local wiki summary and its reference to the British History Online State Papers calendars. They should not be treated as fully verified calendar quotations until the exact BHO pages or scanned calendar pages are recovered.
• Do not treat all entries in the wiki timeline as one undifferentiated Sir Henry Neville. The pre-July-1615 entries belong to the elder Neville unless direct BHO evidence says otherwise; the 1618 and 1619 entries belong to the younger Sir Henry Neville III.
• Do not fold the Dunning Russia Company material into the East India Company timeline. The connection is contextual: overlapping Jacobean commercial and foreign-policy networks, not the same company record.
• The Dunning article is now fully text-checked for the company-overlap point. Its best use in this packet is to explain why a Neville-connected Russia Company protectorate scheme and East India Company investment entries belong in the same broad Jacobean commercial-statecraft chapter while remaining separate evidentiary lanes.
• The wiki points to these British History Online entries, but a 2026-04-22 local web check found the preserved page URLs returning 404; use them as leads, not as stable citations:
• East Indies, China and Japan, 1513-1616
• March 1614 entry
• May 1614 entry
• May 1618 entry
• August 1619 entry