According to the French naval officer Louis de Grandpré, the very first Madras handkerchiefs were born out of European ‘East India’ company rivalry. In his memoir of a voyage he took to India in 1790, Grandpré recounts how the British East India Company commissioned their weavers in Madras to make imitation Pulicat handkerchiefs - an extremely popular style of handkerchief made in the Dutch East India Company-controlled port town of Pulicat.
In Grandpré’s account, the British initially sold their Madras-made imitation Pulicats at a loss, which drove the Dutch out of the Pulicat trade. Then the British hired on all the former Pulicat weavers and raised the price of their ‘Madras handkerchiefs', cornering the South Indian checked cotton handkerchief market.
Related Database Records
- Entry no. 131: On the waning significance of the Pulicat and increasing popularity of Madras handkerchiefs
- Entry no. 132: On the changing manufacturing location of Madras and Pulicat handkerchiefs in coastal Southeast India
- Entry no. 133: On the textile trade in the city of Madras referring to the British East India Company and the Nawab of Carnatic
