YOUNGSTERS are researching the history of the East India Company to build up a heritage’ picture of London’s East End. Members of the Brick Lane Circle in Spitalfields have received a £46,000 Heritage Lottery grant to explore historical links with Bengal by researching former sites that once belonged to the colonial trading company

YOUNGSTERS are researching the history of the East India Company to build up a 'heritage' picture of London's East End.

Members of the Brick Lane Circle in Spitalfields have received a £46,000 Heritage Lottery grant to explore historical links with Bengal through researching and writing about former sites in East London that once belonged to the colonial trading company.

The project emerged out of events the Circle organized last summer to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Plassey, when the British achieved victory in Bengal under Robert Clive in 1757. It was the beginning of the British Indian Empire, under the East India Company banner.

The research findings are being put together to be published in October during Black History Month at the Museum in Docklands in Canary Wharf.

The young researchers are being recruited mainly from Tower Hamlets for workshops and to go on guided tours to help them write their chapters and get to know about the East India trade and its historical links with Bengal. East London is dotted with locations and buildings with historical links with Bengal, especially the India & Millwall Docks on the Isle of Dogs.

The East India took over vast areas of the Indian sub-continent, playing an important role in British economic and imperial history for 250 years from 1600 when it was first chartered by Elizabeth I.