Francis Day

Francis Day was born to William Day of Bray and his wife Helen Wentworth. After he completed his education from Eton College, he joined the East India Company in 1632 and went to the East.

Day started his career in India as a factor of the Company’s factory at Masulipatnam from 1632 to 1639. In 1639 Day and his superior, Andrew Cogan negotiated the purchase of a strip of land situated south of the Dutch factory at Pulicat from the Raja of Chandragiri, where Madras was built.

The East India Company, which already began licensed trading at Surat needed a port closer to the Malaccan Straits in order to secure its trade routes and commercial interests in the spice trade. The availability of cotton at a much cheaper rate and strategic location of the future town upon an island between the Adyar and Cooum rivers contributed to the selection of this location.

Day and Cogan got a license to build a fort and a castle in the contracted region, and are considered the founders of Madras. The fort which was completed on 23 April 1644, coinciding with St George’s Day, the patron saint of England and was therefore called Fort St George. The place soon became the center of the trade activities. Indian merchants and artificers were attracted to the settlement and encouraged to build settle there permanently under a promise of exemptions from import taxes for a period of thirty years. The fort would became a core of the future colonial city which became the headquarters of the company in south India in 1641, and the first company settlement in India to be fortified.

Charged with the offence of trading privately, Day left India and sailed to England in 1641 to justify in front of the Board. However, after Cogan resigned his post, he was sent back to India serving as the second Agent of Madras from 1643 to 1644.