ment Arts college,Kumbakonam,Tamil Nadu.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the Genesis of British Military establishment in Madras. The army was from the beginning the instrument by which the growing political power of the company was supported. The company’s force was the older branch of the army, men with arms were sent to protect the builders and merchants, when the English laid the foundations of Fort St.George. They had with them their old armour and weapons of war. There were match-looks, pikes, halberds, battle-axes and bucklers. This fashion of arming the troops continued for twenty years. The garrison was commanded by one of the company’s servants, who was called the Lieutenant or Captain of the Guard. His military duties did not interfere with his mercantile transactions. There was a band of men, not exceeding twenty six at Fort St, George for some time and this was the fore-runner to the Madras Army. In 1670 there had been two companies of Europeans troops consisting of eighty to hundred in each. The ensign and thirty men reinforced by a gunner and his crew of 550 local soldiers and peons formed the Madras Army in 1673. Sir William Langhorne, the Governor of Madras, (1670-1677) framed a number of orders for the regulation of the Madras garrison for the first time. The growth of the Madras Army received encouragement from the company as well as the Government of England