The Victoria Memorial Image Source In 1690, Job Charnock returned to England after two successive attempts to establish a business base in Bengal. The British did not give up so easily and in 1696, the East India Company obtained the rights to build a fort in the vicinity of modern Kolkata from the Nawab of Subah Bangal. The English trading company wanted to build a fort in Kolkata to strengthen their hold in this region of India. In the later part of the 17 th Century, while the other European colonisers established their strongholds along the fertile South West Coast of the Ganges, the English preferred the South Eastern coast of the Ganges mired with swamps and forests, dotted with little hamlets of fishermen and weavers. Despite the problems, including epidemics, they faced, the English clung to Kolkata. They had the foresight to see the immense potential of this place. In 1717, the East India Company obtained the rights to trade in Kolkata for a paltry yearly sum of