Records of the Consolidated Tea and Lands Co (Bangladesh) Ltd

• Corporate records 1957-1983.

The Company’s origins date back to 1882 with the incorporation in the UK of the North Sylhet Tea Co Ltd and the South Sylhet Tea Co Ltd. By 1886 the areas under tea amounted to 7,100 acres and 8,040 acres respectively. The Estates were managed from the outset by Finlay Muir & Co, Calcutta with Sir John Muir as Chairman of both companies. The two companies were merged in 1896 to form the Consolidated Tea and Lands Co Ltd. By this time the companies also held large tracts of land in Assam, the Dooars, Darjeeling, North Travanacore and Ceylon. The new company was then floated on the Glasgow Stock Exchange, with Finlay interests retaining a significant shareholding while acting as Agent and Secretary in India and the UK. In 1897 Consol's South Indian assets were sold to The Kanan Devan Hills Produce Co Ltd in exchange for shares in the company which were held up until Finlays nationalised the public companies' in 1976. By 1949 the Consol company had 35,381 Acres under cultivation growing Tea Rubber, Coconuts and Tung. In the 1955 the company's assets were transferred into three subsidiaries' with those in Sylhet passing to the The Consolidated Tea and lands Co (Pakistan) Ltd. Following independence the company adopted its present name in 1973. In 1976 James Finlay the successor company to the original agents in 1882 which itself had floated as a public company in 1924, carried out a reorganisation of its tea assets which resulted in the Indian Gardens being sold out with the Group. The Srilankan Gardens had already been nationalised in the early 1970s. James Finlay retained Consol (Bangladesh) as a wholly owned subsidiary until management changed in 2006. James Finlay then maintained Baraoora Tea (Sylhet) Tea Co Ltd as a wholly owned subsidiary although for management purposes the business was then run in parallel with that of the Consol company until the management changed in 2006.

Cited from; http://www.jfteabd.com/about.php#baraoora:

Files arranged as received

Bangladesh Board visits GB 248 UGD 091/1/1/8/36;

Agreements GB 248 UGD 091/8/3/10.

Records of The Baraoora Tea Holding Ltd and The Baraoora (Sylhet) Tea Co Ltd GB 248 UGD 091/36;

James Finlay (Bangladesh) Limited who acquired company branches c1990s GB 248 UGD 091/66.