Counting

Abstract The chapter explores the influence of the East India Company on the different traditions informing the efforts of the Board of Agriculture to compile agricultural statistics in Britain. I argue here that the Board of Agriculture’s philosophical approach to statistics primarily concerned fostering new cultures of transparency, a feature in common with ideas emerging amongst Company officials stationed in Bengal and Madras. The Board did sometimes seek to direct the means and methods by which data would be produced: but its primary mission was to encourage farmers, landowners, and the church to share their existing account books and data with the Board, making such information not only available to the state, but also to an increasing readership who consumed the Board’s first efforts at publication and diffusion. The chapter explores John Sinclair’s friendships and correspondence with Company officials like John MacPherson and the potential influence of James Grant. The chapter situates Sinclair and Call within a larger intellectual culture. Sinclair coined the term ‘statistical philosophy’ to describe his vision of how data could be compiled and made available to state powers to increase food production and happiness. I contrast Sinclair’s system with the practical experience and statistical enquiries of John Call, showing how both systems were in dialogue with concerns around famine and food security in the East India Company. I also explore how the Board used its powers to discredit and contest the statistical enquiries of others, and how it viewed its own enquiries as potentially dangerous.