There were a number of links between the Company, founded in 1600 and Hackney, then a small country village. An early owner of Sutton House, Captain John Milward was a silk-merchant and governor of the Company who found Hackney conveniently situated – east of the city of London where the Company had its headquarters and north of the East India Docks where imported goods arrived. There were other connections too, some rather strange and sad like the Pembroke House Asylum for Britons, mainly soldiers, who experienced mental illness while serving in India and were shipped to Hackney to recover. The borough also provided a home for ayahs, Indian nursemaids who had accompanied British families home and then looked for a return passage to India. Dr Llewellyn-Jones is an historian of colonial India and particularly interested in the impact that the East India Company had both abroad and at home.