Which of the following statements about 'Agency Houses' is/are correct? 1. They were important commercial formations in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century India. 2. The operation of managing agencies remained confined to Calcutta. Select the correct answer using the code given below.

Agency Houses were significant commercial formations that emerged in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in India [3]. They functioned as financial and trading firms, often succeeding the East India Company's monopoly by mobilizing capital and managing joint-stock companies [1]. While Calcutta was indeed the primary 'home' and origin of the managing agency system, the operations did not remain confined there [2]. The system eventually spread to other parts of India, including Madras and Bombay, to meet the managerial and financial challenges of the colonial economy [2]. Major firms like Jardine Skinner & Co. and Andrew Yule controlled large sectors of Indian industry across various regions [1]. Therefore, statement 1 is correct as they were vital commercial entities during the specified period, but statement 2 is incorrect because their operations expanded beyond Calcutta [2].

Sources

1. [1] India and the Contemporary World – II. History-Class X . NCERT(Revised ed 2025) > Chapter 4: The Age of Industrialisation > 4.1 The Early Entrepreneurs > p. 95
2. [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_houses_in_British_India
3. [2] https://ia600805.us.archive.org/19/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.113006/2015.113006.The-Managing-Agency-System-In-Prospect-And-Retrospect_text.pdf