Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the East India Company, also attrib.

1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 2-9 June n.p.: Alas! poor John Company! thou art Bled [...] to Death by — Hireling Schemers.
1824		Sydney Gaz. 23 Sept. 2/3: The French critics [...] talk of John Company’s devouring twenty kingdoms, and of merchants supporting dethroned princes and paying punctually the pensions of kings.
1826		[W.B. Hockley] Pandurang Hàrì I 111: Then again he told me that some of the TopeeWallas say ‘John Company,’ and he knew that John was a man’s name, for his master was called John Brice, but he could not say to a certainty whether ‘Company’ was a man or woman’s name.
1831		Colburn’s New Mthly Mag. XXXI 241: ‘By the honour of John Company, thou shalt pay the piper!’.
1841		F.J. Bellew ‘Memoirs of a Griffin’ in Asiatic Jrnl & Mthly Register May 52: I saw your name amongst those of a batch of griffs and Tazuwulaits (fresh Europeans), having arrived by the Rottenbeam Castle. Welcome back, my dear fellow, John Kumpanyka raj.
1842		‘Wildrake’ ‘Turf Scenes’ in Amer. Turf Register Feb. 263: [P]lenty of fun to be met with at an ‘up country’ station, that may perhaps boast a Queen’s regiment, one or two of John Company’s ditto, a judge, a clergyman [...] and Paria dogs ad infinitum.
1853		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Oct. 61/2: Confusion to Honourable John’s Court.
1858		Goulburn Herald (NSW) 2 Oct. 4/1: The reign of John Company, therefore, draws to its close.
1875		Argus (Melbourne) 15 Nov. 10/1: Mr. Chester is an old Eastern traveller, by sea and land, and a long service in the Indian navy, when ‘John Company’ was sovereign.
1879		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (2nd ser.) 192: Jack joined the depot of the great Jehan Cumpanie Bahadoor at Chatham.
1885		‘Wyvern’ Culinary Jottings 5th ser. 285: It rejoiced this fine old servant of honest John Company, I remember, to give ‘tiffin’ parties at which he prided himself on sending round eight or nine varieties of curries.
1905		Leader (Melbourne) 25 Nov. 29/3: ‘The grandfather was one of the original ‘John Company,’ and that’s where the family money was made’.
1910		Newsletter (Sydney) 1 Jan. 5/2: Once upon a time, in the days of John Company, a score of cadets, vain and ignorant of the world, were despatched from Calcutta up country.
1933		Gibbons Truth About the Legion 188: The corps was raised by a Catholic Englishman who had been an Officer in the old ‘John Company’ army of pre-Mutiny India .