The provinces of India, earlier 'presidencies of British India', and still earlier 'presidency towns', were the administrative divisions directly administered by the British authorities that formed part of the system of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:Between 1612 and 1757, the East India Company set up "factories" in several locations, mostly in coastal India, with the consent of the Mughal emperors, Maratha Empire or other local rulers. EIC rivals at this time were the merchant trading companies of Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, and France. By the mid-18th century three presidency towns: Madras (Chennai), Bombay (Mumbai) and Calcutta (Kolkata), had grown in size. During the period of Company rule in India (1757–1858), the Company gradually acquired sovereignty over large parts of India, typically thought of in terms of polities called "presidencies". However, EIC itself had also increasingly come under British government oversight, in effect sharing its jurisdiction or control over the Indian presidencies with the British Crown.