On 20 May 1919 Miller Brothers (of Liverpool) Ltd and its ancillary companies, the African Association Ltd and F & A Swanzy Ltd, which were the three largest groups operating in British West Africa after the Niger Company, reacted to the growing power of the Niger Company by merging to form the African and Eastern Trade Corporation. The African Association was itself a conglomerate, having been formed in 1889 by the merger of nine (predominantly Liverpool based) companies trading in the Niger Delta, in the hope that the British government would grant them a charter with governmental powers similar to that granted three years earlier to the Royal Niger Company. The government established the Oil Rivers Protectorate in 1891 instead, which in 1900 became the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria.
