Colonial Office

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Illustration of the Foreign Office published by The Illustrated London News in 1866. The building housed the Colonial Office in the left wing .

The Colonial Office ( German : Kolonialamt ) was an independent department in the British administration from 1854 to 1966. It was in his capacity exclusively for the management of the British colonies in charge and was subordinate to the Secretary of State for the Colonies ( Colonial Secretary ), who as Minister of the Cabinet belonged to the British government.

The department was located in an old building at No.14 Downing Street in London . In 1870 the building was demolished and replaced in the same place by a new building designed by George Gilbert Scott and completed in 1875. The new building, which together with the Foreign Office and India Office built by Scott in 1868 , formed an uneven rectangle in the government district, housed the Colonial Office as well as the Home Office ( Ministry of the Interior ).

The Colonial Offices was divided into five subdivisions according to geographical criteria. Four of these departments had already been established in 1825 by the War and Colonial Department , the forerunner of the Colonial Office .

The fifth department, with the "creative" English name Miscellaneous (German: Miscellaneous ), was founded in 1843.

history

Before 1854

The British colonies were founded between 1660 and 1768 by a combination of the Secretary of State for the Southern Departments and that of William III in 1696 . founded the Board of Trade , a committee of the British Privy Council . Before the Board was founded , there were bodies with similar names. The Commission for Foreign Plantations , which was founded in 1634, can be seen as the first permanent body to be responsible for matters relating to the British colonies.

As tensions grew between the colonists of America and the British government, a new department was created specifically for the administrations of the colonies in 1768. There is conflicting information about the designation of the department headed by a Secretary of State ( Minister ), who otherwise reported to the Board of Trade . But the body was disbanded in 1772 after years of inactivity and chaos. With the loss of the American colonies, the Department was also dissolved in 1782. In 1784, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham reformed the Board of Trade and formally enacted it on August 23, 1786, with a president at its head. The judicial power ( jurisdiction ) for the colonies was transferred to the home office . In 1801 responsibility for the colonies was transferred to the Secretary of State for War , whose department was now called the War and Colonial Department . 1825 marked the beginning of a new colonial office with the position of permanent under-secretary (comparable to a state secretary) responsible for the colonies .

From 1854 to 1966

With Great Britain's entry into the Crimean War on March 28, 1854, responsibility for the colonies was removed from the War Office and the existing department for the colonies was transferred from the government of George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, to an independent department, the Colonial Office , outsourced with ministerial responsibility. Sir George Gray, 2nd Baronet , became the first Secretary of State for the Colonies of the new independent department . The department existed until 1966, but has seen some changes over the years. In 1869, for example, an own bookkeeping system was introduced, in 1870 some of the department head's tasks were transferred to a general department and in 1878 emigration matters were outsourced to an independent emigration department , which existed until 1894. In 1907 a subdivision was established for the Dominions , which in 1925 was also spun off into its own department . From 1907 to 1925, the Colonial Office took over responsibility for the Imperial Institute . In July 1961, overseas aid and development was spun off into a new Department of Technical Co-operation and in March 1962 matters relating to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were spun off into the Central African Office . From July 1962 to October 1964, the offices of Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations were merged, and in 1966 the government departments of the Colonial Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office were combined into one Commonwealth Office .

After 1966

Only two years later, the Commonwealth Office and the Foreign Office were merged to form the Foreign and Commonwealth Office , which still exists in this form today.

See also

literature

  • Gavin McLean: The Governors, New Zealand's Governors and Governors-General . Otago University Press, Dunedin 2006, ISBN 1-877372-25-0 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C57
  2. ^ The Foreign and Commonwealth Office - History . (PDF 22 kB) Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), London , archived from the original on September 24, 2012 ; accessed on January 22, 2016 (English, original website no longer available).
  3. ^ Gavin McLean: The Governors. New Zealand's Governors and Governors-General . Otago University Press, Dunedin 2006, pp. 21-22 .
  4. ^ A b c Nancy Brown Foulds: Colonial Office ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved May 30, 2010.
  5. ↑ American and West Indian Colonies Before 1782 . rootsweb.ancestry.com , accessed January 22, 2016 .
  6. ^ Privy Council and the colonies . The National Archives , February 3, 2011; archived from the original on February 18, 2011 ; accessed on April 22, 2018 (English, original website no longer available).
  7. ↑ Note: Depending on the literature, names such as American Department , Colonial Department or American Colonial Office can be found , see:
    • Margaret Marion Spector: The American Department of British Government. 1768-1782 . Columbia University Press, New York NY 1940 (English, dissertation).
    • Earl S. Pomeroy: The American Colonial Office . In: The Mississippi Valley Historical Review . tape 30 , no. 4 , March 1944, ISSN  0161-391X , p. 521-532 (English).
    • Nancy Brown Foulds: Colonial Office ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved May 30, 2010.
  8. ↑ The Board of Trade from 1621 to 1970 . The National Archives, UK, archived from the original on October 2, 2006 ; accessed on May 30, 2010 (English).
  9. ^ Secretary of State for the Colonies . Parliament UK , London, accessed May 31, 2010 .
  10. ^ Records of the Colonial Office, Commonwealth and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices, Empire Marketing Board, and related bodies . casbah.ac.uk , 2002, archived from the original on October 2, 2006 ; accessed on April 22, 2018 (English, original website no longer available).

Supplementary literature

  • Mandy Banton: Administering the Empire, 1801–1968. A Guide to the Records of the Colonial Office in The National Archives of the UK . Institute of Historical Research and The National Archives, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-905165-29-2 (English).