The Mid-Victorian Colonial Office

Abstract

THE British Empire was administered, before 1876, from dilapidated premises, now demolished, which used to close the St. James’s Park end of Downing Street.¹ They were, in the words of a distinguished civil servant, ‘less like a centre of State affairs than a decent lodging-house’.² In 1870, the entire establishment numbered only sixty-seven, including messengers, and the whole burden of looking after the far-flung mid-Victorian Empire was borne by the Secretary of State, the parliamentary and permanent under-secretaries, an assistant under-secretary, a legal adviser and about a dozen departmental clerks.³