>JJMC89 bot III at 15:18, 12 April 2021

2021-04-12T15:18:24Z

New page

{{EngvarB|date=March 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{see also|British Raj}}
[[Image:Foreign and India Offices, London, 1866 ILN.jpg|thumb|275px|The western or [[St. James's Park|park]] end of the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office]]'s building in 1866. It was then occupied by the Foreign and India Offices, while the Home and Colonial Offices occupied the [[Whitehall]] end.]]

The '''India Office''' was a British government department established [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building|in London]] in 1858 to oversee the administration, through a [[Governor-General of India|Viceroy]] and other officials, of the [[Presidencies and provinces of British India|Provinces of British India]]. These territories comprised most of the modern-day nations of [[Indian subcontinent|Indian Subcontinent]] as well as [[Colony of Aden|Yemen]] and other territories around the Indian Ocean. The department was headed by the [[Secretary of State for India]], a member of the [[Cabinet of the United Kingdom|British cabinet]], who was formally advised by the [[Council of India]].<ref>Kaminsky, 1986.</ref>

Upon the independence of India in 1947 into the new independent [[dominion]] of India of the India Office was closed down. Responsibility for the United Kingdom's relations with the new country was transferred to the [[Commonwealth Relations Office]] (formerly the [[Dominions Office]]).

== Origins of the India Office (1600–1858) ==
The East India Company was established in 1600 as a [[joint-stock company]] of [[Kingdom of England|English]] merchants who received, by a series of charters, exclusive rights to English trade with the "[[Indies]]", defined as the lands lying between the [[Cape of Good Hope]] and the [[Straits of Magellan]]; the term "India" had been derived from the name of the [[Indus River]], long important to commerce and civilisation in the region. The Company soon established a network of "[[factory (trading post)|factories]]" throughout the south and east Indies in Asia. Over a period of 250 years the Company underwent several substantial changes in its basic character and functions.

A period of rivalry between the Old and New Companies after 1698 resulted in the formation in 1709 of the United Company of Merchants Trading to the East Indies. This 'new' [[East India Company]] was transformed during the second half of the 18th century from a mainly commercial body with scattered Asian trading interests into a major territorial power in South Asia with its headquarters in [[Bengal]], present day state of [[West Bengal]] of [[India]] and [[Bangladesh]]. The political implications of this development eventually caused the British government in 1784 to institute standing Commissioners (the [[India Board|Board of Control]]) in London to exercise supervision over the Company's Indian policies.

This change in the Company's status, along with other factors, led to the [[Acts of Parliament]] of 1813 and 1833, which opened British trade with the [[East Indies]] to all shipping and resulted in the Company's complete withdrawal from its commercial functions. The Company continued to exercise responsibility, under the supervision of the Board, for the government of British India until the re-organisation of 1858.

Throughout most of these changes the basic structure of Company organisation in [[East India House]] in the [[City of London]] remained largely unaltered, comprising a large body of proprietors or shareholders and an elected Court of Directors, headed by a chairman and deputy chairman who, aided by permanent officials, were responsible for the daily conduct of Company business. The Board of Control maintained its separate office close to the Government buildings in Westminster.

With the [[Government of India Act 1858]], the Company and the Board of Control of the East India Companies were replaced by a single new department of state in London, the India Office, which functioned, under the Secretary of State for India, as an executive office of United Kingdom government alongside the [[Foreign Office]], [[Colonial Office]], [[Home Office]] and [[War Office]].

== Description and functions ==
The [[Secretary of State for India]] was assisted by a statutory body of advisers, the Council of India, and headed a staff of civil servants organised into a system of departments largely taken over from the East India Company and Board of Control establishments, and housed in a new India Office building in Whitehall. The Secretary of State for India inherited all the executive functions previously carried out by the Company, and all the powers of 'superintendence, direction and control' over the British provincial administrations in South Asia previously exercised by the Board of Control. Improved communications with South Asia – the overland and submarine telegraph cables (1868–70), and the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) – rendered this control, exercised through the Viceroy and provincial Governors covering large areas in the regions of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, more effective in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It was only with the constitutional reforms initiated during the First World War, and carried forward by the India Acts of 1919 and 1935, that there came about a significant relaxation of India Office supervision over the Government of [[British India]], and with it, in South Asia, a gradual devolution of authority to legislative bodies and local governments. The same administrative reforms also led in 1937 to the separation of Burma from rest of South Asia and the creation in London of the [[Burma Office]], separate from the India Office though sharing the same Secretary of State and located in the same building. With the gradual events and establishments of sovereign independent nations and the final grant of independence to present-day [[India]] and [[Pakistan]] in 1947, and to present-day [[Myanmar]] in 1948, both the India Office and the Burma Office were officially dissolved.

As a result of the widespread involvement in the external relations and defence policy of pre-1947 African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries, the India Office was also responsible for{{clarify|date=November 2012}} particular neighbouring or connected areas at different times. Among the most significant of these are:

::[[Bengal]] (1616–1857);
::[[Sri Lanka]] then called Ceylon (c. 1750–1802);
::St Helena (to 1834);
::Cape of Good Hope (to 1836);
::Zanzibar, Somalia and Ethiopia (mainly nineteenth century);
::Red Sea, Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf states, Iraq and Iran (c. 1600–1947);
::[[Afghanistan]], Russian and Chinese Central Asia, [[Tibet]], [[Nepal]], [[Bhutan]] and [[Sikkim]] (late eighteenth century to 1947);
::[[British Malaya|Malaya]] and South-East Asia (to c. 1867);
::Indonesia (to c. 1825);
::China (early seventeenth century to 1947); and
::Japan (seventeenth century).
Other groups of involvement have also resulted from India Office interest in the status of Indian emigrants to the West Indies, south and east Africa, and Fiji.

The India Office had its offices in the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building]] in [[Whitehall]].

== Timeline ==
::'''1600''' – [[English East India Company#History|Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies]]. established in London
::'''1709''' – [[British East India Company]] emerges as union of England and Scotland is born.
::'''1757''' – East India Company begins conquering Indian territory after the [[Battle of Plassey]].
::'''1765''' – Mughal Emperor grants the right to collect land revenue to the East India Company.
::'''1773''' – [[Warren Hastings]] appointed as first [[Governor of Bengal]].
::'''1784''' – British Government establishes [[India Board|Board of Control]] for India in London.
::'''1813''' – End of East India Company's monopoly rights over trade with British India with the [[Charter Act of 1813]]
::'''1833''' – End of East India Company's monopoly rights over trade with China
::'''1857''' – [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]] changes local opinion of the British.
::'''1858''' – East India Company and Board of Control replaced by India Office and [[Council of India]] in the [[Government of India Act 1858]].
::'''1937''' – Separation of Burma from British India and establishment of [[Burma Office]].
::'''1947''' – [[Dominion of India]] and [[Dominion of Pakistan]]. Dominion Status granted to both countries. India wishes to stay in the [[Commonwealth of Nations|commonwealth]]. Abolition of India Office.
::'''1948''' – Independence of Burma and abolition of Burma Office
::'''1971''' – Separation of East Bengal from Pakistan creating present-day [[Bangladesh]].

== India Office Records ==
{{main|India Office Records}}
The India Office Records are the repository of the archives of the East India Company (1600–1858), the Board of Control or Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of British India (1784–1858), the India Office (1858–1947), the Burma Office (1937–1948), and a number of related British agencies overseas which were officially linked with one or other of the four main bodies. The focus of the India Office Records is in the territories mainly that today include Central Asia, the Middle East, regions of Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and their administration before 1947. The official archives of the India Office Records are complemented by over 300 collections and over 3,000 smaller deposits of Private Papers relating to the British experience in India.

The India Office Records, previously housed in the India Office Library, are now administered as part of the [[Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections]] of the [[British Library]], London as part of the Public Records of the United Kingdom, and are open for public consultation. They comprise 14 kilometres of shelves of volumes, files and boxes of papers, together with 70,000 volumes of official publications and 105,000 manuscript and printed maps.

== See also ==
* [[Secretary of State for India]]
* [[Under-Secretary of State for India]]
* [[Governor-General of India]]
* [[History of India]]
* [[History of West Bengal]]

== Notes ==
<references/>

==Further reading==
* Datta, Rajeshwari. "The India Office Library: Its History, Resources, and Functions," ''Library Quarterly,'' (April 1966) 36#2 pp. 99–148.
* {{cite book|author=Arnold P. Kaminsky|title=The India Office, 1880–1910|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kjpT8QBtW_0C|access-date=11 February 2012|year=1986|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-24909-9}}
* [[Muhammad Siddiq Khan|Khan, M. S.]] "The India Office Library: Who Owns It?" ''The Eastern Librarian'', vol. I No. 1, 1966, pp. 1–10
* Moir, Martin. ''A General Guide to the India Office Records'' (1988) 331 pages
* {{cite book |last1= Seton|first1= Malcolm C.C.|last2= Stewart|first2= S.F.|date= 1926|title= The India Office|url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.208289|location= London & New York|publisher=[[G. P. Putnam's Sons|G.P. Putnam's Sons Ltd]] }}
* Williams, Donovan. ''The India Office, 1858–1869'' (1983) 589 pages
* [https://archive.org/details/catalogueoflibravol2pt4grea Catalogue of the Library of the India Office: Supplement 2: 1895–1909, 1909 (1888)]

== External links ==
*[http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpregion/asia/india/indiaofficerecords/indiaofficehub.html India Office Records hub] British Library site
*[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/results.aspx?tab=2&Page=1&ExactPhrase=British+Library,+Asia,+Pacific+and+Africa+Collections&Places=British+Library,+Asia,+Pacific+and+Africa+Collections Search the India Office Records at Access 2 Archives] National Archives site
* [http://www.houseofdavid.ca/Ind_uni.htm#IndiaOffice Bibliography]

{{coord|51|30|09.9|N|0|07|45.26|W|region:GB_scale:1000|display=title}}

[[Category:Government of British India]]
[[Category:Governance of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Defunct departments of the Government of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:History of Bangladesh]]
[[Category:History of West Bengal]]
[[Category:History of India]]
[[Category:History of Bengal]]
[[Category:1858 establishments in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:1947 disestablishments in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Government agencies established in 1858]]
[[Category:Government agencies disestablished in 1947]]

India Office - Revision history

>JJMC89 bot III at 15:18, 12 April 2021