Chief secretary was the title of a senior civil servant in various colonies of the British Empire. Prior to the dissolution of the colonies, the chief secretary was the second most important official in a colony of the British Empire after the Governor, typically termed the colonial secretary and often an office held by the premier or a similar politically elected minister, and with a portfolio which were equivalent to what was later termed the Home Secretary's office.
This office was at first known as "colonial secretary" or "principal secretary." In all colonies in British North America (with the single exception of Prince Edward Island and Bermuda), the equivalent title was "provincial secretary". In Prince Edward Island and Bermuda, the term "colonial secretary" was used.
Originally the occupant of this post was secretary to the governor as well as secretary of the colony. In 1821, Governor of New South Wales Philip Gidley King wrote that the colonial secretary:
In Ireland, the role of chief secretary dated from 1660.
The colonial secretary in the Colony of New South Wales and most of the other Australian colonies during the nineteenth century was a political position and not the position of a civil servant. The colonial secretary was thus a government minister and politician, and the position was fundamentally equivalent to the later term home secretary, and it was commonly (but not always) held by the colonial prime minister, later referred to as premier . The function of colonial secretary and secretary to the governor were thus separated in 1824, and several Australian colonies renamed their 'colonial secretary' as 'home secretary' during the 1890s and just before separation.[ citation needed ]
After the grant of responsible government, this office like its British equivalent, the First Lord of the Treasury was frequently the formal position held by the colonial premier because the office of premier was not mentioned in any legislation. The Cape Colony was unusual in giving the colonial secretary at the Cape responsibility for defence. [2] Several of the Australian states and territories retained the title for many decades, the chief secretary's departments ultimately evolving into the modern Premier's Departments in those states, although the chief secretary position itself became separate from that of the Premier, and evolved differently in different jurisdictions: in some places it became the equivalent of the British Home Secretary or a Minister of the Interior elsewhere. New Zealand abolished the office in 1907.
Territories with chief secretaries included Nigeria, Kenya and Tanganyika. Smaller territories, like British Guiana, used the term colonial secretary instead.
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability, the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Governments in Westminster democracies are responsible to parliament rather than to the monarch, or, in a colonial context, to the imperial government, and in a republican context, to the president, either in full or in part. If the parliament is bicameral, then the government is responsible first to the parliament's lower house, which is more representative than the upper house, as it usually has more members and they are always directly elected.
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the type of political region or polity, a governor may be either appointed or elected, and the governor's powers can vary significantly, depending on the public laws in place locally. The adjective pertaining to a governor is gubernatorial, from the Latin root gubernare.
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia, and more substantially with the founding of the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America.
The secretary of state for the colonies or colonial secretary was the Cabinet of the United Kingdom's minister in charge of managing the British Empire.
An administrator in the constitutional practice of some countries in the Commonwealth is a person who fulfils a role similar to that of a governor or a governor-general.
Hercules George Robert Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead,, was a British colonial administrator who became the 5th Governor of Hong Kong and subsequently, the 14th Governor of New South Wales, the first Governor of Fiji, and the 8th Governor of New Zealand. From June 1859 until August 1896, he was known as Sir Hercules Robinson.
The Secretary of State for the Colonies was the British Cabinet minister who headed the Colonial Office, commonly referred to as Colonial Secretary.
Each Australian state has a governor to represent Australia's monarch within it. The governors are the nominal chief executives of the states, performing the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the Governor-General of Australia at the national or federal level. In practice, with notable exceptions the governors are generally required by convention to act on the advice of the state premiers or the other members of a state's cabinet.
The premiers and chief ministers of the Australian states and territories are the heads of the executive governments in the six states and two self-governing territories of Australia. They perform the same function at the state and territory level as the Prime Minister of Australia performs at the national level. The King of Australia and the state governors are the formal repositories of executive power; however, in practice they act only on the advice of state premiers and ministers except in extreme circumstances, such as a constitutional crisis.
In the British Empire, a self-governing colony was a colony with an elected government in which elected rulers were able to make most decisions without referring to the colonial power with nominal control of the colony. This was in contrast to a Crown colony, in which the British Government ruled and legislated via an appointed Governor, with or without the assistance of an appointed Council. Most self-governing colonies had responsible government.
A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by the Crown within the English and later British Empire. There was usually a governor to represent the Crown, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local council. In some cases, this council was split into two: an executive council and a legislative council, and the executive council was similar to the Privy Council that advises the monarch. Members of executive councils were appointed by the governors, and British citizens resident in Crown colonies either had no representation in local government, or limited representation in a lower house. In several Crown colonies, this limited representation grew over time. As the House of Commons of the British Parliament has never included seats for any of the colonies, there was no direct representation in the sovereign government for British subjects or citizens residing in Crown colonies.
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia. The colonies of Fiji and New Zealand were originally part of this process, but they decided not to join the federation. Following federation, the six colonies that united to form the Commonwealth of Australia as states kept the systems of government that they had developed as separate colonies, but they also agreed to have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation. When the Constitution of Australia came into force, on 1 January 1901, the colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia.
The governor of Bermuda is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda.
British America comprised the colonial territories of the English Empire, and the successor British Empire, in the Americas from 1607 to 1783. These colonies were formally known as British America and the British West Indies immediately prior to thirteen of the colonies seceding in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and forming the United States of America.
The Colonial Service, also known as His/Her Majesty's Colonial Service and replaced in 1954 by Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service (HMOCS), was the British government service that administered most of Britain's overseas possessions, under the authority of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Colonial Office in London. It did not operate in British India, where the same function was delivered by the Indian Civil Service, nor in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which was administered by the Sudan Political Service, nor in the internally self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia.
In the Commonwealth of Nations, a high commissioner is the senior diplomat, generally ranking as an ambassador, in charge of the diplomatic mission of one Commonwealth government to another. Instead of an embassy, the diplomatic mission is generally called a high commission.
The Constitutional history of Australia is the history of Australia's foundational legal principles. Australia's legal origins as a nation state began in the colonial era, with its legal system reliant initially upon a legal fiction of terra nullius to impose British law upon the colony of New South Wales. As the colonies expanded, Australia gradually began to achieve de facto independence. Over the years as a result the foundations of the Australian legal system gradually began to shift. This culminated in the Australia Act, an act formally ending legal ties with the UK.
The Chief Secretary of New South Wales, known from 1821 to 1959 as the Colonial Secretary, was a key political office in state administration in New South Wales, and from 1901, a state in the Commonwealth of Australia. During much of the 19th century, the Colonial Secretary was the pre-eminent figure in public life. The role of the Chief Secretary changed significantly from the time of its creation in 1821 to its final use in 1995, with various responsibilities changing hands. Nominally subordinate to the Governor of New South Wales from the early 19th century until the beginning of full self-government in 1856, he was effectively a government record-keeper and the officer with responsibility for the general administration of the colony. However, for most of its history the Chief Secretary was in charge of all matters relating to correspondence with government departments, naturalisation, the Great Seal, state security, censorship and classification laws, the arts, Public Health, Aboriginal welfare, Lord Howe Island, and environmental protection and fisheries.
Chief Secretary may refer to:
The 1877 Birthday Honours were appointments by Queen Victoria to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of the Queen, and were published in The London Gazette on 30 May and 2 June 1877.