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The Colonial Office and Governor Ord

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2011

John Legge
John Legge
Affiliation:
Monash University
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Abstract

Sir Harry Ord, first Governor of the Straits Settlements after their transfer from the Government of India to the Colonial Office in 1867, found himself continually at odds with the Colonial Office. The irritable exchanges between Singapore and London throw light on Colonial Office perceptions of the procedures appropriate to Crown Colony government in a new imperial age.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 1998 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1998

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References

1 For a discussion of these questions see Legge, John, “A New Imperialism in the Late 19th Century? Revisiting an Old Debate”, in Empires, Imperialism and Southeast Asia, ed. Barrington, Brook (Clayton, Vic: Monash Asia Institute, 1997Google Scholar).

2 Turnbull, C. M., The Straits Settlements, 1826-67 (London: Athlone Press, 1972), p. 381Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 383. Cf. also CD. Cowan, who saw him as “overbearing and brusque, confident of his own judgment and unwilling to suffer criticism” and as “blunt”. Cowan, C.D., Nineteenth-Century Malaya: The Origins of British Political Control (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 30–31Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 391.

5 Ord to CO, 4/67, 3 Apr. 1867, CO 273/10.

6 CO to Ord, 20/67, 6 Jun. 1867, in reply to Ord to CO, 4/67, 3 Apr. 1867, CO 273/10.

7 Ord to CO, 54/67, 4 Jul. 1867, CO 273/11.

8 Minutes on Ord to CO, 54/67, 4 Jul. 1867, and CO to Ord 53/67, CO 273/11.

9 Ord to CO, 61/67, 15 Jul. 1867 in reply to CO 20/67.

10 CO to Ord, 71/67, 25 Sep. 1867, in reply to Ord to CO, 61/67, 15 Jul. 1867, CO 273/11.

11 Ord to CO 134/67, 21 Nov. 1867, CO 273/12.

12 Minute on Ibid.

13 CO to Ord 49/68, 1 Apr. 1868, in reply to Ord to CO, 149/67, 18 Dec. 1867, CO273/13.

14 Ord 97/68, 21 May 1968, CO 273/18.

15 The modification was effected by adding to the Duke's suggested amendment the words xsitalicised below, so that the full sentence became: “In a Colony possessing Representative Institutions the powers of the Governor are circumscribed by the necessities of that form of Government and in cases where responsible Govt is established they are further circumscribed by the responsibility of his Ministers to the local Legislature.” Minutes on Ord 97/68, 21 May 1968, and the successive drafts of the dispatch in reply, 31 Jul. 1968, CO 273/18. The admonitory dispatch was sent as ‘Confidential’ so that the lecture given to Ord would not be placed on the Colonial Secretary's file.

16 See Wight, Martin, British Colonial Constitutions, 1947 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952Google Scholar), for a “constitutional classification of the seventy odd dependencies in the Empire” (p. vii).

17 CO to Ord 115/68, 27 Jun. 1868 in reply to Ord to CO, 86/68, 7 May 1868, CO 273/18. See also CO to Ord (Conf.), 31 Jul. 1868, loc. cit.

18 Ord to CO 77/67, 17 Aug. 1867, CO 273/11.

19 Cowan, Nineteenth-Century Malaya, p. 54.

20 Minutes on Ord 155/67, 31 Dec. 1867, CO 273/13.

21 Ibid.

22 CO to Ord, 59/68, 22 Apr. 1868 in reply to Ord to CO 155/67. The draft of this dispatch is filed with correspondence between the CO and FO in CO 273/23.

23 CO to Ord 92/68, 4 Jun. 1868 in reply to Order to CO, 58/68, 8 Apr. 1868, CO 273/18.