Type of British colony directly administered by the British central government
A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by England, and then Great Britain or the United Kingdom 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 administration of Crown colonies changed over time and in the 1800s some became, with a loosening of the power of royal governors, self-governing colonies, within which the sovereign state (the UK Government) delegated legislation for most local internal matters of governance to elected assemblies, with consent of the governor. Elected lower houses had their beginnings in the House of Burgesses of the Colony of Virginia in 1619 and the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Bermuda in 1620. While initially limited in government even with an elected lower house, over the centuries in some Crown colonies, more independent authority was given.
Executive crown governors are sometimes complemented by a locally appointed and/or elected legislature with limited powers – that is, such territories lack responsible government. For example, while the House of Assembly of Bermuda has existed continuously since its first session in 1620, Bermuda has only had responsible government since 1968. (Bermuda became a Crown colony in 1684, when the government revoked a royal charter given to the Somers Isles Company, successor to the Virginia Company, which had previously controlled administration, including the appointment of governors. Afterwards the British government appointed the Governor of Bermuda.)
The term Crown colony continued to be used until 1981, when the British Nationality Act 1981 reclassified the remaining British colonies as "British Dependent Territories". By this time, the term "Crown colony" referred specifically to colonies lacking substantial autonomy, which were administered by an executive governor, appointed by the British Government – such as Hong Kong, before its transfer in 1997 to the People's Republic of China.[citation needed] In 2002, the British Overseas Territories Act 2002 further changed their name to British Overseas Territories.
Types
There were three types of Crown colony as of 1918, with differing degrees of autonomy:
Crown colonies with representative councils, such as Bermuda, Jamaica, Ceylon and Fiji, contained two legislative chambers, consisting of Crown-appointed and locally elected members.
The "from" column lists the year the colony began to be administered by the Crown. These colonies may have existed under a different type of English colonial administration before then.
Olson, James (1996). Historical Dictionary of the British Empire. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN0-313-29366-X.
Porter, Andrew (1998). The Nineteenth Century, The Oxford History of the British Empire Volume III. Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-924678-5.
Wrong, Hume (1923). "The Old Representative System: The Change To Crown Colony Government". Government of the West Indies. England: Oxford University Press. p.71. ISBN1-113-74149-X. Archived from the original on 8 April 2022. Retrieved 30 March 2010. The phrase 'Crown Colony Government' is used with various meanings. In the broadest, and perhaps most correct, sense it is applied to all the colonies in which the Crown retains the real control of the executive (i.e. to all the West Indian colonies). By both official and common usage, however, it is often narrowed as to exclude colonies with elected Assemblies, though without a responsible executive.
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