Abstract

T he Office of the Crown Agents (CAs) acted as the British commercial and financial agent of the Crown colonies and protectorates, which were required by the Colonial Office (CO) to use its services. It supplied all non-locally manufactured public sector stores; organized the provision of external finance; managed colonial investments; supervised the construction of railways, harbours, and so on; and performed various personnel functions, such as the payment of pensions and some salaries. Established in 1833, when it became clear that the existing agents, most of them CO clerks nearing the end of their careers, were unable to perform their duties satisfactorily, the Agency at first represented both the selfgoverning and Crown colonies. Treasury concern that its flotation of responsible government loans gave the impression that these issues possessed an imperial guarantee, however, prompted the CO in 1880 to order the Agency to act only for dependent colonies and protectorates (table 1).2 Although under the supervision of the Secretary of State for the colonies, who appointed the Agents and fixed their salaries, the Agency was financially and administratively independent of the government.3 It covered its expenditure through a system of charges for work done, transferring any surpluses to an invested reserve fund, which met pension costs and financed deficits; recruited its own staff from outside the civil service; and was given a wide latitude by the CO as to how it conducted its business. Much of its work was completed in-house by a small staff of 33 in 1881 and 468 in 1914, but other tasks were undertaken by third parties. The Agents employed a shipping agent, a packing company, a firm of solicitors, consulting engineers, and a broker. 'Outsourcing' enabled the Agents to relieve themselves of some of the financial liability ' The research on which this article is based was financed by the ESRC. I thank Dr Avner Offer, Prof. Peter Cain, and anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions, and those who attended the Economic and Social History Seminar held at Nuffield College, Oxford at which an earlier draft of the article was presented.

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