Asserting metropolitan control

This chapter examines the response of the metropolitan government to the challenges posed by the British Empire, and specifically to New South Wales and the Cape Colony, between 1815 and 1836. It emphasises the Colonial Office's concern simultaneously to control the governors of crown colonies, to limit their power, while maintaining their authority. The Colonial Office's response to the contemporary enthusiasm for good government can be seen in a number of projects mooted or implemented in the 1820s and early 1830s. Even in the 1830s, when the great reforming events encouraged public and parliamentary scrutiny of colonial affairs at unprecedented level, their treatment by the Colonial Office was often fragmented and inconsistent. The crisis in the Colonial Office during late 1835 would largely destroy the delicate, but critical, networks of communication on which crown colony governance relied, without leaving an obvious alternative.

Archaeology · Colonialism · Corporate governance · Economics · Empire · Enthusiasm · Government (linguistics) · Management · Metropolitan area · Metropolitan police · Political economy · Political science · Power (physics) · Scrutiny · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Public Administration