In 1813, James Stephen, Jr., a twenty-four-year-old lawyer, was appointed part-time by the British Colonial Office to write legal opinions on the validity of colonial laws. In 1825, he began working full-time as legal advisor to the Colonial Office and held this position until 1836 when he was promoted to the top-ranking post of permanent under-secretary of the Colonial Office, which he held until 1847. During these years, Stephen frequently played a key role in influencing the direction taken by policies and reforms initiated through the Colonial Office. In particular, his important role in shaping Colonial Office “native policy” after the mid-1830s has been documented by several historians, and much has been written about his connection—through his anti-slavery father, Stephen, Sr., and his uncle William Wilberforce—to the famous Evangelical “Clapham Sect” that took a leading role in promoting a number of different humanitarian and social reform causes in the first half of the nineteenth century.