On Company and Other Crown Service Overseas

Introduction

“…Selborne reported back in 1899 that he found the Colonial Service to be highly deficient and disorganised: not only were there glaring organisational problems inherent to the way business was arranged centrally, but large discrepancies existed between individual colonies in terms of how work was managed, particularly the disparate terms and conditions of employment that were offered. 7 Progressively, if slowly, the Colonial Service became more centralised. Reforms peaked in the 1930s with the recommendations provided through the findings of the Warren Fisher Committee, and the Colonial Service was formally organised into vocational branches.…”

“…It was the second-biggest personnel branch of the British Empire, with Colonial Medical Service employees making up nearly a third of all Colonial Service staff. 11 It was Joseph Chamberlain once again who oversaw the first major changes to the Colonial Medical Service, and, notably, one of his first tasks upon becoming Secretary of State for the Colonies was to appoint Patrick Manson (1844-1922) -then regarded as the most eminent tropical medical specialist of the day -to a newly created position of Consulting Physician to the Colonial Office. 12 This showed the priority assigned to the medical services of Empire.…”

“…A great diversity of individuals made up the staff of the Colonial Medical Service and most rural Africans would have had no contact with the European medical officer, but would have been seen at a dispensary by a member of the large cohort of African staff who worked in subordinate medical roles throughout the Empire. But even among the elite class of Anna Greenwood -9781526137074 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 07/31/2020 06:49:38PM via free access [ 7 ] qualified doctors the situation was far from uniform. As Ryan Johnson has shown, until the turn of the twentieth century, black doctors also served within the WAMS, in one case (Gold Coast Colony) even rising to the rank of Chief Medical Officer.…”

“…32 In the context of colonial Africa, this meant studying the roles of native intermediaries, subordinates and clerks who had long existed in the shadows of history and were not thought significant enough to warrant attention in their own right. 33 Increasingly, colonial medicine was no longer academically discussed solely in terms of an elite Western practice foisted willingly or INTRODUCTION [ 11 ] unwillingly on indigenous peoples. Medicine began to be seen as something that was frequently adapted and appropriated by local people who were often seen to pragmatically amalgamate new cultural traditions with their old ones and embrace pluralism.…”

Woman's Work in the Service of Empire: Lady Margaret Field (1905–94) from School Teacher to Governor's Wife

“…By 1960, HMCOS officers numbered 20,500. 9 Obviously, while increasing numerically, women in the Service remained a minority. Moreover and also obviously, recruiting figures in themselves do not tell us about the pattern of women's careers.…”