Resident minister


A resident minister, or resident for short, is a government official required to take up permanent residence in another country. A representative of his government, he officially has diplomatic functions which are often seen as a form of indirect rule.
A resident usually heads an administrative area called a residency. "Resident" may also refer to resident spy, the chief of an espionage operations base.

Resident ministers

This full style occurred commonly as a diplomatic rank for the head of a mission ranking just below envoy, usually reflecting the relatively low status of the states of origin and/or residency or else difficult relations.
On occasion, the resident minister's role could become extremely important, as when in 1806 the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV fled his Kingdom of Naples, and Lord William Bentinck, the British Resident, authored a new and relatively liberal constitution.
Residents could also be posted to nations that had significant foreign influence. For instance, the British sent residents to the Mameluk Beys who ruled Baghdad province as an autonomous state in the north of present-day Iraq, until the Ottoman sultans reasserted control over it and its Wali. After the Congress of Vienna restored the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1815, the British posted a resident to Florence to handle their affairs there.
As international relations developed, it became customary to give the highest title of diplomatic rank – ambassador – to the head of all permanent missions in any country, except as a temporary expression of down-graded relations or where representation was merely an interim arrangement.

Pseudo-colonial residents

Some official representatives of European colonial powers, while in theory diplomats, in practice exercised a degree of indirect control. Some such residents were former military officers, rather than career diplomats, who resided in smaller self-governing protectorates and tributary states and acted as political advisors to the ruler. A trusted resident could even become the de facto prime minister to a native ruler. In other respects, they acted as an ambassador of the government of the country they were posted to, but at a lower level, since they were protectorates or tributaries of Western nations. Instead of being a representative to a single ruler, a resident could be posted to more than one native state, or to a grouping of states which the European power decided for its convenience. This could create an artificial geographical unit, as in Residency X in some parts of the Indian Empire. Similar positions could carry alternative titles, such as political agent and resident commissioner.
In some cases, the intertwining of the European power with the traditional native establishment went so far that members of the native princely houses became residents, either in other states or even within their state, provided that they were unlikely ever to succeed as rulers of the state. A resident's real role varied enormously, depending upon the underlying relationship between the two parties and even upon the personalities of the Resident and the ruler. Some residents were little more than observers and diplomats, others were seen as unwanted interlopers and were treated with hostility, while some won enough trust from the ruler that they were able to exercise great influence. In French protectorates, such as those of Morocco and Tunisia, the resident or resident general was the effective ruler of the territory. In 1887, when both Boers and gold prospectors of all nationalities were overrunning his country, the Swazi paramount chief Umbandine asked for a British resident, seeing this as a desirable and effective form of protection. His request was refused.

British and dominion residents

The residents of the governments of the United Kingdom and the dominions to a variety of protectorates include:

Residents in Africa

  • In the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the second 'homeland' of the Omani dynasty, since 1913. From 1913 to 1961 the Residents were also the Sultan's vizier. There were Consuls and Consuls-general until 1963.
  • In present-day Kenya, in the Sultanate of Witu, after the British took over the protectorate from the German Empire, which had itself posted a Resident.
  • In British Cameroon, since 1916, in 1949 restyled Special Resident for Edward John Gibbons, who stayed on in October 1954 as the first Commissioner when it became an autonomous part of Nigeria.
  • in Southern Africa:
  • * when the military party sent from Cape Colony to occupy Port Natal on behalf of Great Britain was recalled in 1839, a British Resident was appointed among the Fingo and other tribes in Kaffraria until the definite establishment of British rule in Natal and its 1845 organization as an administrative entity, when the incumbent Shepstone was made Agent for the native tribes.
  • * In KwaZulu, which since 1843 was under a British protectorate, after it became the Zulu "Native" Reserve or Zululand Province on 1 September 1879: two British Residents. Thereafter there were Resident Commissioners until Zululand was incorporated into the crown colony of Natal as British Zululand on 1 December 1897.
  • * in 1845 the resident 'north of the Orange River chose his residency at Bloemfontein, which became the capital of the Orange River Sovereignty in 1848. In 1854 the British abandoned the Sovereignty, and the independent Boer republic of the Orange Free State was established
  • * in the Boer Republic of Transvaal at Pretoria
  • * with the Matabele chief at Bulawayo
  • in Ghana, with the rulers of the Asanteman Confederation, since it became 1896 a British protectorate; on 23 June 1900 the Confederation was dissolved by UK protectorate authority, and on 26 September 1901 turned into Ashanti Colony, so since 1902 his place was taken by a Chief Commissioner at Kumasi
  • in various parts of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, and Southern Nigeria Protectorate and after their joining Nigeria protectorate, notably in Edo state at Benin City, with the Emir of and in Bauchi, to the jointly ruling bale and Balogun of Ibadan, with the Emir of Illorin, with the Emir of and in Muri, with the Emir of Nupe

    Residents in Asia

British residents were posted in various princely states – in major states or groups of states—in the days of British India. Often they were appointed to a single state, as with the Resident in Lucknow, the capital of Oudh; to the Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda; to the Maharaja Sindhia of Gwalior; to the Nizam al-Mulk of Hyderabad; to the Maharaja of Jhalawar; to the restored Maharaja of Mysore, after the fall of Tipu Sultan; to the Maharaja Sena Sahib Subah of the Mahratta state of Nagpur; to the Raja of Manipur; to the Raja of Travancore; to the Maharana of Mewar in Udaipur.
Even when Lord Lake had broken the Maratha power in 1803, and the Mughal emperor was taken under the protection of the East India Company, the districts of Delhi and Hisar were assigned for the maintenance of the royal family, and were administered by a British Resident, until in 1832 the whole area was annexed to
British Residents were also posted in major states considered to be connected with India, neighbouring or on the sea route to it, notably:
  • in Aden, the only part of present-day Yemen made a colony in full British possession. The last of three British Political Agents since 1939 stayed on as first Resident since 1859, the last again staying on in 1932 as first Chief Commissioner; he was the only diplomatic representative to the various Arabian rulers who over time accepted British protectorate, but since the 1935 legal separation from British India was followed in 1937 by a reorganisation into an Eastern and a Western Aden Protectorate, the British Representatives in each were styled British Political officers
  • in Afghanistan, a kingdom entitled to a gun salute of 21 guns : the first British Residents were Sir Alexander Burnes ; William Hay McNaghten ; Eldred Pottinger. After that, four native Vakils acted on behalf of the British government: Nawab Foujdar Khan, Ghulam Husain Khan Allizai, Bukhiar Khan, Attah Muhammad Khan Khagwani ; then there were two more British Residents Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, Henry Lepel-Griffin ; next came two Military Commanders and until 1919 ten native British Agents, one of whom served two non-consecutive terms.
  • Capt. Hiram Cox was the first British Resident to the King of independent Burma, and there were more discontinuous postings to that court, in the 19th century, never satisfactory to either party; after the Third Anglo-Burmese War there were two separate British Residents in a border zone of that country: in the Northern Shan States and the Southern Shan States in 1945–1948
  • after five military governors since the East India Company started chasing the Dutch out of Ceylon in August 1795 and occupying the island, their only Resident there was Robert Andrews, 12 February 1796 – 12 October 1798, who was subordinate to the presidency of Madras, afterward the HEIC appointed Governors as it was made a separate colony
  • to the Sultan of the Maldives archipelago since he formally accepted British protection on 16 December 1887, but this office was filled ex officio by the colonial Governors until 4 February 1948, abolished on 26 July 1965
  • in Nepal since 1802, accredited to the Hindu kings, since 15 March 1816 exercising a de facto protectorate—the last staying on 1920 as Envoy till the 1923 emancipation
  • with the Imam/Sultan of Oman, 1800–1804, 1805–1810, and 1840, then located with the African branch of the dynasty on the island of Unguja, since 1862 his role was handed over to a Political Agent
And elsewhere:
  • in Transjordan from April 1921 – 17 June 1946 four incumbents accredited to the Hashemite Emir/King
Even in overseas territories occupied to keep the French out of strategic trade and waters, residencies could be established, e.g. at Laye on Sumatra, an island returned to the Dutch East Indies