Date of Graduation

5-2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

History

Advisor/Mentor

Grob-Fitzgibbon, Benjamin J.

Committee Member

Gordon, Joel S.

Second Committee Member

Woods, Randall B.

Keywords

Social sciences; British empire; Colonial service; District officer; Empire; Official mind

Abstract

“The Grey Men of Empire: Framing Britain’s Official Mind, 1854-1934,” examines the crucial, yet too often-undervalued role of Britain’s imperial bureaucracy in forging the ethos and identity behind the policy-decisions made across the Empire. Although historians have tended to dismiss them as the faceless and voiceless grey men of Empire, this study argues that the political officers of the Colonial Services represented the backbone of British colonial administration and, quite literally, were responsible for its survival and proliferation. These so-called ‘men on the spot’—the District Officers, Assistant District Officers, and Cadets of the C.S.—made innumerable day-to-day, minute-to-minute decisions free from the oversight of Government House and Whitehall. Rather than proving representative of their reputation as ‘grey men’, Britain’s district officers were colorful, opinionated, independent, influential, and exceedingly defiant. They were the products of Britain’s elitist public schools and universities, where their schoolmasters indoctrinated them with the belief that they were to be the next leaders of Britain and its Empire. The strict hierarchy of the school system taught boys how to exercise responsibility and authority, to embrace it, and to accept it as their lot in life. These were not the kind of individuals who sat quietly, pen in hand, waiting for orders. They were movers and doers; what their hands found to do, they did with all the confidence of someone who had been told from adolescence that it was their job to make decisions. Neutrality and impartiality were simply not in their nature. Such vibrancy easily translated to the Empire with profound results.

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