History
In the British Empire (most of which became the Commonwealth), High Commissioners were envoys of the Imperial government appointed to manage protectorates or groups of territories not fully under the sovereignty of the British Crown, while Crown colonies (British sovereign territories) were normally be administered by a Governor, and the most significant possessions, large confederations and the self-governing dominions were headed by a Governor-General.
For example, when Cyprus came under British administration in 1878 it remained nominally under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. The representative of the British government and head of the administration was titled High Commissioner until Cyprus became a Crown colony in 1925, when the incumbent High Commissioner became the first Governor.
A High Commissioner could also be charged with the last phase of decolonisation, as in the Crown colony of the Seychelles, where the last Governor served as the High Commissioner from 1975, when self-rule under the Crown was granted, until 1976, when the archipelago became an independent republic within the Commonwealth.
Read more about this topic: High Commissioner (Commonwealth)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)