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  • Governor Sir John Field in St Helena

    Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History on 02/08/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03086534.2016.1210811

    Accepted author manuscript, 161 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Governor Sir John Field in St Helena: democratic reform in a small British colony, 1962-68

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>2016
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
Issue number4
Volume44
Number of pages25
Pages (from-to)672-696
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date2/08/16
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

In the age of decolonisation, Whitehall generally accepted the case for political advancement even in small British colonies like St Helena judged too lacking in resources to become independent states, provided this could be granted without risk to good government. The previous experience of Sir John Field in West Africa and his sensitivity to UN expectations lay behind the democratic reforms he introduced, which by 1968 had established an elected Legislative Council and an Executive Council made up mainly of LegCo members. But the steps he took owed little to sustained popular demand for self-government, as was common elsewhere, and much to his determination to make islanders politically more responsible. Public engagement was inhibited by practical constraints, local culture, and a discouraging financial dependence on the UK government.

Bibliographic note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History on 02/08/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03086534.2016.1210811