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The India Office was a British government department created in 1858 to oversee the administration, through a Viceroy and other officials, of the Provinces of British India. These territories comprised most of the modern-day nations of Bangladesh, Burma, India, and Pakistan, as well as Aden and other territories around the Indian Ocean. The department was headed by the Secretary of State for India, a member of the British cabinet, who was formally advised by the Council of India.〔Kaminsky, 1986〕 Upon the partition of British India in 1947 into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan, the India Office was closed down. Responsibility for the United Kingdom's relations with the two new countries was transferred to the Commonwealth Relations Office (formerly the Dominions Office). == Origins of the India Office (1600–1858) == The East India Company was established in 1600 as a joint-stock company of English merchants who received, by a series of charters, exclusive rights to English trade with the "Indies", defined as the lands lying between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan; the term "India" had been derived from the name of a river, the Indus, long important to commerce and civilization in the region. The Company soon established a network of warehouses or 'factories' throughout the south and east Indies in Asia. Over a period of 250 years the Company underwent several substantial changes in its basic character and functions. A period of rivalry between the Old and New Companies after 1698 resulted in the formation in 1709 of the United Company of Merchants Trading to the East Indies. This 'new' East India Company was transformed during the second half of the eighteenth century from a mainly commercial body with scattered Asian trading interests into a major territorial power in South Asia with its headquarters in Bengal, present day Bangladesh and the State of West Bengal of India. The political implications of this development eventually caused the British government in 1784 to institute standing Commissioners (the Board of Control) in London to exercise supervision over the Company's Indian policies. This change in the Company's status, along with other factors, led to the Acts of Parliament of 1813 and 1833, which opened British trade with the East Indies to all shipping and resulted in the Company's complete withdrawal from its commercial functions. The Company continued to exercise responsibility, under the supervision of the Board, for the government of British India until the re-organisation of 1858. Throughout most of these changes the basic structure of Company organisation in East India House in the City of London remained largely unaltered, comprising a large body of proprietors or shareholders and an elected Court of Directors, headed by a chairman and deputy chairman who, aided by permanent officials, were responsible for the daily conduct of Company business. The Board of Control maintained its separate office close to the Government buildings in Westminster. With the India Act of 1858 the Company and the Board of Control of the East India Companies were replaced by a single new department of state, the India Office, which functioned, under the Secretary of State for India, as an executive office of United Kingdom government alongside the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, Home Office and War Office. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「India Office」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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