Records of Patronage and of the Personnel Divisions

Division within CO

1794-1967

Records of Patronage and of the Personnel Divisions relating to appointments and other personnel and establishment matters.

Early correspondence relating to patronage is in CO 429, with registers in CO 430. Correspondence of the Appointments Department, with some earlier appointments correspondence, is in CO 877 with registers in CO 918. Other correspondence of the Personnel Division and its successors is in CO 850, with registers in CO 919. Correspondence of the Colonial Service Division is in CO 1017. Registers of correspondence relating to training are in CO 1011

Correspondence of the establishment officer and the department is in CO 866, with registers in CO 867. Miscellaneous records relating to establishment matters dating back to 1795 are in CO 878

Public Record(s)

English

• Colonial Office, Colonial Service Division, 1945-1954
• Colonial Office, Overseas Service Division, 1954-1961
• Colonial Office, Personnel Division, 1930-1945

11 series

Until 1930 the patronage work of the Colonial Office and the colonial service was managed by assistant private secretaries of the secretary of state, and from 1910 one of them made it his particular concern. In 1930 it was considered that some sort of uniform direction should be exercised over the various colonial services and so a separate Personnel Division was created in the Colonial Office. It comprised an Appointments Department, concerned with recruitment and training, and a Colonial Service Department, concerned with organisation and discipline, promotions and transfers, conditions of employment and pensions.

The establishment officer, appointed from 1922, was a member of the latter, with a separate Establishment Branch by 1939. By 1945 a separate Establishment Department had been set up and the division had been renamed the Colonial Service Division. In 1948 the Establishment Department became the Establishment and Organisation Department. In 1954 the name of the Colonial Service Division was changed to the Overseas Service Division, and in 1961 it was transferred to the new Department of Technical Cooperation.