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The Gilbert and Ellice Islands (GEIC as a colony) in the Pacific Ocean was part of the British Empire from 1892 to 1976. It was a protectorate from 1892 to 12 January 1916, and then a colony until 1 January 1976, and was administered as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT) until it became independent as two separate states.
In 1984 the British government signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with China and agreed to turn over Hong Kong and its dependencies in 1997. British rule ended on 30 June 1997, with China taking over at midnight, 1 July 1997 (at end of the 99-year lease over the New Territories, along with the ceded Hong Kong Island and Kowloon).
A British protectorate was first proclaimed over the Gilberts by Captain Edward Davis of HMS Royalist on 27 May 1892. [16] British official Arthur Mahaffy visited the Islands in 1909. He noted that the "villages are kept in admirable order and the roads are scrupulously clean." A hospital was on each island, as well. [17]
The Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was founded around 1130 by Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, where Gilbert was the parish priest.It was the only completely English religious order and came to an end in the 16th century at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. [1]
The Governor of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands was the colonial head of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands civil service from 1892 until 1979. The post was established in 1892 with the title 'Resident Commissioner' by Governor of Fiji John Bates Thurston after the islands were made a British protectorate , having previously been under the ...
The British administration installed carefully selected local kings under a programme of indirect rule through the local oligarchy, creating a network of British-controlled civil service. Most British protectorates were overseen by a Commissioner or a High Commissioner , under the Foreign Office , rather than a Governor under the Colonial Office .
For several millennia, the islands were inhabited by Austronesian peoples who had arrived from the Solomon Islands or Vanuatu.The I-Kiribati or Gilbertese people settled what would become known as the Gilbert Islands (named for British captain Thomas Gilbert by von Krusenstern in 1820) some time in between 3000 BC [1] [2] and 1300 AD. [3]
The British Empire refers to the possessions, dominions, and dependencies under the control of the Crown.In addition to the areas formally under the sovereignty of the British monarch, various "foreign" territories were controlled as protectorates; territories transferred to British administration under the authority of the League of Nations or the United Nations; and miscellaneous other ...