Indian Civil Service

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Scene at High Court, Burma

The Indian Civil Service may be abbreviated ICS. Before 1858 it was known as the Honourable East India Company's Civil Service.

The service was a cadre of men appointed to administer India and may also known as the Covenanted Civil Service. Employees were required to pass examinations to University level and signed a covenant or 'bond' of good behaviour to serve the East India Company only, as a condition of appointment. The term 'Indian Civil Service' is also used loosely of the Indian public services in general.


History

Initially, the Honourable East India Company Civil Servants handled the civil administration of India, they were covenanted to provide a lifetime of service.

Civil service control was transferred to the Indian Government under the Government of India Act of 1858 afterwards new members of the service were contracted for a 10 year term. The creation of the Imperial Civil Service of India was as a result of the 1886–87 Public Service Commission recommendation.

Covenanted service was given by the elite top ranks of the Civil Service who gave a pledge good behaviour. Lower ranks that took Uncovenanted Service were recuited in India, be they English, Indian, or Anglo Indian.

A subcategory of the Indian Civil Service was the Indian Political Service whose members were responsible for the civil administration of frontier districts and also served as British Agents to rulers of Princely States.It also included members of the diplomatic service. Earlier titles were Foreign Department, and Foreign and Political Department.

Members of the Foreign and Political Department were sometimes known as The Twice Born, a progression of the terminology sometimes used in respect of members the Indian Civil Service, The Heaven-Born.[1]

Positions

Madras High Court

In the Regulated Provinces, those that were the older provinces with a long period of settled administration e.g. Madras, Bombay, the positions (after 1858) were:

  • Assistant (to Magistrate and Collector)
  • Deputy Collector
  • Joint Magistrate,
  • Collector-Magistrate (before 1858 known as the District Officer)
  • Judge

After reaching the rank of Joint Magistrate, career progessions was to become a Collector-Magistrate, or Judge. Judges, ofter went on to sit on the High Court after 20 years service. A Collector-Magistrate may become a Commissioner of a Division, or gain a seat on the Board of Revenue. Moving sideways, he may become an Under-Secretary for the Lieutenant Governor.

In the Unregulated Provinces, Deputy-Commissioners replaced the role of Collector-Magistrate.

Entry

Arriving in India in 1830, after 2 years patronage supported training at Hertford (1806-1809) and Haileybury Hertfordshire, England (1809-1858) entrants seeking to gain “Writership” became a student writer at The East India Company's Calcutta College in Fort William. Students were lavishly rewarded with ₤400 a year, and encouraged to borrow heavily to acquire high status and comfortable lifestyle - often enabling them to stable 40 horses; not unexpectedly this was reformed. Reforms still allowed students sufficient finance to keep three horses and a buggy. Club memberships and mess parties continued to allow them to gain social influence in the capital.

In 1856 the system of appointment by patronage was replaced by an open competitive examination. Courses of instruction and language training were then carried out in England. Young men were deemed to be fit for immediate service so no longer socialised in the capital unlike their predecessors. They would rely on local tutors for regional dialects.

Entrance requirements c 1872, page 158 Index Scholasticus: Sons and daughters. A guide to parents in the choice of educational institutions, preparatory to professional or other occupation of their children by R. Kemp Philp 1872 Archive.org

FIBIS resources

  • FIBIS Fact File No 7: Some major sources for Ancestors in the Indian Public Services by Lawrie Butler with a contribution by Tim Thomas, published 2012, 48 pages
It comprises a list of Abbreviations; Introduction to the L/F/10 Series at the British Library; Case study of research using the L/F/10s; an Index of the L/F/10 series; Availability of Microfilms at both the British Library and the LDS; an article about the Indian Civil Service Records held at the British Library by Tim Thomas.
Available to buy online from the FIBIS Shop
  • List of Uncovenanted Europeans Employed at Fort St George 1818, 1819 (logged in FIBIS members only), 1820 (logged in FIBIS members only) are available on the FIBIS database, transcribed by Sylvia Murphy
  • "Civil Service Records in the India Office Reading Room: A Study of the L/F/10 series" by Lawrie Butler with a contribution from David Blake FIBIS Journal Number 25 (Spring 2011), pages 37-42. This article focuses on the Uncovenanted Servants Lists within this series of records.
  • "The British Indian Civil Service" by Peter Bailey FIBIS Journal Number 29 (Spring 2013) pages 30- 37. "A brief history and description of the service". See FIBIS Journals for details of how to access this article.
  • "Keddahs and Epigraphists : miscellaneous appointments in India and Burma in 1909" by Bill Hall FIBIS Journal Number 31 (Spring 2014), pages 26-29. For access, see FIBIS Journals
  • "W. Edward Bankes, an East India Company writer in the 1720s" by Francesca Radcliffe FIBIS Journal Number 34 (Autumn 2015), pages 29-37. For details of how to access this article, see FIBIS Journals. W. Edward Bankes was a writer from c 1726 in both Bombay and Bengal, before dying in 1729 at the age of 27.

Records

British Library

  • Civil Service British Library guide, now archived, on how to use sources from the India Office Records.
Note some records may be available online, see Findmypast.

Records include

  • Books
    • Alphabetical list of the Hon. East India Company’s Madras Civil Servants, from the year 1780 to the year 1839. Edward Dodwell and James Samuel Miles 1839
    • Alphabetical List of the Honourable East India Company’s Bombay Civil Servants, from 1798, to 1839 ... Edward Dodwell and James Samuel Miles 1839
    • A similar listing for Bengal is available online , together with a later listing for Madras and Bombay, refer below.
  • India Office Serials IOR/V/6 1768-1948 This series comprises serials published or printed by, or on behalf of, the East India Company and the India Office. The serials include Lists of the Company's Servants 1768-1799, the East India Register and Directory (later India List) 1803-1895, the India Office List 1886-1947 and the India Office Establishment 1884-1948. Some are available online, refer Directories online, including the section India List and India Office List. These Lists usually provide short records of service, providing the date of appointment, promotions and qualifications for individuals.
  • Histories of Services IOR/V/12 1875-1955. This series includes records of service for overseas Indian Civil Service personnel and for other civil servants of gazetted rank. For editions available online also see the previously mentioned India List and India Office List.
  • Civil Lists IOR/V/13 1840-1958. This series includes all the issues of civil lists of the Government of India and of the provincial governments. Coverage is usually restricted to gazetted officers in the main series of lists, but there are a few supplementary lists of subordinate services and also some fuller departmental establishment lists which include non-gazetted appointments, in particular the Telegraph, Indo-European Telegraph, Public Works and Railways departments. For editions available online also see the previously mentioned India List and India Office List.
  • Occasionally a person may have been thought to be part of the Indian Civil Service, including the Indian Political Service, but was in fact "attached", belonging still to the Army, in which case the Indian Army Lists may provide information. For editions online, see Directories online - Army Lists including the separate page Indian Army List online.
  • Another source of information in the India Office Records at the British Library include Government Gazettes IOR/V/11 1831-1947.
The Government Gazettes were the official newspapers of the Government of India and its provincial governments. The series held are: Gazettes of India 1865-1947, Calcutta 1832-1947, Assam 1874-1947, Bihar and Orissa 1912-1947, United Provinces, 1850-1947, Fort St George 1832-1947, Bombay 1831-1947, Punjab 1872-1947, North-West Frontier Province 1932-1947, Central Provinces 1875-1947, Coorg 1885-1947, Sind 1869-1947, Burma 1875-1947. Summaries of the contents of each series are to be found in the handlists in the Reading Room of the British Library.
Some issues of the Gazette of India and the Calcutta Gazette are available online, refer Newspapers and journals online.

Uncovenanted service

See:

Also see FIBIS resources above.

Individuals

See List of Indian Civil Servants for details of some individuals.

Related articles

External links

Library.gif The FIBIS Google Books Library
has books tagged:
Civil Service

Historical books online

Lists

Also see Directories online, particularly the category India List and India Office List. The category Army Lists including the separate page Indian Army List online may in some circumstances be relevant.

General

The Bureaucracy in India : an historical analysis of development up to 1947 by B. B. Misra 1977. Archive.org Lending Library.
"Grand, George Francois (1748?-1821)" page 174 Dictionary of Indian Biography by C E Buckland (Indian Civil Service, retired) 1906 Archive.org. 1766 Bengal Army; 1776 nominated to a writership; 1779 court action involving his wife (see Busteed's book Echoes on the page Calcutta); subsequently divorced and she went to Europe and married Talleyrand; 1782 Collector of Tirhut and promoted the indigo manufacture in Bihar to his own advantage;1788 appointed Judge and Magistrate at Patna, and eventually dismissed.
"‘Our hero is a sportsman’: British domestic interiors in 19th century India" British Library blog “Untold Lives” 05 March 2014. Includes three images by William Tayler from his 1842 publication Sketches Illustrating the Manners & Customs of the Indians and Anglo-Indians, one of which "The Young Lady's Toilet" is also available from another BL blog
18 watercolours by William Tayler Brown University Library on World Digital Library.
Here and There: Memories, Indian and Other by H G Keene 1906 Archive.org.
He was the author of the novel Chronicles of Dustypore; a tale of modern Anglo-Indian society [by H S Cunningham] 1875 Volume I, Volume II Archive.org. Review of Chronicles of Dustypore page 73 of Verney's biography.
  • The Garden of Fidelity being the Autobiography of Flora Annie Steel 1847-1929 1930 (first published 1929). Archive.org. Flora Annie Steel Wikipedia. Married to Henry William Steel, a member of the Indian Civil Service, they were in India 1868 to 1889, mainly in the Punjab. During her time in India she became involved with education, and subsequently became an Inspectress of Schools. Also see Food and Drink. After leaving India she became a novelist.
  • Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian by John Beames Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. He served as Collector of Cuttack from 1875 to 1878 and earlier as Collector of Balasore District from 1869 to 1873. For more details about this book, and John Beames, see the Cuttack page.
  • "Indian Life: The Cantonment Magistrate" by Major-General de Berry, page 120 The Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine, Volume 8, 1888. Archive.org. The Cantonment Magistrate was invariably a military officer of one of the Indian Staff Corps.
"Indian Life: The Civil Service" by Major-General de Berry, page 391 of the same publication.
Letters from India by Lady Wilson (A C Macleod) [Anne Campbell] 1911 Archive.org
  • The Ritchies in India; extracts from the correspondence of William Ritchie, 1817-1862; and personal reminiscences of Gerald Ritchie compiled and edited by Gerald Ritchie 1920 Archive.org. William Ritchie was of the Calcutta Bar and Inner Temple, Member of the Council of the Governor-general, appointed Advocate-General c 1856 who died March 22, 1862, age 45. Gerald Ritchie was a Bengal Civilian 1875-1901.
  • Indian & Home Memories by Sir Henry Cotton 1910. Archive.org. He spent 35 years in the Indian Civil Service - he arrived in Calcutta in 1867 and resigned in 1902. He became Chief Commissioner for Assam in 1896 (page 226).
  • Some Personal Experiences by Sir Bampfylde Fuller 1930 Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection. May also have been published in some editions as Some Personal Memories, and Some Personal Reminiscences. He passed for the Indian Civil Service in 1873 and became Chief Commissioner of Assam in 1902 (page 103). Bampfylde Fuller Wikipedia. He became first Lieutenant Governor of the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam 1905 and resigned in 1906.
  • My Thirty Years in India by Sir Edmund C Cox 1909. Archive.org. He arrived in India late 1876, was a teacher, was for a few years in the Bombay Political Department then joined the Bombay Police c 1882, leaving in 1908. Also see Police.
  • The India We Served by Sir Walter Roper Lawrence 1928. Archive.org. He joined the Punjab Civil Service c 1879 He left India October 1903 but returned for the Royal visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales November 1905 to March 1906. During WW1 he was involved with setting up the hospitals in Brighton for Indian soldiers.
  • Work And Sport In The Old I. C. S. by W O Horne [William Ogilvie] 1928. He was appointed to the Madras Civil Service in 1882. Archive.org version mirror from Digital Library of India.
  • India as I knew it, 1885–1925 by Sir Michael Francis O’Dwyer 1925 Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. Additional files are also available. In 1885 he was posted to Shahpur in the Punjab and retired as lieutenant-governor of the Punjab in 1919. His actions during the unrest of 1919 were controversial.
  • The Company Of Cain by Al. Carthill (pseudonym) 1922. Archive.org. "An account of certain murder cases". “The facts themselves will be true, although the details may be fictitious or altered”. The author's full name was Bennet Christian Huntingdon Calcraft-Kennedy (1871–1935), sometimes seen as B C Kennedy, who went to India in 1891 and worked as a Collector and Judge in Bombay Presidency, retiring in 1926.[3]
Madampur by Al. Carthill (pseudonym, see item above) 1931. Archive.org. Some editions may have had the additional title Experiences of a District Officer in India. Not a real place name, but the author’s "first independent charge" and refers to a time "about a generation ago", possibly c 1911.
  • And that reminds me 
being incidents of a life spent at sea, and in the Andaman Islands, Burma, Australia, and India Part III India (page 123) 
by Stanley W. Coxon 1915 Archive.org. The author, probably born c late 1850s commenced with the Civil Service in India in 1892, having previously been with the Police in Burma. He was appointed as Deputy Commissioner at Chanda, the most southerly District of Central Provinces, part of the Nagpur Division page 154 He retired on medical grounds in 1906.
  • An Ignorant in India by R E Venede 1911 Archive.org The author was visiting his brother[4] who was a Collector in an indigo region in Bengal.
  • From a Punjaub Pomegranate Grove by C C Dyson 1913. Archive.org. The author was possibly the wife of Bob, an Assistant Revenue Collector, and Magistrate, at Hariana, in the "Punjaub irrigation colonies". (Page 68 refers to the author as "the lady of our English Sahib", which generally refers to a wife, however she appears to be middle-aged and perhaps an Assistant Revenue Collector is more likely to be a younger man, so for Bob to be a son or younger brother would suit the narrative better. Details of the author could not be traced.) Republished in 1985 and 1993 under the title Fragments from Indian Life. From the contents, the approximate period covered is 1908-1912, however the narrative may not be strictly chronological. Hariana Wikipedia.
  • Life In The Indian Civil Service by Evan Maconochie ICS (retired) 1926 Archive.org. In 1887 he passed examinations to enter the Indian Civil Service, then spent two years at Oxford University, went to India in 1889, retired in 1921.
  • Diversions of an Indian Political by Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Lloyd Kennion 1932. Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. Experiences of a political officer in Northern India from 1892. He also wrote Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 1910, serving in Kashmir, Gilgit and Leh, and a further book on Eastern Persia.
  • Jungle Trails in Northern India: Reminiscences of Hunting in India by John Hewett. With 24 plates and a map 1938. Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. Sir John was Governor of United Provinces with many royal friends. Hunting largely between 1907 and 1912, including tiger hunting in the jungles of Tarai, Cooch Behar, the Central Provinces, and up north in Kumaon and Garhwal. The author joined the Indian Civil Service c 1877 when he was posted to the North-Western Provinces.
  • Captain Shakespear : a Portrait by H V F Winstone 1976. William Henry Irvine Shakespear born Multan 29 October 1878, joined the Political Department in India and in 1904 was posted to the Persian port of Bandar Abbas, the youngest Consul in the Indian administration. He was killed 24 January 1915, at which time he was Political Officer on Special Duties in Arabia. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.
"The Death of a Political Agent: Captain Shakespear" British Library Untold lives blog 24 January 2015.
Macartney’s wife Catherine wrote of her time at Kashgar in An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan first published 1931. Link to a pdf download PAHAR Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. Archive.org mirror version.
A later biography is The Diplomat of Kashgar: A Very Special Agent. The Life of Sir George Macartney, 18 January 1867-19 May 1945 by James McCarthy.
Chinese Central Asia by C P Skrine. Indian Civil Service, British Consul General in Chinese Turkistan 1922-1924. First published 1926 Archive.org. Index.HathiTrust Digital Library version where images are rotatable. The Consulate was at Kashgar.
Envoy of the Raj: the Career of Sir Clarmont Skrine, Indian Political Service by John Stewart 1989. Pahar-Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. If the download button does not display, locate under Books/Indian Subcontinent/1989.
Clarmont Percival Skrine Wikipedia.
Also see Norperforce for more about the Kashgar Mission during WW1 prior to 1922.
  • Indian Embers by Lady Lawrence, first published 1948. Archive.org; 1991 reprint Archive.org Lending Library edition with an "Introduction" by Kenneth Wimmel, 2nd file. "Jane Rosamund Napier was already a published author...when she married Henry Lawrence in 1914 and set sail with him for India. She was his second wife...a mature woman of thirty-six..." The book covers the period to 1918. Her husband was a member of the Indian Civil Service, served as a district officer, and was Commissioner in Sind from 1916. Per Wikipedia, Henry Staveley Lawrence was acting Governor of Bombay 20 March 1926 to 8 December 1928.
  • Two Years in Kurdistan : Experiences of a Political Officer, 1918-1920 by W R Hay, Captain, attached 24th Punjabis, Political Dept, Government of India. 1921 Archive.org. He was with the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia.
  • Pundits and Elephants: being the experiences of five years as Governor of an Indian Province by the Earl of Lytton. 1942. Archive.org, mirror from Central Secretariat Library (CSL) [Delhi] Digital Repository. He became Governor of Bengal in 1922. Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton Wikipedia.
  • Trials in Burma by Maurice Collis 1938 Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. The author was a member of the Civil Service in Burma from 1912, and his autobiography covers the years 1928-1931, particularly his role as District Magistrate of Rangoon, and the riots of 1930.
  • Forty-four years a Public Servant by C A Kincaid 1934. Central Secretariat Library (CSL) [Delhi] Digital Repository. Archive.org mirror version. Elsewhere, the author is catalogued a Judge, 1870-1954 and the book "Justice, Administration of - India". He arrived in India in 1891.
  • Impressions of an Indian Civil Servant by Roderick Donald MacLeod 1938 Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. MacLeod worked from 1910 to 1934 in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
  • Looking back on India by Hubert Evans 1988. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. Hubert Evans 1904-1989 joined the Indian Civil Service in 1928 and was a District Magistrate in the United Provinces for 8 years. He was appointed President of the Delhi Municipal Council in 1938. After Independence he joined the Foreign Service.[5]
  • Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service by Sir John Richard Cotton (b 1909). British Library Mss Eur F226/7 . Qatar Digital Library. A photocopy of a typewritten draft written c 1983. The Telegraph Obituary 2002. After spending his childhood in India, he returned in 1929, initially in the 8th (King George's Own) Light Cavalry, then joined the Indian Political Service in 1934 where he served in the Persian Gulf and in Aden, Addis Ababa in Abyssinia then a series of Indian princely states. After Independence he joined the British Foreign Service.
  • Thim Days Is Gone. British Library Mss Eur F226/28 Qatar Digital Library. A memoir written c 1980 by Major Maurice Patrick O'Connor Tandy recounting his career, initially in the Royal Artillery in a Light Battery,and an Indian Mountain Battery in the 1930s. He then joined the Foreign and Political Department in October 1936, page 33 and his postings included the Persian Gulf and Kuwait. Further details are in Thim Days Is Gone – a colonial memoir 16 February 2017 Untold lives blog, British Library.
  • The Men Who Ruled India, published in two volumes, by Philip Woodruff (pseudonym): The Founders (1953), Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India; and The Guardians, (1954) Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. The author was Philip Mason who joined the Indian Civil Service in 1928, and his books are about members of the Indian Civil Service.
A Shaft of Sunlight–Memories of a Varied Life by Philip Mason 1978. Link to a pdf download, PAHAR Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. If the download does not display, located under Books/Indian Subcontinent. Archive.org mirror version. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library version. Review of the book kirkusreviews.com.
"Philip Mason obituary: Last witness to the Raj" by Hugh Tinker 2 Feb 1999. The Guardian
Listen to the 1978 interview Philip Mason, with transcripts. He talks of his training for the ICS, his work as a court official and map surveyor, and of his life as an author.

Administrative

British Library Digital Collection version. Same book file, but rotatable pages.

References

  1. ↑ Page 23 Thim Days Is Gone. Qatar Digital Library. A memoir written by Major Maurice Patrick O'Connor Tandy recounting his career, refer Historical books online above.
  2. ↑ Page 59 Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge edited by John Venn Google Books
  3. ↑ Kennedy papers s-asian.cam.ac.uk; s-asian.cam.ac.uk link 2; Page 263 Delusions and Discoveries: India in the British Imagination, 1880-1930 by Benita Parry, Michael Sprinker
  4. ↑ Page ix Letters to his Wife by R E Vernède 1917 Archive.org
  5. ↑ Page 387 Asian Affairs Volume 20, 1989 - Issue 3. tandfonline.com

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