Administrative Reform in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain and its Empire

How did modern administrative thinking originate in eighteenth-century Britain and its empire? This book explores an important aspect of state formation in eighteenth-century Britain and its empire - the growth of what is said to be a modern administration characterised by economy not waste, and responsibility to the wider state rather than the narrower crown. Meurer considers these themes in relation to Britain, Ireland and India. Britain's loss of its American colonies and its then confrontation with revolutionary France forms the background for the reforms discussed. This study argues that it was the application of the methodology developed out of the Scottish political economy that allowed the Commissioners for Examining the Public Accounts to develop an overall theory of public administration for the first time. Case studies of the unique administrative situations in British India and Ireland provide examples of successful and failed attempts at administrative reforms - while the reforms of General Charles Cornwallis and Robert Wellesly laid the foundations for the 'Indian Civil Service', the attempt to reform Irish public administration based on economic principles was ill-fated. The book argues that the change from patrimonial administration - in which individual offices were the property of the office holders and a currency of patronage - to the bureaucracy of the nineteenth century should be considered as a triangular nexus between the political arena, reform commissions and committees, and the related departments of government. This book therefore not only sharpens our view on the origins of modern administrative thinking, but also adds to our understanding of the emerging social sciences, by emphasizing the significance of political economy for practical contemporary problems. It will be of interest to scholars and students of eighteenth-century Britain and its empire, state formation as well as economic history and the history of political economy.