Sierra Leone under colonial rule, in Government reports, 1893-1961

The origins of modern Sierra Leone can be traced back to the attempts of a group of British businessmen and philanthropists, commonly known as the Clapham Sect, to found a settlement of freed slaves on the Sierre Leone peninsula in 1778. British colonial rule in Sierra Leone commenced in 1808, when the tiny Freetown enclave became a Crown Colony under the direct responsibility of the British government which ruled through a Governor. At various periods during the nineteenth century, the Governor of Sierra Leone also served as Governor-in-Chief of Britain's other West African possessions. As late as 1888, the Governor of Sierra Leone was responsible for the administration of the Gambia. However, formal British authority remained confined to the Freetown peninsula until 1896, when the hinterland which comprises the greater part of what is today Sierra Leone was declared a British Protectorate. It was only after the establishment of the Sierra Leone Protectorate that British colonial administration and technical departments began to assume a complexity which warranted separate departmental reports. During the nineteenth century much of this information was published in abbreviated form in the Government Gazette or in the Governor's Annual Report. The Annual Departmental Reports relating to Sierra Leone are complementary to the Blue Books relating to Sierra Leone. For the purposes of organization, the departmental collection has been divided into nine sections: Administration, Finance, Judicial and Police, Natural Resources, Social Services, Transport and Public Works, Communications and Post Office Savings, Commerce, also Staff Lists and Miscellaneous Content. Within each section, departmental series have been organized thematically and in chronological order, prefaced by selected extraordinary reports and sessional papers of particular relevance, and followed by related sub-sections. Description drawn from D.C. Dorward's introduction.