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Secretary of State for India

former political office in the United Kingdom

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ639769 ↗
Source-derived summary

His (or Her) Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India, known for short as the India secretary or the Indian secretary, was the secretary of state with responsibility for the India Office in Whitehall that oversaw relations and administration of the Indian subcontinent under the British Raj. The post was created in 1858 when the East India Company's rule in Bengal ended and India, except for the Princely States, was brought officially under the British Crown from London and the officeholder was a member of the British Cabinet.

In 1937, the India Office was reorganised which separated Burma and Aden under a new Burma Office, but the same secretary of state headed both departments and a new title was established as His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India and Burma. The India Office and its secretary of state were abolished in August 1947, when the United Kingdom granted independence in the Indian Independence Act, which created two new independent dominions, India and Pakistan. Burma soon achieved independence separately in early 1948.

Secretaries of state for India, 1858–1937

Secretaries of state for India and Burma, 1937–1947

Secretaries of state for Burma, 1947–1948

See also

India Office

British Raj

British rule in Burma

Governor-General of India

Imperial Civil Service

Government of India Act

Notes

Further reading

St. John, Ian. "Writing to the Defence of Empire: Winston Churchill’s Press Campaign against Constitutional Reform in India, 1929–1935". In: C. Kaul, (ed) Media and the British Empire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) pp.104-124online

Williams, Donovan. "The Council of India and the relationship between the home and supreme governments, 1858-1870." English Historical Review 81.318 (1966): 56-73.

Editorial summary

“Secretary of State for India” enters the record as former political office in the United Kingdom. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Secretary, State and India can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1858, 1937, 1947, 1948—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Secretary, State and India.
Editorial analysis

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“Secretary of State for India” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Secretary, State and India provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q639769. The first chronological checks are 1858, 1937, 1947 and 1948.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Secretary of State for India” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.