On September 5, 1800, General Claude-Henri Belgrand de Vaubois surrendered to the British forces after being besieged in Valletta for two years. The French occupiers had been forced to retreat to Valletta following the uprising of the Maltese population on September 2, 1798, just three months after Napoleon’s troops had landed in Malta.
On October 12, British ships under the command of Captain Alexander Ball joined a Portuguese squadron in Grand Harbour and initiated a blockade of the Maltese ports, thus ensuring that no supplies could reach the French garrison in Valletta. The terms of Vaubois’s surrender specified that the Maltese islands were to fall under the control of the British, and the blockade commander, Captain Alexander Ball, was subsequently to be appointed as His Majesty’s representative to administer the affairs of Malta.
On March 27, 1802, Franco-British hostilities were brought to a temporary stop with the signing of the Treaty of Amiens. A clause of this treaty laid down that the British were to evacuate the island and return it to the Order of St John. In spite of this, the British were reluctant to abandon Malta, having realised its military and naval importance during the previous two years.
In fact, the island remained a protectorate under the control of British civil commissioners until it officially became a British Crown colony with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in May 1814. It was to remain under British control for another century-and-a-half until independence in 1964. During this period, Malta was governed by three civil commissioners and 34 governors. Of these 37 administrators, only one civil commissioner and three governors were civilians, the other 33 being British army or naval officers.
Douglas was to oversee one of the most important events in Malta’s political history – the granting of responsible self-government
The first Civil Commissioner of Malta was appointed on May 14, 1801, after two years of administration by Captain Alexander Ball and Major General Henry Pigot. He was a civilian, Charles Cameron. In appointing Cameron, Lord Hobart, Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote: “His Majesty, from a confidence in your abilities and integrity, has been graciously pleased… to direct that you should proceed to Malta with the title of Civil Commissioner.”
The letter of appointment also specified Cameron’s salary of £2,000 per annum. The new civil commissioner was instructed to accede to the wishes of the Maltese population and to be lenient in his dealings with them, even concerning their prejudices. Clearly, great efforts were to be made to ensure that the Maltese remained affectionate and faithful to the British Crown.
Cameron was given a great welcome when he arrived in Malta. He was determined to carry out Lord Hobart’s instructions to the letter, especially those concerning his dealings with the Maltese public. On July 15, he issued a “proclamation to the Maltese nation” in which he stated that “His Majesty grants you full protection and the enjoyment of all your dearest rights. He will protect your churches, your holy religion, your persons and your property. His paternal care extends to the hospitals, other charitable establishments, to the education of youth, to orphans, to the poor and to all those who recur to his benefice.”
An important event during Cameron’s administration was the formation of a Maltese delegation to travel to England to protest strongly to His Majesty against the possible return of Malta to the Order of St John. On March 25, 1802, while the Maltese deputies were still in London, the definitive Treaty of Amiens, which specified that Malta was to be returned to the Order of St John, was signed. However, the return of Malta to the Order never happened, thanks partly to the protests of the Maltese delegation.
Cameron’s tenure came to an end a few months later when he was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. He died in Norfolk on June 26, 1828. He was succeeded by Alexander Ball, who returned to Malta in July 1802, now in the rank of admiral.
On May 30, 1814, the Treaty of Paris was signed, establishing peace between France and the coalition of Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia. The treaty redistributed several territories among various countries.
Article VII stated that “the island of Malta and its dependencies shall belong in full right and sovereignty to his Britannic Majesty”. As a result, Malta was transformed from a British protectorate to a British Crown colony, and was thenceforth to be administered not by a civil commissioner but by a governor. The first governor was Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Maitland, whose iron rule earned him the nickname of ‘King Tom’. Between 1824 and 1827, Maitland was succeeded as governor by four distinguished army officers.
The first civilian Governor of Malta was an Irishman, Sir Richard More O’Ferral, a former government minister and a Roman Catholic. He was appointed on December 18, 1847, succeeding General Patrick Stuart, who had resigned following the infamous carnival confrontation which could have ended in tragedy.
On his arrival in Malta, O’Ferral received an enthusiastic welcome, due no doubt to his religious beliefs, and to the relief of the Maltese people on being rid of his detested predecessor. He went on to become one of Malta’s most-loved governors.
The outstanding development during his administration was the establishment in 1849 of a Council of Government. This was the first time that the Maltese were to have a say, however minor, in the governance of the island, since the proposed Council of Government was henceforth to include a number of elected members. In an address, O’Ferral said: “Malta is about to receive an additional proof of the confidence of its Sovereign by the admission into the Council of Government of members elected by the people.”
O’Ferral’s many achievements and his popularity were summarised in an address by the Chamber of Commerce, which stated: “We renew the expression of our hope that your excellency may continue the government of this island… and to be rewarded by the increasing confidence and affection of its inhabitants.”
O’Ferral resigned in May 1851 as he did not wish to continue serving under British Prime Minister Lord John Russell, who was at the time piloting anti-Catholic legislation in parliament (the Ecclesiastical Title Act). He died aged 83 in Kingston, near Dublin, in 1880.
Nearly a century was to pass until Malta had another civilian governor – 95 years during which the governorship of the Maltese islands was assumed by 23 high-ranking army officers. This period included the Sette Giugno riots, the granting of the 1921 Constitution (later withdrawn) and two world wars.
It was in the aftermath of World War II that the next civilian governor, Francis Douglas, was appointed. He was born in Manitoba, Canada, in 1889. After World War II, he was elected as a member of parliament in Clement Attlee’s new Labour government. He was sworn in on July 10, 1946.
Douglas was to oversee one of the most important events in Malta’s political history – the granting of responsible self-government. In fact, just a few days after his appointment, the Malta National Assembly presented a new draft constitution to Sir Harold MacMichael, the Constitutional Commissioner for Malta. The MacMichael Constitution, as it came to be known, was granted by King George VI in 1947.
That same year, Douglas was created a knight commander in the Order of St Michael and St George; he was to remain governor until June 1949. In 1950, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Douglas of Barloch, and returned to the Palace of Westminster as a Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords. He died on March 30, 1980, aged 90.
An artillery captain, a major-general and an admiral served as governor until 1962, when the civilian Sir Maurice Dorman was appointed to the post. He had just served as governor-general of Sierra Leone, having overseen the granting of independence to the African State. In Malta, Dorman’s administration was to be involved with another independence constitution, that granted to Maltese Prime Minister George Borg Olivier on September 21, 1964.
After independence, Malta remained subject to the British monarchy and Sir Maurice now represented the queen as governor-general. He served until 1971 and earned the affection of the Maltese people following his famous statement “I stand foursquare with the Malta government, parliament, unions and the Maltese people” during the dockyard crisis in 1967.
Sir Maurice Dorman was lord prior of the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem between 1980 and 1986. He died in Overton on October 26, 1993. He was succeeded as governor-general by the Chief Justice, Sir Anthony Mamo, the first and only Maltese to represent the British Crown, and also the last. On the adoption of the Republic Constitution on December 13, 1979, Sir Anthony Mamo became the first president of the Republic of Malta.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on information in A.E. Abela’s 1991 publication Governors of Malta and other print and online sources.