British colony in the context of "Legislative council"

The Province of Canada (or the United Province of Canada or the United Canadas) was a British colony in British North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, in the Report on the Affairs of British North America following the Rebellions of 1837–1838.

The Act of Union 1840, passed on 23 July 1840 by the British Parliament and proclaimed by the Crown on 10 February 1841, merged the Colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada by abolishing their separate parliaments and replacing them with a single one with two houses, a Legislative Council as the upper chamber and the Legislative Assembly as the lower chamber. In the aftermath of the Rebellions of 1837–1838, unification of the two Canadas was driven by two factors. Firstly, Upper Canada was near bankruptcy because it lacked stable tax revenues, and needed the resources of the more populous Lower Canada to fund its internal transportation improvements. Secondly, unification was an attempt to swamp the French vote by giving each of the former provinces the same number of parliamentary seats, despite the larger population of Lower Canada.

The history of South Australia includes the history of the Australian state of South Australia since Federation in 1901, and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies. Aboriginal Australians of various nations or tribes have lived in South Australia for at least thirty thousand years, while British colonists arrived in the 19th century to establish a free colony. The South Australia Act, 1834 created the Province of South Australia, built according to the principles of systematic colonisation, with no convict settlers.

After the colony nearly went bankrupt, the South Australia Act 1842 gave the British Government full control of South Australia as a Crown Colony. After some amendments to the form of government in the intervening years, South Australia became a self-governing colony in 1857 with the ratification of the Constitution Act 1856, and the Parliament of South Australia was formed.

A colonial agent was the official representative of a British colony based in London during the British Empire. The role evolved during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Initially established as a temporary role to deal with a specific problem, by the eighteenth century the role became more permanent. However, this did not always mean there was full continuity

The British Leeward Islands was a British colony from 1671 to 1958, consisting of the English (later British) overseas possessions in the Leeward Islands. It ceased to exist from 1816 to 1833, during which time it was split into two separate colonies (Antigua–Barbuda–Montserrat and Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla–Virgin Islands). It was dissolved in 1958 after the separation of the British Virgin Islands, and the remaining islands became parts of the West Indies Federation.

The Colony of Tasmania (more commonly referred to simply as "Tasmania") was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The possibility of the colony was established when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Australian Constitutions Act in 1850, granting the right of legislative power to each of the six Australian colonies. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which they passed in 1854, and it was given royal assent by Queen Victoria in 1855. Later in that year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856, the newly elected bicameral parliament of Tasmania sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Tasmania was often referred to as one of the "most British" colonies of the Empire.

The Colony suffered from economic fluctuations, but for the most part was prosperous, experiencing steady growth. With few external threats and strong trade links with the Empire, the Colony of Tasmania enjoyed many fruitful periods in the late nineteenth century, becoming a world-centre of shipbuilding. It raised a local defence force which eventually played a significant role in the Second Boer War in South Africa, and Tasmanian soldiers in that conflict won the first two Victoria Crosses won by Australians. Tasmanians voted in favour of federation with the largest majority of all the Australian colonies, and on 1 January 1901, the Colony of Tasmania, became the Australian state of Tasmania.

The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on 4 May 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, as one of its provinces. It is now the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.

It was originally only about half the size of the present province, with the north-eastern boundaries being formed by the Tugela and Buffalo rivers beyond which lay the independent Kingdom of Zululand (kwaZulu in the Zulu language).

The Orange River Colony was the British colony created after Britain first occupied (1900) and then annexed (1902) the independent Orange Free State in the Second Boer War. The colony ceased to exist in 1910, when it was absorbed into the Union of South Africa as the Orange Free State Province.

The Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers) (RHKR(V)) (Chinese: 皇家香港軍團(義勇軍)), formed in May 1854, was the only locally raised military unit in British Hong Kong. It was a Crown regiment established by Royal Warrant under the Royal Hong Kong Regiment Ordinance. While funded and locally administered by the Government of Hong Kong, it remained under the command of the Commander British Forces in Hong Kong, and its officers held Queen’s Commissions. From the early 1960s, the Regiment was affiliated to the Royal Armoured Corps and, from 1970, was formally incorporated into its order of battle under subsidiary regulations (L.N. 190 of 1970).

During the Imperial era, home defence units were raised in various British colonies to enable regular army units to be deployed elsewhere. These colonial forces were generally organised along British Army lines. The first locally raised militia in Hong Kong was the Hong Kong Volunteers, a forerunner of what became the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers). Members of this unit fought during the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941, suffering 289 killed or missing in action.