India Office Records early 18th century, and eventually came to hold large swaths of land in the subcontinent. In the mid-18th century, the Company began to undertake a governmental role in large parts of India, in order to organize the nascent colony to better facilitate trade. In an effort to increase its own involvement in the administration of India, the British Government passed Pitt's India Act in 1784, which established the Board of Control to direct the East India Company in its governing role. In 1858, in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British government abolished the East India Company's
Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871) British Columbia (1858-66) on 2 August 1858, and dispatching Richard Clement Moody and the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment to establish British order and to transform the newly established Colony into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west" and "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific". Moody was appointed Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works and Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. Moody and the Columbia Detachment disbanded in July 1863 and Moody returned to England. Douglas continued to administer the mainland colony in absentia from Victoria, but Sir Arthur Kennedy was appointed to succeed him as Governor of