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 Aden the Middle East, it did not join the British Commonwealth. Colony of Aden The Colony of Aden or Aden Colony ( "") was a British Crown colony from 1937 to 1963 located in the south of contemporary Yemen. It consisted of the port of Aden and its immediate surroundings (an area of ). Prior to 1937, Aden had been governed as part of British India (originally as the Aden Settlement subordinate to the Bombay Presidency, and then as a Chief Commissioner's province). Under the Government of India Act 1935 the territory was detached from British India and established as a