The French resident general of Morocco in the 1930s. Similar positions could carry alternative titles, such as political agent and resident commissioner.

This could create an artificial geographical unit, as in Residency X in some parts of the Indian Empire. Instead of being a representative to a single ruler, a resident could be posted to more than one native state, or to a grouping of states which the European power decided for its convenience. In other respects they acted as an ambassador of the government of the country they were posted to, but at a lower level, since they were protectorates or tributaries of Western nations. A trusted resident could even become the de facto prime minister to a native ruler. Some such residents were former military officers, rather than career diplomats, who resided in smaller self-governing protectorates and tributary states and acted as political advisors to the ruler. Some official representatives of European colonial powers, while in theory diplomats, in practice exercised a degree of indirect control. Īs international relations developed, it became customary to give the highest title of diplomatic rank – ambassador – to the head of all permanent missions in any country, except as a temporary expression of down-graded relations or where representation was merely an interim arrangement.

After the Congress of Vienna restored the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1815, the British posted a resident to Florence to handle their affairs there. For instance, the British sent residents to the Mameluk Beys who ruled Baghdad province as an autonomous state (1704–1831) in the north of present-day Iraq, until the Ottoman sultans reasserted control over it (1831) and its Wali (governor). Residents could also be posted to nations which had significant foreign influence. On occasion, the resident minister's role could become extremely important, as when in 1806 the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV fled his Kingdom of Naples, and Lord William Bentinck, the British Resident, authored (1812) a new and relatively liberal constitution. This full style occurred commonly as a diplomatic rank for the head of a mission ranking just below envoy, usually reflecting the relatively low status of the states of origin and/or residency, or else difficult relations.

3.1.1 British Malay states and possessions.

3 Residents-general (and their subordinate residents).

2.1.5 Residents in protectorates of decolonised Commonwealth states.

2.1.4 Residents on (British and dominion) ocean island states.

2.1.3 Residents in (British) European protectorates.

Sarawak general hospital elective