Agent-general

An agent-general is the representative in the United Kingdom of the government of a Canadian province or an Australian state and, historically, also of a British colony in Jamaica, Nigeria, Canada, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand and subsequently, of a Nigerian region. Australia and Canada's federal governments were represented by high commissions, as are all Commonwealth national governments today.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, a growing number of British colonies appointed agents in Great Britain and Ireland (and occasionally elsewhere in Europe) to promote immigration to the colonies. Eventually, agents-general were appointed by some colonies to represent their commercial, legal, and diplomatic interests in Britain and to the British government and Whitehall. They were appointed, and their expenses and salaries provided, by the governments of the colonies they represented.

Starting in 1886, Quebec and the federal Canadian government also appointed agents-general to Paris. The first, Hector Fabre, was dispatched by the province of Quebec but was asked by the federal government to represent all of Canada. He and his successor, Philippe Roy, continued to represent both Quebec City and Ottawa in France until 1912 when the federal government asked Roy to resign his Quebec position to avoid conflicts of interest. Canadian provinces have also appointed agent-generals (called delegates-general in Quebec beginning in the 1970s) to other countries and major cities.

Following a military coup in Nigeria in 1966, the federal system was abolished, and the posts of the agents-general of Nigerian regions in London were subsumed in the Nigerian High Commission.

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