A resident minister, or resident for short, is a government official required to take up permanent residence in another country, or within the official residency of a colony. A representative of his government, he officially has diplomatic functions which are often seen as a form of indirect rule.
A resident usually heads an administrative area called a residency. "Resident" may also refer to resident spy, the chief of an espionage operations base.
Resident ministers
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.
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.
Residents could also be posted to nations that had significant foreign influence. For instance, the British sent residents to the Mameluk Beys who ruled Baghdad province as an autonomous state (17041831) in the north of present-day Iraq, until the Ottoman sultans reasserted control over it (1831) and its Wali (governor). 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.
As 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.
Pseudo-colonial residents
Some official representatives of European colonial powers, while in theory diplomats, in practice exercised a degree of indirect control. 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. A trusted resident could even become the de facto prime minister to a native ruler. 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. 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. This could create an artificial geographical unit, as in Residency X in some parts of the Indian Empire. Similar positions could carry alternative titles, such as political agent and resident commissioner.
thumb|right|200px|The French resident general of [[Morocco in the 1930s.]]
In some cases, the intertwining of the European power with the traditional native establishment went so far that members of the native princely houses became residents, either in other states or even within their state, provided that they were unlikely ever to succeed as rulers of the state. A resident's real role varied enormously, depending upon the underlying relationship between the two parties and even upon the personalities of the Resident and the ruler. Some residents were little more than observers and diplomats, others were seen as unwanted interlopers and were treated with hostility, while some won enough trust from the ruler that they were able to exercise great influence. In French protectorates, such as those of Morocco and Tunisia, the resident or resident general was the effective ruler of the territory. In 1887, when both Boers and gold prospectors of all nationalities were overrunning his country, the Swazi paramount chief Umbandine asked for a British resident, seeing this as a desirable and effective form of protection. His request was refused.
British and dominion residents
The residents of the governments of the United Kingdom and the dominions to a variety of protectorates include:
Residents in Africa
- In the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the second 'homeland' of the Omani dynasty, since 1913. From 1913 to 1961 the Residents were also the Sultan's vizier. There were Consuls and Consuls-general until 1963.
- In present-day Kenya, in the Sultanate of Witu, after the British took over the protectorate from the German Empire, which had itself posted a Resident.
- In British Cameroon (part of the former German Kamerun), since 1916, in 1949 restyled Special Resident (superior to the new two provinces) for Edward John Gibbons (b. 1906 – d. 1990), who stayed on in October 1954 as the first Commissioner when it became an autonomous part of Nigeria.
- in Southern Africa:
- when the military party sent from Cape Colony to occupy Port Natal on behalf of Great Britain was recalled in 1839, a British Resident was appointed among the Fingo and other tribes in Kaffraria until the definite establishment of British rule in Natal and its 1845 organization as an administrative entity, when the incumbent Shepstone was made Agent for the native tribes.
- In KwaZulu, which since 1843 was under a British protectorate, after it became the Zulu "Native" Reserve or Zululand Province on 1 September 1879: two British Residents (William Douglas Wheelwright, 8 September 1879 to January 1880, then Sir Melmoth Osborn until 22 December 1882). Thereafter there were Resident Commissioners until Zululand was incorporated into the crown colony of Natal as British Zululand on 1 December 1897.
- in 1845 the resident 'north of the Orange River chose his residency at Bloemfontein, which became the capital of the Orange River Sovereignty in 1848. In 1854 the British abandoned the Sovereignty, and the independent Boer republic of the Orange Free State was established
- in the Boer Republic of Transvaal at Pretoria
- with the Matabele chief at Bulawayo
- in Ghana, with the rulers of the Asanteman Confederation (established in 1701), since it became 1896 a British protectorate; on 23 June 1900 the Confederation was dissolved by UK protectorate authority, and on 26 September 1901 turned into Ashanti Colony, so since 1902 his place was taken by a Chief Commissioner at Kumasi
- in various parts of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, and Southern Nigeria Protectorate and after their joining Nigeria protectorate, notably in Edo state at Benin City (first to the British-installed ruling council of chiefs, later to the restored Oba), with the Emir of and in Bauchi, to the jointly ruling bale and Balogun of Ibadan (a vassal state in Yorubaland), with the Emir of Illorin, with the Emir of and in Muri (Nigeria), with the Emir of Nupe
Residents in Asia
thumb|Nawab [[Mubarak Ali Khan (Nawab of Bengal)|Mubarak Ali Khan with his son in the Nawab's Durbar with British Resident, Sir John Hadley]]
thumb|The British Residency at Hyderabad
thumb|[[Emperor Meiji receives Dutch Minister-Resident Dirk de Graeff van Polsbroek and French Minister-Resident Léon Roches as the first European envoys ever in 1868]]
British residents were posted in various princely states – in major states or groups of states—in the days of British India. Often they were appointed to a single state, as with the Resident in Lucknow, the capital of Oudh; to the Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda; to the Maharaja Sindhia of Gwalior; to the Nizam al-Mulk of Hyderabad; to the Maharaja of Jhalawar; to the restored Maharaja of Mysore, after the fall of Tipu Sultan; to the Maharaja Sena Sahib Subah of the Mahratta state of Nagpur; to the (Maha)Raja of Manipur; to the (Maha)Raja of Travancore; to the Maharana of Mewar in Udaipur.
Even when Lord Lake had broken the Maratha power in 1803, and the Mughal emperor was taken under the protection of the East India Company, the districts of Delhi and Hisar were assigned for the maintenance of the royal family, and were administered by a British Resident, until in 1832 the whole area was annexed to
British Residents were also posted in major states considered to be connected with India, neighbouring or on the sea route to it, notably:
- in Aden was the first British Resident to the King of independent Burma (October 1796 – July 1797), and there were more discontinuous postings to that court, in the 19th century, never satisfactory to either party; after the Third Anglo-Burmese War there were two separate British Residents in a border zone of that country: in the Northern Shan States and the Southern Shan States (each several tribal states, usually ruled by a Saopha=Sawbwa) in 1945–1948 (each group had been under a Superintendent from 1887/88 till 1922, then both jointly under a Resident Commissioner till the 1942 Japanese occupation)
- after five military governors since the East India Company started chasing the Dutch out of Ceylon in August 1795 and occupying the island (completed on 16 February 1796), their only Resident there was Robert Andrews, 12 February 1796 – 12 October 1798, who was subordinate to the presidency of Madras (see British India), afterward the HEIC appointed Governors as it was made a separate colony
- to the Sultan of the Maldives archipelago since he formally accepted British protection on 16 December 1887 (informally since 1796, after the British took over Ceylon from the Dutch), but this office was filled ex officio by the colonial Governors until 4 February 1948, abolished on 26 July 1965
- in Nepal The last incumbent stayed on as first of six administrators; then again 1 February 1927 Robert Hunter Weddell was Government Resident for North Australia, until from 12 June 1931. Administrators were (and still are) appointed, even after 1978 when self-government was granted.
Central Australia
1 March 1927 – 12 June 1931, while the Northern Territory was split, there were two consecutive incumbents for Central Australia.