Crown, or royal, colonies were ruled by a governor appointed by the Monarch. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Sovereign appointed royal governors on the advice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Under the name of "royal colony", the first of what would later become known as Crown colonies was the English Colony of Virginia in the present-day United States, after the Crown, in 1624, revoked the Royal Charter it had granted to the Virginia Company, taking over direct administration.
Until the mid-nineteenth century, the term "Crown Colony" was primarily used to refer to those colonies which had been acquired through wars, such as Trinidad and Tobago and British Guiana, but after that time it was more broadly applied to any colony other than the Presidencies and provinces of British India and the colonies of settlement, such as The Canadas, Newfoundland, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, and New Zealand, later to become the Dominions.
The term continued to be used up until 1981, when the British Nationality Act 1981 reclassified the remaining British colonies as "British Dependent Territories". From 2002 they have been known as British Overseas Territories.
Types of Crown colony 
There were three types of Crown colony as of 1918, with differing degrees of autonomy:
Crown colonies with representative councils such as Bermuda, Jamaica, Ceylon, British Columbia and Fiji contained one or two legislative chambers, consisting of Crown appointed or locally elected members.
Crown colonies with nominated councils such as British Honduras, Sierra Leone, Grenada and Hong Kong were staffed entirely by Crown appointed members, with some appointed representation from the local population. It should be noted that Hong Kong became a Crown colony with a representative council following the introduction of election for the Hong Kong Legislative Council in 1995.
List of Crown colonies 
|Name of colony||from||to||Reason for change of status|
|Anguilla||1980||1981||Became British Dependent Territory in 1981|
|Territory of Basutoland||1884||1964||Became British protectorate in 1964; then became independent as Lesotho in 1966.|
|Bermuda||1684||1981||Became British Dependent Territory in 1981|
|North Borneo||1946||1963||Became part of Malaysia in 1963|
|Province of Canada||1841||1867||Became part of the Dominion of Canada in 1867.|
|Cape Colony||1806||1910||Became part of the Union of South Africa in 1910.|
|Province of North Carolina||1729||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776.|
|Province of South Carolina||1729||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776.|
|Cayman Islands||1962||1981||Became British Dependent Territory in 1981|
|Ceylon||1815||1948||Became independent as Ceylon in 1948.|
|Colony of British Columbia||1866||1871||Became part of the Dominion of Canada in 1871.|
|Connecticut Colony||1636||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776.|
|Cyprus||1914||1960||Became independent as Cyprus in 1960.|
|Falkland Islands||1841||1981||Became a British Dependent Territory in 1981.|
|Gibraltar||1713||1981||Became British Dependent Territory in 1981|
|British Guiana||1831||1966||Became independent as Guyana in 1966.|
|Province of Massachusetts Bay||1692||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776.|
|Province of New Hampshire||1692||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776.|
|Province of New Jersey||1702||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776.|
|Province of New York||1691||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776.|
|Colony of New Zealand||1841||1907||Became a Dominion in 1907.|
|British Honduras (renamed Belize in 1964)||1884||1981||Became independent (as Belize) in 1981)|
|Hong Kong||1841||1981||Became British Dependent Territory in 1981. Ceded to China in 1997.|
|Colony of Jamaica||1865||1962||Became independent in 1962 as Jamaica.|
|Kenya Colony||1920||1963||United with the Kenya Protectorate in 1963 to form the independent country of Kenya|
|Labuan||1846||1890||Administered by British North Borneo Company from 1890-1904|
|Labuan||1904||1906||Incorporated in Straits Settlements in 1906|
|Malta||1813||1964||Became independent in 1964 as the State of Malta.|
|Colony of Natal||1843||1910||Became part of the Union of South Africa in 1910.|
|New South Wales||1788||1901||Became part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.|
|Queensland||1824||1901||Became part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.|
|Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations||1806||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776 as the state of Rhode Island.|
|Colony of Sarawak||1946||1963||Became part of Malaysia in 1963|
|Straits Settlements consisting of Malacca, Dinding, Penang and Singapore (with Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands).||1826||1946||Became part of the Malayan Union in 1946 and later Malaysia 1963; Singapore joined Malaysia in 1963 but became independent in 1965.|
|Island of Vancouver and its dependencies||1848||1866||Merged with the Colony of British Columbia in 1866|
|Victoria||1851||1901||Became part of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.|
|Colony of Virginia||1624||1776||Became part of the United States of America in 1776.|
See also 
- Direct rule
- Crown dependency
- Self-governing colony
- Colonial Office
- British overseas territories
- British Empire
- U.S. Library of Congress - Glossary of terms
- Compact Oxford English Dictionary - "Crown colony"
- Jenks, p.70
- Porter, p.477
- History of Parliament: Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago - Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago
- Olson, p.343
- http://www.legislation.gov.uk. "British Overseas Territories Act 2002". http://www.legislation.gov.uk.
- Jenks, p.71-4
- Jenks, Edward (1918). The Government of the British Empire. Little, Brown, and company.
- Olson, James (1996). Historical Dictionary of the British Empire. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-29366-X.
- Porter, Andrew (1998). The Nineteenth Century, The Oxford History of the British Empire Volume III. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-924678-5.
- Wrong, Hume (1923). "The Old Representative System: The Change To Crown Colony Government". Government of the West Indies. England: Oxford University Press. p. 71. ISBN 1-113-74149-X. Retrieved 2010-03-30. "The phrase 'Crown Colony Government' is used with various meanings. In the broadest, and perhaps most correct, sense it is applied to all the colonies in which the Crown retains the real control of the executive (i.e. to all the West Indian colonies). By both official and common usage, however, it is often narrowed as to exclude colonies with elected Assemblies, though without a responsible executive."