The son of a prominent abolitionist, James Stephen was a lawyer and public servant, whose own humanitarianism influenced colonial policy during the mid-19th century.
In 1813 the recent law graduate acted as part-time counsel to the Colonial Office in London, beginning a career with the government department that would last 34 years.
In 1836 Stephen was appointed permanent under-secretary of the Colonial Office, holding this position until his retirement in 1847. During that time successive ministers depended upon him as 'the depository of all that knowledge of which the Secretary of State must daily avail himself'. In this role, Stephen not only helped to communicate ministers’ policies and instructions but also to shape them.
Stephen’s Christian faith and social reforming attitudes led to a pronounced humanitarian emphasis in his work and an active desire to see indigenous peoples such as Māori treated properly. He believed they should be allowed to develop into British citizens rather than destroyed or enslaved, and insisted that England had a duty to guard indigenous peoples against the greed of colonial settlers in search of a quick profit. This accounted for his opposition to Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s planned settlement of New Zealand.
When it was decided to replace James Busby, the British Resident in New Zealand, with a Consul, Stephen began drafting the Royal Instructions to Captain William Hobson. The early drafts were strongly influenced by evangelical humanitarianism but by mid-1839, the final versions were mostly concerned with the pragmatic issues surrounding the acquisition of sovereignty. However, they provided neither a draft treaty nor provision for military backing other than what the Governor of New South Wales might be prepared to release.
Stephen resigned his post in 1847 due to ill health, but continued to be consulted on colonial matters. In his later life he took on a less rigorous role of academic historian at the University of Cambridge and then at the East India Company College.
Adapted from the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry by J. E. Egerton