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Journal of Modern Greek Studies 7.1 (1989): 105–132. online; Hannell, David. "A Case of Bad Publicity: Britain and the Ionian Islands, 1848–51." European History Quarterly 17.2 (1987): 131–143. Knox, Bruce. "British policy and the Ionian Islands, 1847–1864: nationalism and imperial administration." English Historical Review 99.392 (1984 ...
Corfu became the seat of the British Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. [15] The period of British rule led to investment in new roads, an improved water supply system, and the expansion of the Ionian Academy into a university. During this period the Greek language became the official language. [citation needed]
The British had reacted to the French takeover of the islands by a naval blockade, which impeded both trade and the supply of the islands. The resulting hardships, and the activities of British agents, inflamed anti-French sentiments, and some Ionian captains petitioned the British commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, John Stuart, for aid in expelling the French from the islands. [2]
On 2 May 1864 the British departed and the Ionian Islands became three provinces of the Kingdom of Greece, although Britain retained use of the port on Corfu. This can be seen as the first example of voluntary decolonization by Britain. For Greece, the incorporation of the Ionian Islands was the first of several territorial increases to 1947.
The French held out in Corfu until 1814. The Treaty of Paris in 1815 turned the islands into the "United States of the Ionian Islands" under British protection (November 5, 1815). In January 1817, the British granted the islands a new constitution. The islanders elected an Assembly of 40 members, who advised the British High Commissioner.
Finally, Corfu and the rest of the theme, except for Lefkada, were captured by the Normans under William II of Sicily in 1185. Although Corfu was recovered by the Byzantines by 1191, the other islands henceforth remained lost to Byzantium, and formed a County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos under William's Greek admiral Margaritus of Brindisi.
Map of the Ionian Islands. The Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands was the local representative of the British Crown in the United States of the Ionian Islands between 1816 and 1864, succeeding the earlier office of the Civil Commissioner of the Ionian Islands.
He published his first book, Britain's Greek Empire, in 1978, reviewing the history of Corfu and the Ionian islands from the 15th century, when the influence of Byzantium ended, through rule by Venice from 1401 and then as a British protectorate from the Napoleonic Wars until 1863, when the islands became part of the newly independent Greece.