The Role and Experiences of Expatriate Women in the Last Phase of Empire and After

The Overseas Service Pensioners' Association (OSPA) was founded in 1960, with the primary object of the protection of the pension arrangements for Overseas Service officers and widows. But the chief interest now is in spreading a better understanding of what the Colonial Service (since 1954 properly called Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service - HMOCS) was, who its members were, what they did, why and how they did it, and to what effect. More generally, what was their life like? This information needs to be out on public record so that people today and in the future can know about and have access to first hand evidence of how the colonial territories were governed and developed in the closing years of Empire, especially after 1945.