The islands of Saint Christopher and Nevis had been British colonies since the 17th century, but were administered separately until the 1880s. A union of Saint Christopher and Nevis had been proposed as early as 1867, when Captain
James George Mackenzie was appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of Saint Christopher with a mandate to seek to combine the administrations of the two neighboring islands. This proposal met with strong opposition, however, and was withdrawn the following year. In 1871, Saint Christopher and Nevis became presidencies within the
Federal Colony of the Leeward Islands. Anguilla was attached to Saint Christopher as a dependency the same year. In 1882, the Leeward Islands legislature passed legislation merging the two presidencies as the combined Presidency of Saint Christopher and Nevis. In 1951, the name was changed to include Anguilla. The
Leeward Islands Colony was disbanded in 1958, due to frequent tension between its members. From 1958 to 1962, Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla formed a province of the
West Indies Federation,
electing two members to the House of Representatives and also having two senators, appointed by the
Governor-General. In 1967, the territory of Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla was granted full internal autonomy, as an
Associated State of the United Kingdom. The UK retained responsibility for defence and external affairs, while a new judicial system was established, headed by the
West Indies Associated States Supreme Court (although the
Privy Council remained the highest court of appeal). Later in 1967, Anguilla's leaders expelled the Federation's police from the island, and declared the island's independence as the
Republic of Anguilla. On 7 November 1970, a commission led by
Hugh Wooding, former
Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago, published a report that unanimously rejected both the idea of an independent Anguilla and Anguilla's becoming a separate British colony, and recommended that the island should instead remain a part of Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla. The report was welcomed by
Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw while the Council of Anguilla rejected it. Nevis had also attempted to separate from the federation on several occasions. The island's leaders were unsuccessful in this effort, they did secure greater autonomy for Nevis in the years leading up to independence, which occurred in September 1983 after a delay of several years to allow for negotiations. Sir
Frederick Albert Phillips, the first governor of Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla, wrote in 2013: ==Politics==