This paper examines the development of the machinery of central government – the federal government – in the Malay Peninsula between the return of the British administration in 1945 and independence in 1957. It focuses in particular on the ‘Malayanization’ of the administration in the years immediately preceding independence, but also considers, for example, the processes of recruitment of European officials in the immediate post-war period and the further development of the central government machinery in the years after independence. The paper draws on the personal recollections of the author, who was a senior civil servant in Malaya from 1945 to 1956, his posts including that of secretary to the ministerial committee on Malayanization in the mid-1950s.
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