Ministers' Office, Yangon formerly the Secretariat

This is as close as you can get to the Ministers' Office in Yangon, formerly the Secretariat of the British Colony of Burma.

After the British Annexation of Upper Burma in 1886, the work of the colonial government increased enormously and there was need to extend the cramped Secretariat building.

Grand new designs were drawn up by Henry Hoyne-Fox, Executive Engineer of the Public Works Department in Rangoon (now again called Yangon). The new Secretariat was built in stages between 1889 and 1905. The style was described as "bureaucratic Byzantine" and is redolent, in brick, of the Government Offices, Great George Street (GOGGS) in Whitehall, London, of similar date.

The entire Colony of Burma was run from the Secretariat, which contained the following departments: Political, General, Police, Revenue (Accounts, Separate Revenue, Local Funds), Judicial (Criminal, Civil, Gaols, Lunatics, Legislature, Penal Settlements), Municipal (Books and Maps, Education, Ecclesiastical, Registration, Medical, Sanitary), and Marine and Commerce (Lighthouses, Ports, Merchant Shipping).

Each stage in Burma's independence was marked here from the establishment of diarchy in 1923, the Government of Burma Act 1935 which led to separation from India in 1937 and the first Burmese Prime Minister. Student demonstrations surrounded the building in 1938 and were violently dispersed.

The most significant and tragic event to take place in the Secretariat was on the morning of 19 July 1947 when, 6 months before independence, the national leader and founder of the Burmese Army, General Aung San, and six ministers were assassinated whilst attending the Executive Council. The room is maintained as a shrine.

It was in the Quadrangle of the Secretariat at 4.20am on 4 January 1948 that the Union Jack was lowered for the final time and the flag of the Union of Burma raised.

After independence the building was occupied by various Ministries until 2005, when the Myanmar Government moved to Nay Pyi Taw. In 2011 basic renovation was undertaken to preserve the structure. Consideration is being given to what a suitable use would be for this remarkable survival from colonial days.

Meanwhile the gardens around have grown up obscuring the unrestored buildings.