The post was established in 1892 with the title 'Resident Commissioner' by Governor of Fiji John Bates Thurston after the islands were made a British protectorate, having previously been under the supervision of the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific.

Charles Richard Swayne was appointed as the first Commissioner, arriving in the islands the same year.

At the beginning of the Pacific War, Cyril George Fox Cartwright was acting Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony on Ocean Island from December 1941 to August 1942.

He was acting on behalf of Vivian Fox-Strangways, who had been appointed as Resident Commissioner, but because of the Pacific War, Fox-Strangways had been seconded into the British Army with the rank of major and was located on Tulagi in the British Solomon Islands.

[3][9][10][11] The provisional headquarters of the colony stayed in Funafuti until 1946 and the rebuilding of Tarawa.