The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947.
Commemoration of the Indian Civil Services at Westminster Abbey, London
Image: Sir Henry Edward Stokes KCSI
Image: Sir Gabriel (1849 1920)
Image: V Narahari Rao in civil service uniform
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service official, also known as a public servant or public employee, is a person employed in the public sector by a government department or agency for public sector undertakings. Civil servants work for central and state governments, and answer to the government, not a political party.
Imperial Civil Service Examination hall with 7500 cells in Guangdong, 1873
Emperor Wen of Sui (r. 581–604), who established the first civil service examination system in China; a painting by the chancellor and artist Yan Liben (600–673).
Charles Trevelyan, an architect of Her Majesty's Civil Service, established in 1855 on his recommendations.
