The Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands was the local representative of the British government in the United States of the Ionian Islands between 1814 and 1863. At the time, the United States of the Ionian Islands was a federal republic under the amical protection of the United Kingdom, as established under the 1815 Treaty of Paris. Governors were based in Corfu, northernmost of the seven Ionian Islands, which are off the western coast of mainland Greece.
A list of the islands' High Commissioners. After the tenure of Sir James Campbell, who took over from the military governorship of Major Oswald, High Commissioners added 'Lord' to their titles. Gladstone who served for just under 12 weeks was appointed as 'Extraordinary' Lord High Commissioner:
°Between 24 November 1858 and 19 February March 1859, William Ewart Gladstone served as Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to negotiate the political future of the Ionian Islands. He recommended that the Ionian Islands remain under British protection. However, when the Bavarian-born King of Greece, Otto I, was deposed and replaced by an Anglophile, George I, the Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece, ending the position of Lord High Commissioner.
°°Count Dimitrios Nikolaou Karousos, President of the Ionian Parliament, took the post of transitional Greek Governor a year prior to Enosis (Union) with Greece on 21 May 1864.