On August 2, 1922, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George addressed the parliament about the administrative edifice in India. It was over 125 years since Charles Cornwallis had sown the seeds of the Indian Civil Service in 1793. Seventy years had passed since the Macaulay Committee institutionalised it as a modern merit-based system in 1854, and even allowed Indians to appear in competitive examinations for recruitment to the service.
In Lloyd George’s speech, the metaphor of “steel frame” was first used to describe the pivotal role of the ICS in how the government and administration functioned in India. “ICS is the steel frame on which the whole structure of government and of administration in India rests,” he said.
