The British Empire

Imperialism is a policy of extending a country's power and influence through methods such as colonisation, which is ‘the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area’. By the early 20th Century, a period of British imperialism that began in the late 16th Century under Queen Elizabeth I had developed into the largest empire in history: the British Empire.

Like other rulers throughout history, Elizabeth I was of course primarily interested in the money and power that could come from colonisation, and saw the violence and force it involved as a necessity for achieving this. However, from the first attempts at colonisation in what is now the United States, these efforts were presented to English citizens as spreading Christianity and English customs in order to civilise the indigenous Americans.

By 1775, Britain had 13 North American colonies which were fighting for their freedom in the American War of Independence. The following year, the colonies declared themselves as independent sovereign states through the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Britain formally recognised this through the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

However, partly coinciding with Britain’s failing attempt at imperialism in North America was the early years of its success in India - 1757 saw the victory of the British East India Company against Bengal (modern day Bangladesh and part of India) in the Battle of Plassey. This meant Bengal came under de facto control of the British East India Company, from where it was able to continue to take over many other areas of the Indian subcontinent and Burma. In addition, the British East India Company employed seamen from various Asian countries, some of whom would remain in England. Indian women were also brought to England to be nannies, and children were taken to be servants.

The Government of India Act 1858 took control of the country away from the East India Company and made it an official colony of the British Empire. The exploitation of India’s natural resources and population by the East India Company and the Crown financed the Industrial Revolution, which in turn benefitted citizens of Britain and other western countries. Meanwhile, citizens of India were facing famines due to being forced to produce crops for Britain through droughts. In addition, although the technology of the Industrial Revolution was introduced in India, this was for the purpose of increasing the speed of transporting goods to Britain.

Also to increase the speed of transporting goods to Britain from its colonies in Asia, the Suez Canal opened in 1869. This increased the numbers of Asian seamen arriving in Britain, many of whom married white women, resulting in the development of multiracial working class communities near docks in cities such as Cardiff, Glasgow and London.

Starting in the 1880s, alongside other Western European powers, Britain was involved in the ‘Scramble for Africa’. In this phenomenon, Britain came to control 30% of the African population. British rule saw the exiling of indigenous leaders, stealing of valuables, damaging of infrastructure, and killing of innocent people. Although the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 had already been enacted at this point, so the practice of slavery in the British Empire had ended, it is important to note that Britain significantly profited from it for many years. It was in 1660 that the English Royal African Company began buying and transporting people from the West African coast to work as slaves on English plantations in North America and the Caribbean, and some were brought to England to be servants.

The signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 officially marked the end of the First World War between Germany and the Allies. The terms of this agreement included that Germany’s former colonies would be given to other European countries. This made the British Empire the largest it had ever been.

Maintaining control of the British Empire’s colonies was already proving costly and difficult prior to gaining these additional territories, and the attitudes of white Britons were increasingly anti-colonial from a moral perspective. As a result of this, some colonies were given dominion status which meant self-government. The first example of this was through the British North America Act 1867, which created the dominion of Canada. Canada, and the other dominions that followed over the next few decades, were deemed worthy of this increased autonomy as they had larger proportions of white European descent than the areas that remained colonies.

Despite lessening the burden on Westminster through the granting of dominion status, maintaining control of the British Empire’s colonies continued to be a struggle. Additional reasons for this were caused by the Second World War. For example, the negative effects of British rule on India have already been explained above, but the sentiment this created was exacerbated by Britain using its authority to force India into the conflict. This caused the loss of lives in battle, commodity shortages, and concerns about a potential Japanese invasion, so 1942 saw the launch of Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India Movement.

The Quit India Movement came to an end in 1945 with the release of key members of the Indian independence movement, who had been imprisoned since 1942, by the newly elected British government. The same government oversaw the Indian Independence Act 1947, which partitioned British India into two independent dominions of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. As Canada had led the way to independence for other countries with larger proportions of white European descent, India and Pakistan did so for other territories across Asia and Africa.

The British Nationality Act 1948 gave people from the colonies the right to enter and settle in the UK, to help with the labour shortage issue caused by losses in the Second World War. Please see our ‘The 75th Anniversary of Windrush’ blog post for more information.

The British Empire did not survive into the 21st Century, though its remnants are fourteen British Overseas Territories which share Britain’s monarch and Prime Minister. These British Overseas Territories, as well as many former colonies and dominions, are a part of the Commonwealth of Nations. The member states of this international association, at the head of which is the British monarch, are connected by the language, religion and culture that was imposed on them. These similarities make Britain a logical destination for many migrants.