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Origins (1497–1583)
English overseas possessions (1583–1707)
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Scottish attempt to expand overseas
"First" British Empire (1707–1783)
Toggle "First" British Empire (1707–1783) subsection
Rise of the "Second" British Empire (1783–1815)
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Britain's imperial century (1815–1914)
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World wars (1914–1945)
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Decolonisation and decline (1945–1997)
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Legacy
Notes
See also
References
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External links
British Empire

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
British Empire
Flag of British Empire Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
Left: Flag of Great Britain (1707–1801)
Right: Flag of the United Kingdom (1801–present)
The British Empire.png
All areas of the world that were ever part of the British Empire. Current British
Overseas Territories have their names underlined in red.
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates,
mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its
predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts
established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its
height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the
foremost global power.[1] By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million
people, 23 per cent of the world population at the time,[2] and by 1920, it covered
35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi),[3] 24 per cent of the Earth's total land
area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is
widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the
sun never sets", as the Sun was always shining on at least one of its territories.
[4]

During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain
pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large
overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated,[5] England,
France, and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their
own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with
the Netherlands and France left England (Britain, following the 1707 Act of Union
with Scotland) the dominant colonial power in North America. Britain became the
dominant power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company's conquest
of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

The American War of Independence resulted in Britain losing some of its oldest and
most populous colonies in North America by 1783. British attention then turned
towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic
Wars (1803–1815), Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the
19th century and expanded its imperial holdings. The period of relative peace
(1815–1914) during which the British Empire became the global hegemon was later
described as Pax Britannica ("British Peace"). Alongside the formal control that
Britain exerted over its colonies, its dominance of much of world trade meant that
it effectively controlled the economies of many regions, such as Asia and Latin
America.[6][7] Increasing degrees of autonomy were granted to its white settler
colonies, some of which were reclassified as Dominions.

By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to
challenge Britain's economic lead. Military and economic tensions between Britain
and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied
heavily on its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military,
financial, and manpower resources. Although the empire achieved its largest
territorial extent immediately after the First World War, Britain was no longer the
world's preeminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britain's
colonies in East Asia and Southeast Asia were occupied by the Empire of Japan.
Despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige
helped accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britain's most valuable and
populous possession, achieved independence in 1947 as part of a larger
decolonisation movement, in which Britain granted independence to most territories
of the empire. The Suez Crisis of 1956 confirmed Britain's decline as a global
power, and the transfer of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997 marked for many the
end of the British Empire.[8][9] Fourteen overseas territories remain under British
sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies, along with most of
the dominions, joined the Commonwealth of Nations, a free association of
independent states. Fifteen of these, including the United Kingdom, retain a common
monarch, currently King Charles III.

Origins (1497–1583)

A replica of the Matthew, John Cabot's ship used for his second voyage to the New
World
The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were
separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of
Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot to lead an
expedition to discover a northwest passage to Asia via the North Atlantic.[10]
Cabot sailed in 1497, five years after the first voyage of Christopher Columbus,
and made landfall on the coast of Newfoundland. He believed he had reached Asia,
[11] and there was no attempt to found a colony. Cabot led another voyage to the
Americas the following year but he did not return from this voyage and it is
unknown what happened to his ships.[12]
No further attempts to establish English colonies in the Americas were made until
well into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, during the last decades of the 16th
century.[13] In the meantime, Henry VIII's 1533 Statute in Restraint of Appeals had
declared "that this realm of England is an Empire".[14] The Protestant Reformation
turned England and Catholic Spain into implacable enemies.[10] In 1562, Elizabeth I
encouraged the privateers John Hawkins and Francis Drake to engage in slave-raiding
attacks against Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa[15] with
the aim of establishing an Atlantic slave trade. This effort was rebuffed and
later, as the Anglo-Spanish Wars intensified, Elizabeth I gave her blessing to
further privateering raids against Spanish ports in the Americas and shipping that
was returning across the Atlantic, laden with treasure from the New World.[16] At
the same time, influential writers such as Richard Hakluyt and John Dee (who was
the first to use the term "British Empire")[17] were beginning to press for the
establishment of England's own empire. By this time, Spain had become the dominant
power in the Americas and was exploring the Pacific Ocean, Portugal had established
trading posts and forts from the coasts of Africa and Brazil to China, and France
had begun to settle the Saint Lawrence River area, later to become New France.[18]

Although England tended to trail behind Portugal, Spain, and France in establishing
overseas colonies, it carried out its first modern colonisation, referred to as the
Ulster Plantation, in 16th century Ireland by settling English Protestants in
Ulster. England had already colonised part of the country following the Norman
invasion of Ireland in 1169.[19][20] Several people who helped establish the Ulster
Plantations later played a part in the early colonisation of North America,
particularly a group known as the West Country Men.[21]

English overseas possessions (1583–1707)

Main article: English overseas possessions
In 1578, Elizabeth I granted a patent to Humphrey Gilbert for discovery and
overseas exploration.[22][23] That year, Gilbert sailed for the Caribbean with the
intention of engaging in piracy and establishing a colony in North America, but the
expedition was aborted before it had crossed the Atlantic.[24][25] In 1583, he
embarked on a second attempt. On this occasion, he formally claimed the harbour of
the island of Newfoundland, although no settlers were left behind. Gilbert did not
survive the return journey to England and was succeeded by his half-brother, Walter
Raleigh, who was granted his own patent by Elizabeth in 1584. Later that year,
Raleigh founded the Roanoke Colony on the coast of present-day North Carolina, but
lack of supplies caused the colony to fail.[26]

In 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended (as James I) to the English throne and in
1604 negotiated the Treaty of London, ending hostilities with Spain. Now at peace
with its main rival, English attention shifted from preying on other nations'
colonial infrastructures to the business of establishing its own overseas colonies.
[27] The British Empire began to take shape during the early 17th century, with the
English settlement of North America and the smaller islands of the Caribbean, and
the establishment of joint-stock companies, most notably the East India Company, to
administer colonies and overseas trade. This period, until the loss of the Thirteen
Colonies after the American War of Independence towards the end of the 18th
century, has been referred to by some historians as the "First British Empire".[28]

Americas, Africa and the slave trade

Main articles: British colonisation of the Americas, British America, Thirteen
Colonies, British West Indies, and Atlantic slave trade

African slaves working in 17th-century Virginia, by an unknown artist, 1670.

England's early efforts at colonisation in the Americas met with mixed success. An
attempt to establish a colony in Guiana in 1604 lasted only two years and failed in
its main objective to find gold deposits.[29] Colonies on the Caribbean islands of
St Lucia (1605) and Grenada (1609) rapidly folded.[30] The first permanent English
settlement in the Americas was founded in 1607 in Jamestown by Captain John Smith,
and managed by the Virginia Company; the Crown took direct control of the venture
in 1624, thereby founding the Colony of Virginia.[31] Bermuda was settled and
claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck of the Virginia Company's
flagship,[32] while attempts to settle Newfoundland were largely unsuccessful.[33]
In 1620, Plymouth was founded as a haven by Puritan religious separatists, later
known as the Pilgrims.[34] Fleeing from religious persecution would become the
motive for many English would-be colonists to risk the arduous trans-Atlantic
voyage: Maryland was established by English Roman Catholics (1634), Rhode Island
(1636) as a colony tolerant of all religions and Connecticut (1639) for
Congregationalists. England's North American holdings were further expanded by the
annexation of the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664, following the capture of
New Amsterdam, which was renamed New York.[35] Although less financially successful
than colonies in the Caribbean, these territories had large areas of good
agricultural land and attracted far greater numbers of English emigrants, who
preferred their temperate climates.[36]

The British West Indies initially provided England's most important and lucrative
colonies.[37] Settlements were successfully established in St. Kitts (1624),
Barbados (1627) and Nevis (1628),[30] but struggled until the "Sugar Revolution"
transformed the Caribbean economy in the mid-17th century.[38] Large sugarcane
plantations were first established in the 1640s on Barbados, with assistance from
Dutch merchants and Sephardic Jews fleeing Portuguese Brazil. At first, sugar was
grown primarily using white indentured labour, but rising costs soon led English
traders to embrace the use of imported African slaves.[39][40] The enormous wealth
generated by slave-produced sugar made Barbados the most successful colony in the
Americas,[41] and one of the most densely populated places in the world.[38] This
boom led to the spread of sugar cultivation across the Caribbean, financed the
development of non-plantation colonies in North America, and accelerated the growth
of the Atlantic slave trade, particularly the triangular trade of slaves, sugar and
provisions between Africa, the West Indies and Europe.[42]

To ensure that the increasingly healthy profits of colonial trade remained in

English hands, Parliament decreed in 1651 that only English ships would be able to
ply their trade in English colonies. This led to hostilities with the United Dutch
Provinces—a series of Anglo-Dutch Wars—which would eventually strengthen England's
position in the Americas at the expense of the Dutch.[43] In 1655, England annexed
the island of Jamaica from the Spanish, and in 1666 succeeded in colonising the
Bahamas.[44] In 1670, Charles II incorporated by royal charter the Hudson's Bay
Company (HBC), granting it a monopoly on the fur trade in the area known as
Rupert's Land, which would later form a large proportion of the Dominion of Canada.
Forts and trading posts established by the HBC were frequently the subject of
attacks by the French, who had established their own fur trading colony in adjacent
New France.[45]

Two years later, the Royal African Company was granted a monopoly on the supply of
slaves to the British colonies in the Caribbean.[46] The company would transport
more slaves across the Atlantic than any other, and significantly grew England's
share of the trade, from 33 per cent in 1673 to 74 per cent in 1683.[47] The
removal of this monopoly between 1688 and 1712 allowed independent British slave
traders to thrive, leading to a rapid escalation in the number of slaves
transported.[48] British ships carried a third of all slaves shipped across the
Atlantic—approximately 3.5 million Africans[49]—and dominated global slave trading
in the 25 years preceding its abolition by Parliament in 1807 (see § Abolition of
slavery).[50] To facilitate the shipment of slaves, forts were established on the
coast of West Africa, such as James Island, Accra and Bunce Island. In the British
Caribbean, the percentage of the population of African descent rose from 25 per
cent in 1650 to around 80 per cent in 1780, and in the Thirteen Colonies from 10
per cent to 40 per cent over the same period (the majority in the southern
colonies).[51] The transatlantic slave trade played a pervasive role in British
economic life, and became a major economic mainstay for western port cities.[52]
Ships registered in Bristol, Liverpool and London were responsible for the bulk of
British slave trading.[53] For the transported, harsh and unhygienic conditions on
the slaving ships and poor diets meant that the average mortality rate during the
Middle Passage was one in seven.[54]

Rivalry with other European empires

Main article: East India Company

Fort St. George was founded at Madras in 1639.

At the end of the 16th century, England and the Dutch Empire began to challenge the
Portuguese Empire's monopoly of trade with Asia, forming private joint-stock
companies to finance the voyages—the English, later British, East India Company and
the Dutch East India Company, chartered in 1600 and 1602 respectively. The primary
aim of these companies was to tap into the lucrative spice trade, an effort focused
mainly on two regions: the East Indies archipelago, and an important hub in the
trade network, India. There, they competed for trade supremacy with Portugal and
with each other.[55] Although England eclipsed the Netherlands as a colonial power,
in the short term the Netherlands' more advanced financial system[56] and the three
Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century left it with a stronger position in Asia.
Hostilities ceased after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the Dutch William of
Orange ascended the English throne, bringing peace between the Dutch Republic and
England. A deal between the two nations left the spice trade of the East Indies
archipelago to the Netherlands and the textiles industry of India to England, but
textiles soon overtook spices in terms of profitability.[56]

Peace between England and the Netherlands in 1688 meant the two countries entered
the Nine Years' War as allies, but the conflict—waged in Europe and overseas
between France, Spain and the Anglo-Dutch alliance—left the English a stronger
colonial power than the Dutch, who were forced to devote a larger proportion of
their military budget to the costly land war in Europe.[57] The death of Charles II
of Spain in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip V of
Spain, a grandson of the King of France, raised the prospect of the unification of
France, Spain and their respective colonies, an unacceptable state of affairs for
England and the other powers of Europe.[58] In 1701, England, Portugal and the
Netherlands sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of
the Spanish Succession, which lasted for thirteen years.[58]

Scottish attempt to expand overseas

Main article: Scottish colonization of the Americas
In 1695, the Parliament of Scotland granted a charter to the Company of Scotland,
which established a settlement in 1698 on the Isthmus of Panama. Besieged by
neighbouring Spanish colonists of New Granada, and affected by malaria, the colony
was abandoned two years later. The Darien scheme was a financial disaster for
Scotland: a quarter of Scottish capital was lost in the enterprise.[59] The episode
had major political consequences, helping to persuade the government of the Kingdom
of Scotland of the merits of turning the personal union with England into a
political and economic one under the Kingdom of Great Britain established by the
Acts of Union 1707.[60]

"First" British Empire (1707–1783)

Robert Clive's victory at the Battle of Plassey established the East India Company
as a military as well as a commercial power.
The 18th century saw the newly united Great Britain rise to be the world's dominant
colonial power, with France becoming its main rival on the imperial stage.[61]
Great Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire continued the
War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted until 1714 and was concluded by the
Treaty of Utrecht. Philip V of Spain renounced his and his descendants' claim to
the French throne, and Spain lost its empire in Europe.[58] The British Empire was
territorially enlarged: from France, Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia, and
from Spain Gibraltar and Menorca. Gibraltar became a critical naval base and
allowed Britain to control the Atlantic entry and exit point to the Mediterranean.
Spain ceded the rights to the lucrative asiento (permission to sell African slaves
in Spanish America) to Britain.[62] With the outbreak of the Anglo-Spanish War of
Jenkins' Ear in 1739, Spanish privateers attacked British merchant shipping along
the Triangle Trade routes. In 1746, the Spanish and British began peace talks, with
the King of Spain agreeing to stop all attacks on British shipping; however, in the
Treaty of Madrid Britain lost its slave-trading rights in Latin America.[63]

In the East Indies, British and Dutch merchants continued to compete in spices and
textiles. With textiles becoming the larger trade, by 1720, in terms of sales, the
British company had overtaken the Dutch.[56] During the middle decades of the 18th
century, there were several outbreaks of military conflict on the Indian
subcontinent, as the English East India Company and its French counterpart,
struggled alongside local rulers to fill the vacuum that had been left by the
decline of the Mughal Empire. The Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which the British
defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, left the British East India
Company in control of Bengal and as the major military and political power in
India.[64] France was left control of its enclaves but with military restrictions
and an obligation to support British client states, ending French hopes of
controlling India.[65] In the following decades the British East India Company
gradually increased the size of the territories under its control, either ruling
directly or via local rulers under the threat of force from the Presidency Armies,
the vast majority of which was composed of Indian sepoys, led by British officers.
[66] The British and French struggles in India became but one theatre of the global
Seven Years' War (1756–1763) involving France, Britain, and the other major
European powers.[45]

The signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1763 had important consequences for the
future of the British Empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power
effectively ended with the recognition of British claims to Rupert's Land,[45] and
the ceding of New France to Britain (leaving a sizeable French-speaking population
under British control) and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain.
Along with its victory over France in India, the Seven Years' War therefore left
Britain as the world's most powerful maritime power.[67]

Loss of the Thirteen American Colonies

Main articles: American Revolution, United States, Decolonization of the Americas,
British North America, History of Canada (1763–1867), and War of 1812

British claims in North America, 1763–1776

During the 1760s and early 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and
Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment of the
British Parliament's attempts to govern and tax American colonists without their
consent.[68] This was summarised at the time by the colonists' slogan "No taxation
without representation", a perceived violation of the guaranteed Rights of
Englishmen. The American Revolution began with a rejection of Parliamentary
authority and moves towards self-government. In response, Britain sent troops to
reimpose direct rule, leading to the outbreak of war in 1775. The following year,
in 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence
proclaiming the colonies' sovereignty from the British Empire as the new United
States of America. The entry of French and Spanish forces into the war tipped the
military balance in the Americans' favour and after a decisive defeat at Yorktown
in 1781, Britain began negotiating peace terms. American independence was
acknowledged at the Peace of Paris in 1783.[69]
The loss of such a large portion of British America, at the time Britain's most
populous overseas possession, is seen by some historians as the event defining the
transition between the "first" and "second" empires,[70] in which Britain shifted
its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa. Adam
Smith's Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, had argued that colonies were
redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that
had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to the
protectionism of Spain and Portugal.[67][71] The growth of trade between the newly
independent United States and Britain after 1783 seemed to confirm Smith's view
that political control was not necessary for economic success.[72][73]

The war to the south influenced British policy in Canada, where between 40,000 and
100,000[74] defeated Loyalists had migrated from the new United States following
independence.[75] The 14,000 Loyalists who went to the Saint John and Saint Croix
river valleys, then part of Nova Scotia, felt too far removed from the provincial
government in Halifax, so London split off New Brunswick as a separate colony in
1784.[76] The Constitutional Act of 1791 created the provinces of Upper Canada
(mainly English speaking) and Lower Canada (mainly French-speaking) to defuse
tensions between the French and British communities, and implemented governmental
systems similar to those employed in Britain, with the intention of asserting
imperial authority and not allowing the sort of popular control of government that
was perceived to have led to the American Revolution.[77]

Tensions between Britain and the United States escalated again during the
Napoleonic Wars, as Britain tried to cut off American trade with France and boarded
American ships to impress men into the Royal Navy. The United States Congress
declared war, the War of 1812, and invaded Canadian territory. In response, Britain
invaded the US, but the pre-war boundaries were reaffirmed by the 1814 Treaty of
Ghent, ensuring Canada's future would be separate from that of the United States.
[78][79]

Rise of the "Second" British Empire (1783–1815)

Exploration of the Pacific
Main articles: History of Australia (1788–1850) and History of New Zealand

James Cook's mission was to find the alleged southern continent Terra Australis.
Since 1718, transportation to the American colonies had been a penalty for various
offences in Britain, with approximately one thousand convicts transported per year.
[80] Forced to find an alternative location after the loss of the Thirteen Colonies
in 1783, the British government turned to Australia.[81] The coast of Australia had
been discovered for Europeans by the Dutch in 1606,[82] but there was no attempt to
colonise it. In 1770 James Cook charted the eastern coast while on a scientific
voyage, claimed the continent for Britain, and named it New South Wales.[83] In
1778, Joseph Banks, Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to the
government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal
settlement, and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788.
[84] Unusually, Australia was claimed through proclamation. Indigenous Australians
were considered too uncivilised to require treaties,[85][86] and colonisation
brought disease and violence that together with the deliberate dispossession of
land and culture were devastating to these peoples.[87][page needed][88] Britain
continued to transport convicts to New South Wales until 1840, to Tasmania until
1853 and to Western Australia until 1868.[89] The Australian colonies became
profitable exporters of wool and gold,[90] mainly because of the Victorian gold
rush, making its capital Melbourne for a time the richest city in the world.[91]

During his voyage, Cook visited New Zealand, known to Europeans due to the 1642
voyage of the Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman. Cook claimed both the North and the
South islands for the British crown in 1769 and 1770 respectively. Initially,
interaction between the indigenous Maori population and European settlers was
limited to the trading of goods. European settlement increased through the early
decades of the 19th century, with many trading stations being established,
especially in the North. In 1839, the New Zealand Company announced plans to buy
large tracts of land and establish colonies in New Zealand. On 6 February 1840,
Captain William Hobson and around 40 Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi
which is considered to be New Zealand's founding document despite differing
interpretations of the Maori and English versions of the text being the cause of
ongoing dispute.[92][93][94][95]

The British also expanded their mercantile interests in the North Pacific. Spain
and Britain had become rivals in the area, culminating in the Nootka Crisis in
1789. Both sides mobilised for war, but when France refused to support Spain it was
forced to back down, leading to the Nootka Convention. The outcome was a
humiliation for Spain, which practically renounced all sovereignty on the North
Pacific coast.[96] This opened the way to British expansion in the area, and a
number of expeditions took place; firstly a naval expedition led by George
Vancouver which explored the inlets around the Pacific North West, particularly
around Vancouver Island.[97] On land, expeditions sought to discover a river route
to the Pacific for the extension of the North American fur trade. Alexander
Mackenzie of the North West Company led the first, starting out in 1792, and a year
a later he became the first European to reach the Pacific overland north of the Rio
Grande, reaching the ocean near present-day Bella Coola. This preceded the Lewis
and Clark Expedition by twelve years. Shortly thereafter, Mackenzie's companion,
John Finlay, founded the first permanent European settlement in British Columbia,
Fort St. John. The North West Company sought further exploration and backed
expeditions by David Thompson, starting in 1797, and later by Simon Fraser. These
pushed into the wilderness territories of the Rocky Mountains and Interior Plateau
to the Strait of Georgia on the Pacific Coast, expanding British North America
westward.[98]

Wars with France

Main article: French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

The Battle of Waterloo in 1815 ended in the defeat of Napoleon and marked the
beginning of Pax Britannica.
Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon, in a struggle that, unlike
previous wars, represented a contest of ideologies between the two nations.[99] It
was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was at risk: Napoleon
threatened to invade Britain itself, just as his armies had overrun many countries
of continental Europe.[100]

The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones in which Britain invested large amounts of
capital and resources to win. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy, which
won a decisive victory over a French Imperial Navy-Spanish Navy fleet at the Battle
of Trafalgar in 1805. Overseas colonies were attacked and occupied, including those
of the Netherlands, which was annexed by Napoleon in 1810. France was finally
defeated by a coalition of European armies in 1815.[101] Britain was again the
beneficiary of peace treaties: France ceded the Ionian Islands, Malta (which it had
occupied in 1798), Mauritius, St Lucia, the Seychelles, and Tobago; Spain ceded
Trinidad; the Netherlands ceded Guyana, Ceylon and the Cape Colony, while the
Danish ceded Heligoland. Britain returned Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana,
and Réunion to France; Menorca to Spain; Danish West Indies to Denmark and Java and
Suriname to the Netherlands.[102]

Abolition of slavery
Main article: Abolitionism in the United Kingdom
With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, goods produced by slavery became less
important to the British economy.[103] Added to this was the cost of suppressing
regular slave rebellions. With support from the British abolitionist movement,
Parliament enacted the Slave Trade Act in 1807, which abolished the slave trade in
the empire. In 1808, Sierra Leone Colony was designated an official British colony
for freed slaves.[104] Parliamentary reform in 1832 saw the influence of the West
India Committee decline. The Slavery Abolition Act, passed the following year,
abolished slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834, finally bringing the
empire into line with the law in the UK (with the exception of the territories
administered by the East India Company and Ceylon, where slavery was ended in
1844). Under the Act, slaves were granted full emancipation after a period of four
to six years of "apprenticeship".[105] Facing further opposition from
abolitionists, the apprenticeship system was abolished in 1838.[106] The British
government compensated slave-owners.[107][108]

Britain's imperial century (1815–1914)

See also: Timeline of British diplomatic history § 1815–1860, Industrial
Revolution, and Victorian era
Between 1815 and 1914, a period referred to as Britain's "imperial century" by some
historians,[109][110] around 10 million sq mi (26 million km2) of territory and
roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire.[111] Victory over
Napoleon left Britain without any serious international rival, other than Russia in
Central Asia.[112] Unchallenged at sea, Britain adopted the role of global
policeman, a state of affairs later known as the Pax Britannica,[113][114][115] and
a foreign policy of "splendid isolation".[116] Alongside the formal control it
exerted over its own colonies, Britain's dominant position in world trade meant
that it effectively controlled the economies of many countries, such as China,
Argentina and Siam, which has been described by some historians as an "Informal
Empire".[6][7]

An 1876 political cartoon of Benjamin Disraeli making Queen Victoria Empress of

India. The caption reads "New crowns for old ones!"
British imperial strength was underpinned by the steamship and the telegraph, new
technologies invented in the second half of the 19th century, allowing it to
control and defend the empire. By 1902, the British Empire was linked together by a
network of telegraph cables, called the All Red Line.[117]

East India Company rule and the British Raj in India

Main article: Presidencies and provinces of British India
See also: Company rule in India and British Raj
The East India Company drove the expansion of the British Empire in Asia. The
Company's army had first joined forces with the Royal Navy during the Seven Years'
War, and the two continued to co-operate in arenas outside India: the eviction of
the French from Egypt (1799),[118] the capture of Java from the Netherlands (1811),
the acquisition of Penang Island (1786), Singapore (1819) and Malacca (1824), and
the defeat of Burma (1826).[112]

From its base in India, the Company had been engaged in an increasingly profitable
opium export trade to Qing China since the 1730s. This trade, illegal since it was
outlawed by China in 1729, helped reverse the trade imbalances resulting from the
British imports of tea, which saw large outflows of silver from Britain to China.
[119] In 1839, the confiscation by the Chinese authorities at Canton of 20,000
chests of opium led Britain to attack China in the First Opium War, and resulted in
the seizure by Britain of Hong Kong Island, at that time a minor settlement, and
other Treaty Ports including Shanghai.[120]

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the British Crown began to assume an
increasingly large role in the affairs of the Company. A series of Acts of
Parliament were passed, including the Regulating Act of 1773, Pitt's India Act of
1784 and the Charter Act of 1813 which regulated the Company's affairs and
established the sovereignty of the Crown over the territories that it had acquired.
[121] The Company's eventual end was precipitated by the Indian Rebellion in 1857,
a conflict that had begun with the mutiny of sepoys, Indian troops under British
officers and discipline.[122] The rebellion took six months to suppress, with heavy
loss of life on both sides. The following year the British government dissolved the
company and assumed direct control over India through the Government of India Act
1858, establishing the British Raj, where an appointed governor-general
administered India and Queen Victoria was crowned the Empress of India.[123] India
became the empire's most valuable possession, "the Jewel in the Crown", and was the
most important source of Britain's strength.[124]

A series of serious crop failures in the late 19th century led to widespread
famines on the subcontinent in which it is estimated that over 15 million people
died. The East India Company had failed to implement any coordinated policy to deal
with the famines during its period of rule. Later, under direct British rule,
commissions were set up after each famine to investigate the causes and implement
new policies, which took until the early 1900s to have an effect.[125]

Rivalry with Russia

Main article: The Great Game

British cavalry charging against Russian forces at Balaclava in 1854

During the 19th century, Britain and the Russian Empire vied to fill the power
vacuums that had been left by the declining Ottoman Empire, Qajar dynasty and Qing
dynasty. This rivalry in Central Asia came to be known as the "Great Game".[126] As
far as Britain was concerned, defeats inflicted by Russia on Persia and Turkey
demonstrated its imperial ambitions and capabilities and stoked fears in Britain of
an overland invasion of India.[127] In 1839, Britain moved to pre-empt this by
invading Afghanistan, but the First Anglo-Afghan War was a disaster for Britain.
[128]

When Russia invaded the Ottoman Balkans in 1853, fears of Russian dominance in the
Mediterranean and the Middle East led Britain and France to enter the war in
support of the Ottoman Empire and invade the Crimean Peninsula to destroy Russian
naval capabilities.[128] The ensuing Crimean War (1854–1856), which involved new
techniques of modern warfare,[129] was the only global war fought between Britain
and another imperial power during the Pax Britannica and was a resounding defeat
for Russia.[128] The situation remained unresolved in Central Asia for two more
decades, with Britain annexing Baluchistan in 1876 and Russia annexing Kirghizia,
Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. For a while, it appeared that another war would be
inevitable, but the two countries reached an agreement on their respective spheres
of influence in the region in 1878 and on all outstanding matters in 1907 with the
signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente.[130] The destruction of the Imperial Russian
Navy by the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-
Japanese War of 1904–1905 limited its threat to the British.[131]

Cape to Cairo
Main articles: History of South Africa (1815–1910), History of Egypt under the
British, and Scramble for Africa

The Rhodes Colossus—Cecil Rhodes spanning "Cape to Cairo"

The Dutch East India Company had founded the Dutch Cape Colony on the southern tip
of Africa in 1652 as a way station for its ships travelling to and from its
colonies in the East Indies. Britain formally acquired the colony, and its large
Afrikaner (or Boer) population in 1806, having occupied it in 1795 to prevent its
falling into French hands during the Flanders Campaign.[132] British immigration to
the Cape Colony began to rise after 1820, and pushed thousands of Boers, resentful
of British rule, northwards to found their own—mostly short-lived—independent
republics, during the Great Trek of the late 1830s and early 1840s.[133] In the
process the Voortrekkers clashed repeatedly with the British, who had their own
agenda with regard to colonial expansion in South Africa and to the various native
African polities, including those of the Sotho people and the Zulu Kingdom.
Eventually, the Boers established two republics that had a longer lifespan: the
South African Republic or Transvaal Republic (1852–1877; 1881–1902) and the Orange
Free State (1854–1902).[134] In 1902 Britain occupied both republics, concluding a
treaty with the two Boer Republics following the Second Boer War (1899–1902).[135]

In 1869 the Suez Canal opened under Napoleon III, linking the Mediterranean Sea
with the Indian Ocean. Initially the Canal was opposed by the British;[136] but
once opened, its strategic value was quickly recognised and became the "jugular
vein of the Empire".[137] In 1875, the Conservative government of Benjamin Disraeli
bought the indebted Egyptian ruler Isma'il Pasha's 44 per cent shareholding in the
Suez Canal for £4 million (equivalent to £400 million in 2021). Although this did
not grant outright control of the strategic waterway, it did give Britain leverage.
Joint Anglo-French financial control over Egypt ended in outright British
occupation in 1882.[138] Although Britain controlled the Khedivate of Egypt into
the 20th century, it was officially a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire and not
part of the British Empire. The French were still majority shareholders and
attempted to weaken the British position,[139] but a compromise was reached with
the 1888 Convention of Constantinople, which made the Canal officially neutral
territory.[140]

With competitive French, Belgian and Portuguese activity in the lower Congo River
region undermining orderly colonisation of tropical Africa, the Berlin Conference
of 1884–85 was held to regulate the competition between the European powers in what
was called the "Scramble for Africa" by defining "effective occupation" as the
criterion for international recognition of territorial claims.[141] The scramble
continued into the 1890s, and caused Britain to reconsider its decision in 1885 to
withdraw from Sudan. A joint force of British and Egyptian troops defeated the
Mahdist Army in 1896 and rebuffed an attempted French invasion at Fashoda in 1898.
Sudan was nominally made an Anglo-Egyptian condominium, but a British colony in
reality.[142]

British gains in Southern and East Africa prompted Cecil Rhodes, pioneer of British
expansion in Southern Africa, to urge a "Cape to Cairo" railway linking the
strategically important Suez Canal to the mineral-rich south of the continent.[143]
During the 1880s and 1890s, Rhodes, with his privately owned British South Africa
Company, occupied and annexed territories named after him, Rhodesia.[144]

Changing status of the white colonies

Main articles: Dominions, Canadian Confederation, Federation of Australia, Irish
Home Rule movement, and Independence of New Zealand
The path to independence for the white colonies of the British Empire began with
the 1839 Durham Report, which proposed unification and self-government for Upper
and Lower Canada, as a solution to political unrest which had erupted in armed
rebellions in 1837.[145] This began with the passing of the Act of Union in 1840,
which created the Province of Canada. Responsible government was first granted to
Nova Scotia in 1848, and was soon extended to the other British North American
colonies. With the passage of the British North America Act, 1867 by the British
Parliament, the Province of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were formed into
Canada, a confederation enjoying full self-government with the exception of
international relations.[146] Australia and New Zealand achieved similar levels of
self-government after 1900, with the Australian colonies federating in 1901.[147]
The term "dominion status" was officially introduced at the 1907 Imperial
Conference.[148]

The last decades of the 19th century saw concerted political campaigns for Irish
home rule. Ireland had been united with Britain into the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland with the Act of Union 1800 after the Irish Rebellion of 1798,
and had suffered a severe famine between 1845 and 1852. Home rule was supported by
the British Prime minister, William Gladstone, who hoped that Ireland might follow
in Canada's footsteps as a Dominion within the empire, but his 1886 Home Rule bill
was defeated in Parliament. Although the bill, if passed, would have granted
Ireland less autonomy within the UK than the Canadian provinces had within their
own federation,[149] many MPs feared that a partially independent Ireland might
pose a security threat to Great Britain or mark the beginning of the break-up of
the empire.[150] A second Home Rule bill was defeated for similar reasons.[150] A
third bill was passed by Parliament in 1914, but not implemented because of the
outbreak of the First World War leading to the 1916 Easter Rising.[151]

World wars (1914–1945)

A poster urging men from countries of the British Empire to enlist

By the turn of the 20th century, fears had begun to grow in Britain that it would
no longer be able to defend the metropole and the entirety of the empire while at
the same time maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation".[152] Germany was
rapidly rising as a military and industrial power and was now seen as the most
likely opponent in any future war. Recognising that it was overstretched in the
Pacific[153] and threatened at home by the Imperial German Navy, Britain formed an
alliance with Japan in 1902 and with its old enemies France and Russia in 1904 and
1907, respectively.[154]

First World War

Main article: History of the United Kingdom during the First World War
Britain's fears of war with Germany were realised in 1914 with the outbreak of the
First World War. Britain quickly invaded and occupied most of Germany's overseas
colonies in Africa. In the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand occupied German New
Guinea and German Samoa respectively. Plans for a post-war division of the Ottoman
Empire, which had joined the war on Germany's side, were secretly drawn up by
Britain and France under the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement. This agreement was not
divulged to the Sharif of Mecca, who the British had been encouraging to launch an
Arab revolt against their Ottoman rulers, giving the impression that Britain was
supporting the creation of an independent Arab state.[155]

The British declaration of war on Germany and its allies committed the colonies and
Dominions, which provided invaluable military, financial and material support. Over
2.5 million men served in the armies of the Dominions, as well as many thousands of
volunteers from the Crown colonies.[156] The contributions of Australian and New
Zealand troops during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign against the Ottoman Empire had a
great impact on the national consciousness at home and marked a watershed in the
transition of Australia and New Zealand from colonies to nations in their own
right. The countries continue to commemorate this occasion on Anzac Day. Canadians
viewed the Battle of Vimy Ridge in a similar light.[157] The important contribution
of the Dominions to the war effort was recognised in 1917 by the British Prime
Minister David Lloyd George when he invited each of the Dominion Prime Ministers to
join an Imperial War Cabinet to co-ordinate imperial policy.[158]

Under the terms of the concluding Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919, the empire
reached its greatest extent with the addition of 1.8 million sq mi (4.7 million
km2) and 13 million new subjects.[159] The colonies of Germany and the Ottoman
Empire were distributed to the Allied powers as League of Nations mandates. Britain
gained control of Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq, parts of Cameroon and Togoland, and
Tanganyika. The Dominions themselves acquired mandates of their own: the Union of
South Africa gained South West Africa (modern-day Namibia), Australia gained New
Guinea, and New Zealand Western Samoa. Nauru was made a combined mandate of Britain
and the two Pacific Dominions.[160]

Inter-war period
Main articles: Interwar Britain, Irish revolutionary period, Indian independence
movement, Partition of the Ottoman Empire, and Commonwealth of Nations

The British Empire at its territorial peak in 1921

The changing world order that the war had brought about, in particular the growth
of the United States and Japan as naval powers, and the rise of independence
movements in India and Ireland, caused a major reassessment of British imperial
policy.[161] Forced to choose between alignment with the United States or Japan,
Britain opted not to renew its Anglo-Japanese Alliance and instead signed the 1922
Washington Naval Treaty, where Britain accepted naval parity with the United
States.[162] This decision was the source of much debate in Britain during the
1930s[163] as militaristic governments took hold in Germany and Japan helped in
part by the Great Depression, for it was feared that the empire could not survive a
simultaneous attack by both nations.[164] The issue of the empire's security was a
serious concern in Britain, as it was vital to the British economy.[165]

In 1919, the frustrations caused by delays to Irish home rule led the MPs of Sinn
Féin, a pro-independence party that had won a majority of the Irish seats in the
1918 British general election, to establish an independent parliament in Dublin, at
which Irish independence was declared. The Irish Republican Army simultaneously
began a guerrilla war against the British administration.[166] The Irish War of
Independence ended in 1921 with a stalemate and the signing of the Anglo-Irish
Treaty, creating the Irish Free State, a Dominion within the British Empire, with
effective internal independence but still constitutionally linked with the British
Crown.[167] Northern Ireland, consisting of six of the 32 Irish counties which had
been established as a devolved region under the 1920 Government of Ireland Act,
immediately exercised its option under the treaty to retain its existing status
within the United Kingdom.[168]

George V with British and Dominion prime ministers at the 1926 Imperial Conference
A similar struggle began in India when the Government of India Act 1919 failed to
satisfy the demand for independence.[169] Concerns over communist and foreign plots
following the Ghadar conspiracy ensured that war-time strictures were renewed by
the Rowlatt Acts. This led to tension,[170] particularly in the Punjab region,
where repressive measures culminated in the Amritsar Massacre. In Britain, public
opinion was divided over the morality of the massacre, between those who saw it as
having saved India from anarchy, and those who viewed it with revulsion.[170] The
non-cooperation movement was called off in March 1922 following the Chauri Chaura
incident, and discontent continued to simmer for the next 25 years.[171]

In 1922, Egypt, which had been declared a British protectorate at the outbreak of
the First World War, was granted formal independence, though it continued to be a
British client state until 1954. British troops remained stationed in Egypt until
the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in 1936,[172] under which it was agreed
that the troops would withdraw but continue to occupy and defend the Suez Canal
zone. In return, Egypt was assisted in joining the League of Nations.[173] Iraq, a
British mandate since 1920, gained membership of the League in its own right after
achieving independence from Britain in 1932.[174] In Palestine, Britain was
presented with the problem of mediating between the Arabs and increasing numbers of
Jews. The Balfour Declaration, which had been incorporated into the terms of the
mandate, stated that a national home for the Jewish people would be established in
Palestine, and Jewish immigration allowed up to a limit that would be determined by
the mandatory power.[175] This led to increasing conflict with the Arab population,
who openly revolted in 1936. As the threat of war with Germany increased during the
1930s, Britain judged the support of Arabs as more important than the establishment
of a Jewish homeland, and shifted to a pro-Arab stance, limiting Jewish immigration
and in turn triggering a Jewish insurgency.[155]
The right of the Dominions to set their own foreign policy, independent of Britain,
was recognised at the 1923 Imperial Conference.[176] Britain's request for military
assistance from the Dominions at the outbreak of the Chanak Crisis the previous
year had been turned down by Canada and South Africa, and Canada had refused to be
bound by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[177][178] After pressure from the Irish Free
State and South Africa, the 1926 Imperial Conference issued the Balfour Declaration
of 1926, declaring the Dominions to be "autonomous Communities within the British
Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another" within a "British
Commonwealth of Nations".[179] This declaration was given legal substance under the
1931 Statute of Westminster.[148] The parliaments of Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, the Union of South Africa, the Irish Free State and Newfoundland were now
independent of British legislative control, they could nullify British laws and
Britain could no longer pass laws for them without their consent.[180] Newfoundland
reverted to colonial status in 1933, suffering from financial difficulties during
the Great Depression.[181] In 1937 the Irish Free State introduced a republican
constitution renaming itself Ireland.[182]

Second World War

Main article: British Empire in World War II

During the Second World War, the Eighth Army was made up of units from many
different countries in the British Empire and Commonwealth; it fought in the North
African and Italian campaigns.
Britain's declaration of war against Nazi Germany in September 1939 included the
Crown colonies and India but did not automatically commit the Dominions of
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa. All soon declared
war on Germany. While Britain continued to regard Ireland as still within the
British Commonwealth, Ireland chose to remain legally neutral throughout the war.
[183]

After the Fall of France in June 1940, Britain and the empire stood alone against
Germany, until the German invasion of Greece on 7 April 1941. British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill successfully lobbied President Franklin D. Roosevelt for
military aid from the United States, but Roosevelt was not yet ready to ask
Congress to commit the country to war.[184] In August 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt
met and signed the Atlantic Charter, which included the statement that "the rights
of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they live" should be
respected. This wording was ambiguous as to whether it referred to European
countries invaded by Germany and Italy, or the peoples colonised by European
nations, and would later be interpreted differently by the British, Americans, and
nationalist movements.[185][186]

For Churchill, the entry of the United States into the war was the "greatest joy".
[187] He felt that Britain was now assured of victory,[188] but failed to recognise
that the "many disasters, immeasurable costs and tribulations [which he knew] lay
ahead"[189] in December 1941 would have permanent consequences for the future of
the empire. The manner in which British forces were rapidly defeated in the Far
East irreversibly harmed Britain's standing and prestige as an imperial power,[190]
[191] including, particularly, the Fall of Singapore, which had previously been
hailed as an impregnable fortress and the eastern equivalent of Gibraltar.[192] The
realisation that Britain could not defend its entire empire pushed Australia and
New Zealand, which now appeared threatened by Japanese forces, into closer ties
with the United States and, ultimately, the 1951 ANZUS Pact.[185] The war weakened
the empire in other ways: undermining Britain's control of politics in India,
inflicting long-term economic damage, and irrevocably changing geopolitics by
pushing the Soviet Union and the United States to the centre of the global stage.
[193]

Decolonisation and decline (1945–1997)

Further information: Decolonization
Though Britain and the empire emerged victorious from the Second World War, the
effects of the conflict were profound, both at home and abroad. Much of Europe, a
continent that had dominated the world for several centuries, was in ruins, and
host to the armies of the United States and the Soviet Union, who now held the
balance of global power.[194] Britain was left essentially bankrupt, with
insolvency only averted in 1946 after the negotiation of a US$4.33 billion loan
from the United States,[195] the last installment of which was repaid in 2006.[196]
At the same time, anti-colonial movements were on the rise in the colonies of
European nations. The situation was complicated further by the increasing Cold War
rivalry of the United States and the Soviet Union. In principle, both nations were
opposed to European colonialism. In practice, American anti-communism prevailed
over anti-imperialism, and therefore the United States supported the continued
existence of the British Empire to keep Communist expansion in check.[197] At first
British politicians believed it would be possible to maintain Britain's role as a
world power at the head of a re-imagined Commonwealth,[198] but by 1960 they were
forced to recognise that there was an irresistible "wind of change" blowing. Their
priorities changed to maintaining an extensive zone of British influence[199] and
ensuring that stable, non-Communist governments were established in former
colonies.[200] In this context, while other European powers such as France and
Portugal waged costly and unsuccessful wars to keep their empires intact, Britain
generally adopted a policy of peaceful disengagement from its colonies, although
violence occurred in Malaya, Kenya and Palestine.[201] Between 1945 and 1965, the
number of people under British rule outside the UK itself fell from 700 million to
5 million, 3 million of whom were in Hong Kong.[202]

Initial disengagement
Main articles: Partition of India, 1947–1949 Palestine war, and Malayan Emergency

About 14.5 million people lost their homes as a result of the partition of India in
1947.
The pro-decolonisation Labour government, elected at the 1945 general election and
led by Clement Attlee, moved quickly to tackle the most pressing issue facing the
empire: Indian independence.[203] India's two major political parties—the Indian
National Congress (led by Mahatma Gandhi) and the Muslim League (led by Muhammad
Ali Jinnah)—had been campaigning for independence for decades, but disagreed as to
how it should be implemented. Congress favoured a unified secular Indian state,
whereas the League, fearing domination by the Hindu majority, desired a separate
Islamic state for Muslim-majority regions. Increasing civil unrest and the mutiny
of the Royal Indian Navy during 1946 led Attlee to promise independence no later
than 30 June 1948. When the urgency of the situation and risk of civil war became
apparent, the newly appointed (and last) Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, hastily brought
forward the date to 15 August 1947.[204] The borders drawn by the British to
broadly partition India into Hindu and Muslim areas left tens of millions as
minorities in the newly independent states of India and Pakistan.[205] Millions of
Muslims crossed from India to Pakistan and Hindus vice versa, and violence between
the two communities cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Burma, which had been
administered as part of the British Raj, and Sri Lanka gained their independence
the following year in 1948. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka became members of the
Commonwealth, while Burma chose not to join.[206]

The British Mandate in Palestine, where an Arab majority lived alongside a Jewish
minority, presented the British with a similar problem to that of India.[207] The
matter was complicated by large numbers of Jewish refugees seeking to be admitted
to Palestine following the Holocaust, while Arabs were opposed to the creation of a
Jewish state. Frustrated by the intractability of the problem, attacks by Jewish
paramilitary organisations and the increasing cost of maintaining its military
presence, Britain announced in 1947 that it would withdraw in 1948 and leave the
matter to the United Nations to solve.[208] The UN General Assembly subsequently
voted for a plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. It was
immediately followed by the outbreak of a civil war between the Arabs and Jews of
Palestine, and British forces withdrew amid the fighting. The British Mandate for
Palestine officially terminated at midnight on 15 May 1948 as the State of Israel
declared independence and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War broke out, during which the
territory of the former Mandate was partitioned between Israel and the surrounding
Arab states. Amid the fighting, British forces continued to withdraw from Israel,
with the last British troops departing from Haifa on 30 June 1948.[209]

Following the surrender of Japan in the Second World War, anti-Japanese resistance
movements in Malaya turned their attention towards the British, who had moved to
quickly retake control of the colony, valuing it as a source of rubber and tin.
[210] The fact that the guerrillas were primarily Malaysian Chinese Communists
meant that the British attempt to quell the uprising was supported by the Muslim
Malay majority, on the understanding that once the insurgency had been quelled,
independence would be granted.[210] The Malayan Emergency, as it was called, began
in 1948 and lasted until 1960, but by 1957, Britain felt confident enough to grant
independence to the Federation of Malaya within the Commonwealth. In 1963, the 11
states of the federation together with Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo joined
to form Malaysia, but in 1965 Chinese-majority Singapore was expelled from the
union following tensions between the Malay and Chinese populations and became an
independent city-state.[211] Brunei, which had been a British protectorate since
1888, declined to join the union.[212]

Suez and its aftermath

Main article: Suez Crisis

Eden's decision to invade Egypt in 1956 revealed Britain's post-war weaknesses.

In the 1951 general election, the Conservative Party returned to power in Britain
under the leadership of Winston Churchill. Churchill and the Conservatives believed
that Britain's position as a world power relied on the continued existence of the
empire, with the base at the Suez Canal allowing Britain to maintain its pre-
eminent position in the Middle East in spite of the loss of India. Churchill could
not ignore Gamal Abdul Nasser's new revolutionary government of Egypt that had
taken power in 1952, and the following year it was agreed that British troops would
withdraw from the Suez Canal zone and that Sudan would be granted self-
determination by 1955, with independence to follow.[213] Sudan was granted
independence on 1 January 1956.[214]

In July 1956, Nasser unilaterally nationalised the Suez Canal. The response of
Anthony Eden, who had succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister, was to collude with
France to engineer an Israeli attack on Egypt that would give Britain and France an
excuse to intervene militarily and retake the canal.[215] Eden infuriated US
President Dwight D. Eisenhower by his lack of consultation, and Eisenhower refused
to back the invasion.[216] Another of Eisenhower's concerns was the possibility of
a wider war with the Soviet Union after it threatened to intervene on the Egyptian
side. Eisenhower applied financial leverage by threatening to sell US reserves of
the British pound and thereby precipitate a collapse of the British currency.[217]
Though the invasion force was militarily successful in its objectives,[218] UN
intervention and US pressure forced Britain into a humiliating withdrawal of its
forces, and Eden resigned.[219][220]

The Suez Crisis very publicly exposed Britain's limitations to the world and
confirmed Britain's decline on the world stage and its end as a first-rate power,
[221][222] demonstrating that henceforth it could no longer act without at least
the acquiescence, if not the full support, of the United States.[223][224][225] The
events at Suez wounded British national pride, leading one Member of Parliament
(MP) to describe it as "Britain's Waterloo"[226] and another to suggest that the
country had become an "American satellite".[227] Margaret Thatcher later described
the mindset she believed had befallen Britain's political leaders after Suez where
they "went from believing that Britain could do anything to an almost neurotic
belief that Britain could do nothing", from which Britain did not recover until the
successful recapture of the Falkland Islands from Argentina in 1982.[228]

While the Suez Crisis caused British power in the Middle East to weaken, it did not
collapse.[229] Britain again deployed its armed forces to the region, intervening
in Oman (1957), Jordan (1958) and Kuwait (1961), though on these occasions with
American approval,[230] as the new Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's foreign policy
was to remain firmly aligned with the United States.[226] Although Britain granted
Kuwait independence in 1961, it continued to maintain a military presence in the
Middle East for another decade. On 16 January 1968, a few weeks after the
devaluation of the pound, Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his Defence Secretary
Denis Healey announced that British Armed Forces troops would be withdrawn from
major military bases East of Suez, which included the ones in the Middle East, and
primarily from Malaysia and Singapore by the end of 1971, instead of 1975 as
earlier planned.[231] By that time over 50,000 British military personnel were
still stationed in the Far East, including 30,000 in Singapore.[232] The British
granted independence to the Maldives in 1965 but continued to station a garrison
there until 1976, withdrew from Aden in 1967, and granted independence to Bahrain,
Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates in 1971.[233]

Wind of change
Main articles: Decolonisation of Africa and Decolonization of Asia
Further information: Wind of Change (speech)

British decolonisation in Africa. By the end of the 1960s, all but Rhodesia (the
future Zimbabwe) and the South African mandate of South West Africa (Namibia) had
achieved recognised independence.
Macmillan gave a speech in Cape Town, South Africa in February 1960 where he spoke
of "the wind of change blowing through this continent".[234] Macmillan wished to
avoid the same kind of colonial war that France was fighting in Algeria, and under
his premiership decolonisation proceeded rapidly.[235] To the three colonies that
had been granted independence in the 1950s—Sudan, the Gold Coast and Malaya—were
added nearly ten times that number during the 1960s.[236]

Britain's remaining colonies in Africa, except for self-governing Southern

Rhodesia, were all granted independence by 1968. British withdrawal from the
southern and eastern parts of Africa was not a peaceful process. Kenyan
independence was preceded by the eight-year Mau Mau uprising, in which tens of
thousands of suspected rebels were interned by the colonial government in detention
camps.[237] In Rhodesia, the 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the
white minority resulted in a civil war that lasted until the Lancaster House
Agreement of 1979, which set the terms for recognised independence in 1980, as the
new nation of Zimbabwe.[238]

In Cyprus, a guerrilla war waged by the Greek Cypriot organisation EOKA against
British rule, was ended in 1959 by the London and Zürich Agreements, which resulted
in Cyprus being granted independence in 1960. The UK retained the military bases of
Akrotiri and Dhekelia as sovereign base areas. The Mediterranean colony of Malta
was amicably granted independence from the UK in 1964 and became the country of
Malta, though the idea had been raised in 1955 of integration with Britain.[239]

Most of the UK's Caribbean territories achieved independence after the departure in
1961 and 1962 of Jamaica and Trinidad from the West Indies Federation, established
in 1958 in an attempt to unite the British Caribbean colonies under one government,
but which collapsed following the loss of its two largest members.[240] Jamaica
attained independence in 1962, as did Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados achieved
independence in 1966 and the remainder of the eastern Caribbean islands, including
the Bahamas, in the 1970s and 1980s,[240] but Anguilla and the Turks and Caicos
Islands opted to revert to British rule after they had already started on the path
to independence.[241] The British Virgin Islands,[242] The Cayman Islands and
Montserrat opted to retain ties with Britain,[243] while Guyana achieved
independence in 1966. Britain's last colony on the American mainland, British
Honduras, became a self-governing colony in 1964 and was renamed Belize in 1973,
achieving full independence in 1981. A dispute with Guatemala over claims to Belize
was left unresolved.[244]

British Overseas Territories in the Pacific acquired independence in the 1970s

beginning with Fiji in 1970 and ending with Vanuatu in 1980. Vanuatu's independence
was delayed because of political conflict between English and French-speaking
communities, as the islands had been jointly administered as a condominium with
France.[245] Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu became Commonwealth
realms.[246]

End of empire
See also: Falklands War, Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, and Patriation
By 1981, aside from a scattering of islands and outposts, the process of
decolonisation that had begun after the Second World War was largely complete. In
1982, Britain's resolve in defending its remaining overseas territories was tested
when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, acting on a long-standing claim that
dated back to the Spanish Empire.[247] Britain's successful military response to
retake the Falkland Islands during the ensuing Falklands War contributed to
reversing the downward trend in Britain's status as a world power.[248]

The 1980s saw Canada, Australia, and New Zealand sever their final constitutional
links with Britain. Although granted legislative independence by the Statute of
Westminster 1931, vestigial constitutional links had remained in place. The British
Parliament retained the power to amend key Canadian constitutional statutes,
meaning that effectively an act of the British Parliament was required to make
certain changes to the Canadian Constitution.[249] The British Parliament had the
power to pass laws extending to Canada at Canadian request. Although no longer able
to pass any laws that would apply as Australian Commonwealth law, the British
Parliament retained the power to legislate for the individual Australian states.
With regard to New Zealand, the British Parliament retained the power to pass
legislation applying to New Zealand with the New Zealand Parliament's consent. In
1982, the last legal link between Canada and Britain was severed by the Canada Act
1982, which was passed by the British parliament, formally patriating the Canadian
Constitution. The act ended the need for British involvement in changes to the
Canadian constitution.[9] Similarly, the Australia Act 1986 (effective 3 March
1986) severed the constitutional link between Britain and the Australian states,
while New Zealand's Constitution Act 1986 (effective 1 January 1987) reformed the
constitution of New Zealand to sever its constitutional link with Britain.[250]

On 1 January 1984, Brunei, Britain's last remaining Asian protectorate, was granted
independence.[251] Independence had been delayed due to the opposition of the
Sultan, who had preferred British protection.[252]

In September 1982 the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, travelled to Beijing to

negotiate with the Chinese Communist government, on the future of Britain's last
major and most populous overseas territory, Hong Kong.[253] Under the terms of the
1842 Treaty of Nanking and 1860 Convention of Peking, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon
Peninsula had been respectively ceded to Britain in perpetuity, but the majority of
the colony consisted of the New Territories, which had been acquired under a 99-
year lease in 1898, due to expire in 1997.[254][255] Thatcher, seeing parallels
with the Falkland Islands, initially wished to hold Hong Kong and proposed British
administration with Chinese sovereignty, though this was rejected by China.[256] A
deal was reached in 1984—under the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration,
Hong Kong would become a special administrative region of the People's Republic of
China.[257] The handover ceremony in 1997 marked for many,[8] including Charles,
Prince of Wales, who was in attendance, "the end of Empire".[9]

Legacy
Main articles: British Overseas Territories, English-speaking world, Westminster
system, and Common law

The fourteen British Overseas Territories

Britain retains sovereignty over 14 territories outside the British Isles. In 1983,
the British Nationality Act 1981 renamed the existing Crown Colonies as "British
Dependent Territories",[note 1] and in 2002 they were renamed the British Overseas
Territories.[260] Most former British colonies and protectorates are members of the
Commonwealth of Nations, a voluntary association of equal members, comprising a
population of around 2.2 billion people.[261] The United Kingdom and 14 other
countries, all collectively known as the Commonwealth realms, voluntarily continue
to share the same person—King Charles III—as their respective head of state. These
15 nations are distinct and equal legal entities: the United Kingdom, Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica,
Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.[262]

Decades, and in some cases centuries, of British rule and emigration have left
their mark on the independent nations that arose from the British Empire. The
empire established the use of the English language in regions around the world.
Today it is the primary language of up to 460 million people and is spoken by about
1.5 billion as a first, second or foreign language.[263] Individual and team sports
developed in Britain, particularly football, cricket, lawn tennis, and golf were
exported.[264] British missionaries who travelled around the globe often in advance
of soldiers and civil servants spread Protestantism (including Anglicanism) to all
continents. The British Empire provided refuge for religiously persecuted
continental Europeans for hundreds of years.[265]

Cricket being played in India. Sports developed in Britain or the former empire
continue to be viewed and played.
Political boundaries drawn by the British did not always reflect homogeneous
ethnicities or religions, contributing to conflicts in formerly colonised areas.
The British Empire was responsible for large migrations of peoples. Millions left
the British Isles, with the founding settler colonist populations of the United
States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand coming mainly from Britain and Ireland.
Tensions remain between the white settler populations of these countries and their
indigenous minorities, and between white settler minorities and indigenous
majorities in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Settlers in Ireland from Great Britain
have left their mark in the form of divided nationalist and unionist communities in
Northern Ireland. Millions of people moved to and from British colonies, with large
numbers of Overseas Indian people emigrating to other parts of the empire, such as
Malaysia and Fiji, and Overseas Chinese people to Malaysia, Singapore and the
Caribbean.[266] The demographics of the United Kingdom itself were changed after
the Second World War owing to immigration to Britain from its former colonies.[267]

In the 19th century, innovation in Britain led to revolutionary changes in

manufacturing, the development of factory systems, and the growth of transportation
by railway and steamship.[268] British colonial architecture, such as in churches,
railway stations and government buildings, can be seen in many cities that were
once part of the British Empire.[269] The British choice of system of measurement,
the imperial system, continues to be used in some countries in various ways. The
convention of driving on the left-hand side of the road has been retained in much
of the former empire.[270]
The Westminster system of parliamentary democracy has served as the template for
the governments for many former colonies,[271][272] and English common law for
legal systems.[273] International commercial contracts are often based on English
common law.[274] The British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council still serves
as the highest court of appeal for twelve former colonies.[275]

Historians' approaches to understanding the British Empire are diverse and

evolving.[276] Two key sites of debate over recent decades have been the impact of
post-colonial studies, which seek to critically re-evaluate the history of
imperialism, and the continued relevance of historians Ronald Robinson and John
Gallagher, whose work greatly influenced imperial historiography during the 1950s
and 1960s. In addition, differing assessments of the empire's legacy remain
relevant to debates over recent history and politics, such as the Anglo-American
invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Britain's role and identity in the
contemporary world.[277][278]

Historians such as Caroline Elkins have argued against perceptions of the British
Empire as a primarily liberalising and modernising enterprise, criticising its
widespread use of violence and emergency laws to maintain power.[278][279][page
needed] Common criticisms of the empire include the use of detention camps in its
colonies, massacres of indigenous peoples,[280] and famine-response policies.[281]
[282] Some scholars, including Amartya Sen, assert that British policies worsened
the famines in India that killed millions during British rule.[283] Conversely,
historians such as Niall Ferguson say that the economic and institutional
development the British Empire brought resulted in a net benefit to its colonies.
[284] Other historians treat its legacy as varied and ambiguous.[278] Public
attitudes towards the empire within Britain remain somewhat positive.[282][285]

Notes
Schedule 6 of the British Nationality Act 1981[258] reclassified the remaining
Crown colonies as "British Dependent Territories". The act entered into force on 1
January 1983[259]
See also
List of British Empire-related topics
Historiography of the British Empire
Demographics of the British Empire
Economy of the British Empire
Territorial evolution of the British Empire
History of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom
Historical flags of the British Empire and the overseas territories
List of countries that gained independence from the United Kingdom
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