The British Empire was composed of the
dominions,
colonies,
protectorates,
mandates, and other
territories ruled or administered by the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and its predecessor states. It began with the
overseas possessions and
trading posts established by
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the Europ ...
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. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered , 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.
During the
Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries,
Portugal and
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, and the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Neth ...
began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along wi ...
and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
. 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
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-la ...
. Britain became the dominant power in the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, coveri ...
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
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of ...
, 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 ("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
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...
.
[ Porter, p. 8.][ Marshall, pp. 156–57.] 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
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...
had begun to challenge Britain's economic lead. Military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in ...
, 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
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, Britain's colonies in
East Asia and
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographi ...
were occupied by the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
. Despite the final victory of Britain and
its allies, the damage to British prestige helped accelerate the decline of the empire.
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on th ...
, 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.
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)

The foundations of the British Empire were laid when
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the Europ ...
and
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the ...
were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King
Henry VII of England, following the successes of
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
and
Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned
John Cabot to lead an expedition to discover a
northwest passage to Asia via the North Atlantic. 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, 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.
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. In the meantime,
Henry VIII's 1533
Statute in Restraint of Appeals had declared "that this realm of England is an Empire". The
Protestant Reformation turned
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the Europ ...
and
Catholic Spain into implacable enemies. 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 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. At the same time, influential writers such as
Richard Hakluyt and
John Dee (who was the first to use the term "British Empire") 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
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of ...
and
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's List of countries and dependencie ...
to
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India
India, officially the Republic of India ...
, and France had begun to settle the
Saint Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is b ...
area, later to become
New France.
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
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
by settling
English Protestants in
Ulster. England had already colonised part of the country following the
Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. 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.
English overseas possessions (1583–1707)
In 1578, Elizabeth I granted a patent to
Humphrey Gilbert for discovery and overseas exploration. That year, Gilbert sailed for the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both 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. 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
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virgin ...
, but lack of supplies caused the colony to fail.
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. 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".
Americas, Africa and the slave trade

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. Colonies on the Caribbean islands of
St Lucia (1605) and
Grenada (1609) rapidly folded.
[ Canny, p. 221.] 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.
Bermuda was settled and claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck of the Virginia Company's
flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the ...
, while
attempts to settle Newfoundland were largely unsuccessful. In 1620,
Plymouth was founded as a haven by
Puritan religious separatists, later known as the
Pilgrims. 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
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but ...
(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. 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.
The
British West Indies initially provided England's most important and lucrative colonies. Settlements were successfully established in
St. Kitts (1624),
Barbados (1627) and
Nevis (1628),
but struggled until the "Sugar Revolution" transformed the Caribbean economy in the mid-17th century.
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. The enormous wealth generated by slave-produced sugar made Barbados the most successful colony in the Americas, and one of the most densely populated places in the world.
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.
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. In 1655, England annexed the island of
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, D ...
from the Spanish, and in 1666 succeeded in colonising the
Bahamas.
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.
[ Buckner, p. 25.]
Two years later, the
Royal African Company was granted a monopoly on the supply of slaves to the British colonies in the Caribbean. 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. 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. British ships carried a third of all slaves shipped across the Atlantic—approximately 3.5 million Africans—and dominated global slave trading in the 25 years preceding its abolition by Parliament in 1807 (see ). 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). The transatlantic slave trade played a pervasive role in British economic life, and became a major economic mainstay for western port cities. Ships registered in
Bristol,
Liverpool and
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a ma ...
were responsible for the bulk of British slave trading. 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.
Rivalry with other European empires

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. Although England eclipsed the Netherlands as a colonial power, in the short term the Netherlands' more advanced financial system 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.
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. 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.
In 1701, England, Portugal and the Netherlands sided with the
Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the
War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, P ...
, which lasted for thirteen years.
Scottish attempt to expand overseas
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. 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
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the Europ ...
into a political and economic one under the
Kingdom of Great Britain established by the
Acts of Union 1707.
"First" British Empire (1707–1783)

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. 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.
[ Shennan, pp. 11–17.] 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. 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
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...
.
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. During the middle decades of the 18th century, there were
several outbreaks of military conflict on the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, coveri ...
, 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 Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a ...
. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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,
and the
ceding of New France to Britain (leaving a sizeable
French-speaking population under British control) and
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) ...
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.
[ Pagden, p. 91.]
Loss of the Thirteen American Colonies

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. This was summarised at the time by the 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 United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost ent ...
. 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.
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, 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.
The growth of trade between the newly independent
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...
and Britain after 1783 seemed to confirm Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success.
The war to the south influenced British policy in Canada, where between 40,000 and 100,000 defeated
Loyalists had migrated from the new United States following independence. 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
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English a ...
as a separate colony in 1784. 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.
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
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Wa ...
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.
Rise of the "Second" British Empire (1783–1815)
Exploration of the Pacific

Since 1718,
transportation to the American colonies had been a penalty for various offences in Britain, with approximately one thousand convicts transported per year. Forced to find an alternative location after the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in 1783, the British government turned to
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country b ...
. The
coast of Australia had been discovered for Europeans by the Dutch
in 1606,
[ Mulligan & Hill, pp. 20–23.] 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. 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. Unusually, Australia was claimed through proclamation.
Indigenous Australians were considered too uncivilised to require treaties, and colonisation brought disease and violence that together with the deliberate dispossession of land and culture were devastating to these peoples. Britain continued to transport convicts to New South Wales until 1840, to
Tasmania until 1853 and to
Western Australia until 1868. The Australian colonies became profitable exporters of wool and gold, mainly because of the
Victorian gold rush, making its capital
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a ...
for a time the richest city in the world.
During his voyage, Cook visited
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Souther ...
, 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.
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. 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.
On land, expeditions sought to discover a river route to the Pacific for the extension of the
North American fur trade
The North American fur trade is the commercial trade in furs in North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic O ...
.
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.
Wars with France

Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon, in a struggle that, unlike previous wars, represented a contest of ideologies between the two nations. 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.
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. 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
Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label=Réunion Creole, Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region ...
to France;
Menorca to Spain;
Danish West Indies to Denmark and
Java and
Suriname to the Netherlands.
[ James, p. 165.]
Abolition of slavery
With the advent of the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, goods produced by slavery became less important to the
British economy. 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
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to per ...
in the empire. In 1808,
Sierra Leone Colony was designated an official British colony for freed slaves. 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". Facing further opposition from abolitionists, the apprenticeship system was abolished in 1838. The British government compensated slave-owners.
Britain's imperial century (1815–1914)
Between 1815 and 1914, a period referred to as Britain's "imperial century" by some historians, around of territory and roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire. Victory over Napoleon left Britain without any serious international rival, other than
Russia in Central Asia.
[ Porter, p. 401.] Unchallenged at sea, Britain adopted the role of global policeman, a state of affairs later known as the ''
Pax Britannica'',
[ Porter, p. 332.] and a foreign policy of "
splendid isolation". 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".

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.
East India Company rule and the British Raj in India
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), the
capture of Java from the Netherlands (1811), the
acquisition of Penang Island (1786),
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of ...
(1819) and
Malacca
Malacca ( ms, Melaka) is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, next to the Strait of Malacca. Its capital is Malacca City, dubbed the Historic City, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Si ...
(1824), and the
defeat of Burma (1826).
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. 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
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is th ...
.
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. 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. 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. India became the empire's most valuable possession, "the Jewel in the Crown", and was the most important source of Britain's strength.
[ Brown, p. 5.]
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.
Rivalry with Russia

During the 19th century, Britain and the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
vied to fill the power vacuums that had been left by the declining
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...
,
Qajar dynasty and
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu people, Manchu-led Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin (1616–1636), La ...
. This rivalry in Central Asia came to be known as the "Great Game". As far as Britain was concerned, defeats inflicted by Russia on
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and T ...
and
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
demonstrated its imperial ambitions and capabilities and stoked fears in Britain of an overland invasion of India. In 1839, Britain moved to pre-empt this by invading
Afghanistan, but the
First Anglo-Afghan War was a disaster for Britain.
[ James, p. 182.]
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
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...
and invade the
Crimean Peninsula to destroy Russian naval capabilities.
The ensuing
Crimean War (1854–1856), which involved new techniques of
modern warfare, was the only
global war fought between Britain and another
imperial power during the ''Pax Britannica'' and was a resounding defeat for Russia.
The situation remained unresolved in Central Asia for two more decades, with Britain annexing
Baluchistan in 1876 and Russia annexing
Kirghizia,
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to Kazakhstan–Russia border, the north and ...
, 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. The destruction of the
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a ...
by the
Imperial Japanese Navy at the
Battle of Tsushima during the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 limited its threat to the British.
[ Hodge, p. 47.]
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. 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. 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). In 1902 Britain occupied both republics, concluding a treaty with the two
Boer Republics following the
Second Boer War (1899–1902).
In 1869 the
Suez Canal opened under
Napoleon III, linking the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin
In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands ...
with the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is eith ...
. Initially the Canal was opposed by the British; but once opened, its strategic value was quickly recognised and became the "jugular vein of the Empire". 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 £ in ). 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. 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, but a compromise was reached with the 1888
Convention of Constantinople, which made the Canal officially neutral territory.
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. 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.
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. During the 1880s and 1890s, Rhodes, with his privately owned
British South Africa Company,
occupied and annexed territories named after him,
Rhodesia.
Changing status of the white colonies
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. 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. Australia and New Zealand achieved similar levels of self-government after 1900, with the Australian colonies
federating in 1901. The term "dominion status" was officially introduced at the
1907 Imperial Conference.
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
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a 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, 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.
[ James, p. 315.] A
second Home Rule bill was defeated for similar reasons.
A
third bill was passed by Parliament in 1914, but not implemented because of the outbreak of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in ...
leading to the 1916
Easter Rising.
World wars (1914–1945)

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".
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
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 and threatened at home by the
Imperial German Navy, Britain
formed an alliance with Japan in 1902 and with its old enemies
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and Russia in 1904 and 1907, respectively.
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.
[ Brown, pp. 494–95.]
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. 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. 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.
Under the terms of the concluding
Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919, the empire reached its greatest extent with the addition of and 13 million new subjects. 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
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf a ...
, 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
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approx ...
), Australia gained
New Guinea, and New Zealand
Western Samoa.
Nauru was made a combined mandate of Britain and the two Pacific Dominions.
Inter-war period

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. 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.
[ Louis, p. 302.] This decision was the source of much debate in Britain during the 1930s as militaristic governments took hold in Germany and Japan helped in part by the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States
The United Stat ...
, for it was feared that the empire could not survive a simultaneous attack by both nations. The issue of the empire's security was a serious concern in Britain, as it was vital to the
British economy.
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
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 201 ...
, at which
Irish independence was declared. The
Irish Republican Army simultaneously began a
guerrilla war against the British administration. 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.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...
, 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.

A similar struggle began in India when the
Government of India Act 1919 failed to satisfy the demand for independence. 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,
[ James, p. 416.] 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.
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.
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, 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. Iraq, a British mandate since 1920, gained membership of the League in its own right after achieving independence from Britain in 1932. 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. 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.
The right of the Dominions to set their own foreign policy, independent of Britain, was recognised at the
1923 Imperial Conference. 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. 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". This declaration was given legal substance under the 1931
Statute of Westminster.
[ Rhodes, Wanna & Weller, pp. 5–15.] 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. Newfoundland reverted to colonial status in 1933, suffering from financial difficulties during the Great Depression. In 1937 the Irish Free State introduced a
republican constitution renaming itself ''Ireland''.
Second World War

Britain's declaration of war against
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
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.
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. 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.
[ Lloyd, p. 316.]
For Churchill, the entry of the United States into the war was the "greatest joy". He felt that Britain was now assured of victory, but failed to recognise that the "many disasters, immeasurable costs and tribulations
hich he knewlay ahead" 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, including, particularly, the
Fall of Singapore, which had previously been hailed as an impregnable fortress and the eastern equivalent of Gibraltar. 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.
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.
Decolonisation and decline (1945–1997)
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. 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, the last installment of which was repaid in 2006.
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
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of Geopolitics, geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term ''Cold war (term), co ...
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. 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, 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 and ensuring that stable, non-Communist governments were established in former colonies. 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. 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.
Initial disengagement

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. 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. 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
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, ...
. 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.
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. 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. 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
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
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.
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.
[ Lloyd, p. 335.] 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.
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
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia
...
, but in 1965 Chinese-majority
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of ...
was expelled from the union following tensions between the Malay and Chinese populations and became an independent city-state.
Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, ...
, which had been a British protectorate since 1888, declined to join the union.
Suez and its aftermath

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. Sudan was
granted independence on 1 January 1956.
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
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
that would give Britain and France an excuse to intervene militarily and retake the canal. Eden infuriated US President
Dwight D. Eisenhower by his lack of consultation, and Eisenhower refused to back the invasion. Another of Eisenhower's concerns was the possibility of a wider war with the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...
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. Though the invasion force was militarily successful in its objectives, UN intervention and US pressure forced Britain into a humiliating withdrawal of its forces, and Eden resigned.
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, demonstrating that henceforth it could no longer act without at least the acquiescence, if not the full support, of the United States. The events at Suez wounded British
national pride, leading one
Member of Parliament (MP) to describe it as "Britain's
Waterloo"
[ Brown, p. 343.] and another to suggest that the country had become an "American
satellite".
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.
While the Suez Crisis caused British power in the Middle East to weaken, it did not collapse. Britain again deployed its armed forces to the region, intervening in
Oman (
1957),
Jordan (
1958) and
Kuwait (
1961
Events January
* January 3
** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba ( Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015).
** Aero Flight ...
), though on these occasions with American approval, as the new Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan's foreign policy was to remain firmly aligned with the United States.
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
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. H ...
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. By that time over 50,000 British military personnel were still stationed in the Far East, including 30,000 in Singapore. 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
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (Middle East, The Middle East). It is ...
in 1971.
Wind of change

Macmillan gave a speech in
Cape Town, South Africa in February 1960 where he spoke of "the wind of change blowing through this continent". Macmillan wished to avoid the same kind of
colonial war that France was fighting in
Algeria, and under his premiership decolonisation proceeded rapidly. 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.
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. 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.
In
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to th ...
, 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.
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.
[ Knight & Palmer, pp. 14–15.] 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,
but
Anguilla
Anguilla ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (som ...
and the
Turks and Caicos Islands opted to revert to British rule after they had already started on the path to independence. The
British Virgin Islands, The
Cayman Islands and
Montserrat opted to retain ties with Britain, 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.
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. Fiji,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
,
Solomon Islands and
Tuvalu became
Commonwealth realm
A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state in the Commonwealth of Nations whose monarch and head of state is shared among the other realms. Each realm functions as an independent state, equal with the other realms and nations of the Commonw ...
s.
End of empire
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. 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.
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. 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.
[ Brown, p. 594.] 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.
On 1 January 1984, Brunei, Britain's last remaining Asian protectorate, was granted independence. Independence had been delayed due to the opposition of the
Sultan, who had preferred British protection.
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. 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. 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. 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. The
handover ceremony in 1997 marked for many,
[ Brendon, p. 660.] including
Charles, Prince of Wales, who was in attendance, "the end of Empire".
Legacy

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", and in 2002 they were renamed the
British Overseas Territories.
[ Gapes, pp. 145–47] 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. Fifteen Commonwealth realms voluntarily continue to share the British monarch, King Charles III, as their head of state. These fifteen nations are distinct and equal legal entities – the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country b ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic O ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Souther ...
,
Antigua and Barbuda,
The Bahamas,
Belize,
Grenada,
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, D ...
,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
,
Saint Kitts and Nevis,
Saint Lucia,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,
Solomon Islands and
Tuvalu.
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
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...
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. Individual and team sports developed in Britain, particularly
football,
cricket,
lawn tennis, and
golf were exported. British
missionaries
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
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.
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
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
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. The
demographics of the United Kingdom itself were changed after the Second World War owing to
immigration to Britain from its former colonies.
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. 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. 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.
The
Westminster system of
parliamentary democracy has served as the template for the governments for many former colonies, and
English common law for legal systems. International commercial contracts are often based on English common law. The British
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council still serves as the highest court of appeal for twelve former colonies.
Historians'
approaches to understanding the British Empire are diverse and evolving.
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.
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.
Common criticisms of the empire include the use of detention camps in its colonies, massacres of
indigenous peoples,
and famine-response policies.
Some scholars, including
Amartya Sen, assert that British policies worsened the
famines in India that killed millions during British rule.
[Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. ch 7] 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. Other historians treat its legacy as varied and ambiguous.
Public attitudes towards the empire within Britain remain somewhat positive.
Notes
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
References
Works cited
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External links
Collection: "British Empire"from the
University of Michigan Museum of Art
{{Authority control
Former empires
Imperialism
Victorian era
1583 establishments in the British Empire
States and territories established in 1583
States and territories disestablished in 1997
Overseas empires
History of the United Kingdom
Former countries in Ireland
Historical transcontinental empires