United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

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United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland

18011927
[note 1]

Flag Royal coat of arms
Anthem
"God Save the King" (before 1837/190122)
"God Save the Queen" (18371901)
Location of the United Kingdom (green)
in 1914 Europe (green & dark grey)
Capital London
5130N 07W
Languages English (official), Scots,
Irish, Scottish Gaelic,
Welsh
Religion Anglicanism,
Catholicism,
Presbyterianism,
Methodism, Judaism
Government Unitary parliamentary
constitutional monarchy
Monarch
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was
the formal name of the United Kingdom between
1801 and 1927, reflecting the fact that until 1922, all
of Ireland was a part of the state. The state came into
being on 1 January 1801 under the terms of the Acts
of Union 1800, by which the formerly separate
kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were united.
In 1922, twenty-six of thirty-two counties of Ireland
seceded to form the Irish Free State, later the
Republic of Ireland. The Royal and Parliamentary
Titles Act 1927 amended the name of the Parliament
of the United Kingdom to reflect the change in the
country's boundaries, and the Act is conventionally
considered to mark the point when the name of the
state changed to the "United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland".
The period began with the newly formed United
Kingdom defeating France in the Napoleonic Wars.
As a direct result of this, the British Empire became
the foremost world power for the next century.
[1]
Great Britain and the north-east of Ireland
industrialised rapidly, whereas the rest of Ireland did
not, deepening economic and social disparities
between them. A devastating famine, exacerbated by
government inaction in the mid-19th century led to
demographic collapse in much of Ireland, and
increased calls for Irish land reform and the
devolution of executive power. After the Great War,
the rise of Irish nationalism and republicanism
eventually culminated in the Irish War of
Independence, and in 1922, the partition of Ireland
between the newly founded Irish Free State and the
north-east, which opted to remain part of the United
Kingdom as Northern Ireland.
Contents
1 1801 to 1837
1.1 Union of Great Britain and Ireland
1.2 Napoleonic Wars
1.3 George IV and William IV
1.4 Whig reforms of the 1830s
1.5 Leadership
Name in other languages
0:00 MENU
- 18011820 George III
- 18201830 George IV
- 18301837 William IV
- 18371901 Victoria
- 19011910 Edward VII
- 19101927 George V
Prime Minister
- 18011804 Henry Addington (first)
- 19241927 Stanley Baldwin (last)
Legislature Parliament
- Upper house House of Lords
- Lower house House of Commons
History
- Acts of Union 1800 1 January 1801
- Anglo-Irish Treaty 6 December 1922
- Formal name change 12 April 1927
Area
- 18011922 315,093 km
(121,658 sq mi)
Population
- 1801 est. 16,000,000
Density 50.8 /km (131.5 /sq mi)
- 1911 census est. 45,370,530
Density 144 /km (372.9 /sq mi)
Currency Pound sterling
Today part of Ireland
United Kingdom
2 Victorian era
2.1 Foreign policy
2.2 Free trade imperialism
2.3 Russia, France and the Ottoman
Empire
2.4 American Civil War
2.5 Empire expands
2.6 Ireland and the move to Home
Rule
2.7 Leadership
2.7.1 Queen Victoria
2.7.2 Disraeli
2.7.3 Gladstone
2.7.4 Salisbury
2.7.5 Morality
3 Early 20th century
3.1 Edwardian era 19011914
3.2 Great War
3.3 Anglo-Irish War/Irish Civil War
3.4 Independence of the Irish Free
State
3.4.1 Partition of Ireland
3.5 Legacy
4 Ireland under the Union
4.1 Early Irish opposition to the Union
4.2 Campaign for Irish Home Rule
4.3 Home Rule in the balance
4.4 Rebellion
5 List of monarchs
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References
9 Sources
10 External links
1801 to 1837
Union of Great Britain and Ireland
The British HMS Sandwich fires to
the French flagship Bucentaure
(completely dismasted) into battle off
Trafalgar. The Bucentaure also fights
HMS Victory (behind her) and HMS
Temeraire (left side of the picture). In
fact, HMS Sandwich never fought at
Trafalgar, it's a mistake from Auguste
Mayer, the painter.
[2]
The Kingdom of Ireland was a settler state; the monarch was the incumbent monarch of England and
later of Great Britain. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland headed the government on behalf of the monarch.
He was assisted by the Chief Secretary of Ireland. Both were responsible to the government in London
rather than to the Parliament of Ireland. Before the Constitution of 1782, the Irish parliament was also
severely fettered, and decisions in Irish courts could be overturned on appeal to the British House of
Lords in London.
Ireland gained a degree of independence in the 1780s thanks to Henry Grattan. During this time the
effects of the penal laws on the majority Catholic population were reduced, and Catholics were granted
the franchise in 1794; however, they were still excluded from becoming members of the Irish House of
Commons. This brief period of limited independence came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of
1798, which occurred during the British war with revolutionary France. The British government's fear of
an independent Ireland siding against them with the French resulted in the decision to unite the two
countries. This was brought about by legislation in the parliaments of both kingdoms, and came into
effect on 1 January 1801. The Irish had been led to believe by the British that their loss of legislative
independence would be compensated for with Catholic Emancipation, i.e. by the removal of civil
disabilities placed upon Roman Catholics in both Great Britain and Ireland. However, King George III
was bitterly opposed to Catholic Emancipation, and blocked his government's efforts to introduce it.
Napoleonic Wars
During the War of the Second Coalition (17991801), Britain occupied most of the French and Dutch
colonies (the Netherlands had been a satellite of France since 1796), but tropical diseases claimed the
lives of over 40,000 troops. When the Treaty of Amiens ended the war, Britain was forced to return most
of the colonies. The peace settlement was in effect only a ceasefire, and Napoleon continued to provoke
the British by attempting a trade embargo on the country and by occupying the German city of Hanover
(part of the Electorate which was in a personal union with the United Kingdom). In May 1803, war was
declared again. Napoleon's plans to invade Britain failed due to the inferiority of his navy, and in 1805,
Lord Nelson's fleet decisively defeated the French and Spanish at Trafalgar, which was the last
significant naval action of the Napoleonic Wars.
In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which
brought into effect the Continental System. This policy aimed to
eliminate the threat of the United Kingdom by closing French-
controlled territory to its trade. The UK's army remained a
minimal threat to France; the UK maintained a standing army of
just 220,000 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, whereas
France's army exceeded a million menin addition to the armies
of numerous allies and several hundred thousand national
guardsmen that Napoleon could draft into the military if
necessary. Although the Royal Navy effectively disrupted
France's extra-continental tradeboth by seizing and threatening
French shipping and by seizing French colonial possessionsit
could do nothing about France's trade with the major continental
economies and posed little threat to French territory in Europe.
France's population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that
of the UK.
Many in the French government believed that cutting the United
Kingdom off from the European mainland would end its
economic hegemony but the UK possessed the greatest industrial capacity in Europe, and its mastery of
Signing of the Treaty of Ghent
(1814), by A. Forestier c.1915
the seas allowed it to build up considerable economic strength through trade to its possessions from its
rapidly expanding new Empire. The Spanish uprising in 1808 at last permitted Britain to gain a foothold
on the Continent. The Duke of Wellington and his army of British and Portuguese gradually pushed the
French out of Spain and in early 1814, as Napoleon was being driven back in the east by the Prussians,
Austrians and Russians, Wellington invaded southern France. After Napoleon's surrender and exile to
the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned, but when he escaped back into France in 1815, the
British and their allies had to fight him again. The armies of Wellington and Von Blucher defeated
Napoleon once and for all at Waterloo.
Simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes and
British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812
with the United States. A central event in American history, it
was little noticed in Britain, where all attention was focused on
the struggle with France. The British could devote few resources
to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814. American
frigates also inflicted a series of embarrassing defeats on the
British navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in
Europe.
A stepped-up war effort that year brought about some successes
such as the burning of Washington, D.C., but many influential
voices such as the Duke of Wellington argued that an outright
victory over the U.S. was impossible. Peace was agreed to at the end of 1814, but not before Andrew
Jackson, unaware of this, won a great victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans in January
1815 (news took several weeks to cross the Atlantic before the advent of steam ships). The Treaty of
Ghent subsequently ended the war. As a result, the Red River Basin was ceded to the US, and the
Canadian border completely demilitarised by both countries and never changed since, although fears of
an American conquest of Canada persisted through the 19th century.
George IV and William IV
Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars a very different country than it had been in 1793. As
industrialisation progressed, society changed, becoming more urban and less rural. The postwar period
saw an economic slump, and poor harvests and inflation caused widespread social unrest. Europe after
1815 was on guard against a return of Jacobinism, and even liberal Britain saw the passage of the Six
Acts in 1819, which proscribed radical activities. By the end of the 1820s, along with a general
economic recovery, many of these repressive laws were repealed and in 1828 new legislation guaranteed
the civil rights of religious dissenters.
A weak ruler as regent (181120) and king (182030), George IV let his ministers take full charge of
government affairs, playing a far lesser role than his father, George III. His governments, with little help
from the king, presided over victory in the Napoleonic Wars, negotiated the peace settlement, and
attempted to deal with the social and economic malaise that followed.
[3]
His brother William IV ruled
(183037), but was little involved in politics. His reign saw several reforms: the poor law was updated,
child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all the British Empire, and, most important, the
Reform Act 1832 refashioned the British electoral system.
[4]
There were no major wars until the Crimean War (185356).
[5]
While Prussia, Austria, and Russia, as
absolute monarchies, tried to suppress liberalism wherever it might occur, the British came to terms with
new ideas. Britain intervened in Portugal in 1826 to defend a constitutional government there and
recognising the independence of Spain's American colonies in 1824.
[6]
British merchants and financiers,
and later railway builders, played major roles in the economies of most Latin American nations.
[7]
Whig reforms of the 1830s
The Whig Party recovered its strength and unity by supporting moral reforms, especially the reform of
the electoral system, the abolition of slavery and emancipation of the Catholics. Catholic emancipation
was secured in the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which removed the most substantial restrictions on
Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom.
[8]
The Whigs became champions of Parliamentary reform. They made Lord Grey prime minister 1830
1834, and the Reform Act of 1832 became their signature measure. It broadened the franchise and ended
the system of "rotten borough" and "pocket boroughs" (where elections were controlled by powerful
families), and instead redistributed power on the basis of population. It added 217,000 voters to an
electorate of 435,000 in England and Wales. The main effect of the act was to weaken the power of the
landed gentry, and enlarge the power of the professional and business middle-class, which now for the
first time had a significant voice in Parliament. However, the great majority of manual workers, clerks,
and farmers did not have enough property to qualify to vote. The aristocracy continued to dominate the
government, the Army and Royal Navy, and high society.
[8]
After parliamentary investigations
demonstrated the horrors of child labour, limited reforms were passed in 1833.
Chartism emerged after the 1832 Reform Bill failed to give the vote to the working class. Activists
denounced the "betrayal" of the working classes and the "sacrificing" of their "interests" by the
"misconduct" of the government. In 1838, Chartists issued the People's Charter demanding manhood
suffrage, equal sized election districts, voting by ballots, payment of MPs (so poor men could serve),
annual Parliaments, and abolition of property requirements. Elites saw the movement as pathological, so
the Chartists were unable to force serious constitutional debate. Historians see Chartism as both a
continuation of the 18th century fight against corruption and as a new stage in demands for democracy
in an industrial society.
[9]
In 1832 Parliament abolished slavery in the Empire with the Slavery Abolition
Act 1833. The government purchased the slaves for 20,000,000 (the money went to rich plantation
owners who mostly lived in England), and freed the slaves, especially those in the Caribbean sugar
islands.
[10]
Leadership
Prime Ministers of the period included: William Pitt the Younger, Lord Grenville, Duke of Portland,
Spencer Perceval, Lord Liverpool, George Canning, Lord Goderich, Duke of Wellington, Lord Grey,
Lord Melbourne, and Sir Robert Peel.
Victorian era
The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901 which signified the
height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Scholars debate whether
the Victorian periodas defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be
associated with the Victoriansactually begins with the passage of the Reform Act 1832. The era was
preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period. Victoria became queen in 1837 at
age 18. Her long reign saw Britain reach the zenith of its economic and political power, with the
introduction of steam ships, railroads, photography, and the telegraph. Britain again remained mostly
inactive in Continental politics.
Queen Victoria (18371901)
Foreign policy
Free trade imperialism
The Great London Exhibition of 1851 clearly demonstrated Britain's dominance in engineering and
industry; that lasted until the rise of the United States and Germany in the 1890s. Using the imperial
tools of free trade and financial investment,
[11]
it exerted major influence on many countries outside
Europe, especially in Latin America and Asia. Thus Britain had both
a formal Empire based on British rule as well as an informal one
based on the British pound.
[12]
Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire
One nagging fear was the possible collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
It was well understood that a collapse of that country would set off a
scramble for its territory and possibly plunge Britain into war. To
head that off Britain sought to keep the Russians from occupying
Constantinople and taking over the Bosporous Straits, as well as
from threatening India via Afghanistan.
[13]
In 1853, Britain and
France intervened in the Crimean War against Russia. Despite
mediocre generalship, they managed to capture the Russian port of
Sevastopol, compelling Tsar Nicholas I to ask for peace.
[14]
The next Russo-Ottoman war in 1877 led to another European
intervention, although this time at the negotiating table. The
Congress of Berlin blocked Russia from imposing the harsh Treaty
of San Stefano on the Ottoman Empire.
[15]
Despite its alliance with the French in the Crimean War,
Britain viewed the Second Empire of Napoleon III with some distrust, especially as the emperor
constructed ironclad warships and began returning France to a more active foreign policy.
American Civil War
During the American Civil War (18611865), British leaders favoured the Confederacy, a major source
of cotton for textile mills. Prince Albert was effective in defusing a war scare in late 1861. The British
people, however, who depended heavily on American food imports, generally favoured the Union. What
little cotton was available came from New York, as the blockade by the US Navy shut down 95% of
Southern exports to Britain. In September 1862, Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation
Proclamation. Since support of the Confederacy now meant supporting the institution of slavery, there
was no possibility of European intervention.
[16]
The British sold arms to both sides, built blockade
runners for a lucrative trade with the Confederacy, and surreptitiously allowed warships to be built for
the Confederacy. The warships caused a major diplomatic row that was resolved in the Alabama Claims
in 1872, in the Americans' favour.
[17]
Empire expands
In 1867, Britain united most of its North American colonies as the Dominion of Canada, giving it self-
government and responsibility for its own defence, but Canada did not have an independent foreign
policy until 1931. Several of the colonies temporarily refused to join the Dominion despite pressure from
both Canada and Britain; the last one, Newfoundland, held out until 1949. The second half of the 19th
century saw a huge expansion of Britain's colonial empire, mostly in Africa. A talk of the Union Jack
flying "from Cairo to Cape Town" only became a reality at the end of the Great War. Having
possessions on six continents, Britain had to defend all of its empire and did so with a volunteer army,
the only great power in Europe to have no conscription. Some questioned whether the country was
overstretched.
The rise of the German Empire since its creation in 1871 posed a new challenge, for it (along with the
United States), threatened to usurp Britain's place as the world's foremost industrial power. Germany
acquired a number of colonies in Africa and the Pacific, but Chancellor Otto von Bismarck succeeded in
achieving general peace through his balance of power strategy. When William II became emperor in
1888, he discarded Bismarck, began using bellicose language, and planned to build a navy to rival
Britain's.
[18]
Ever since Britain had wrested control of the Cape Colony from the Netherlands during the Napoleonic
Wars, it had co-existed with Dutch settlers who had migrated further away from the Cape and created
two republics of their own. The British imperial vision called for control over these new countries, and
the Dutch-speaking "Boers" (or "Afrikaners") fought back in the War in 18991902. Outgunned by a
mighty empire, the Boers waged a guerrilla war (which certain other British territories would later
employ to attain independence). This gave the British regulars a difficult fight, but their weight of
numbers, superior equipment, and often brutal tactics, eventually brought about a British victory. The
war had been costly in human rights and was widely criticised by Liberals in Britain and worldwide.
However, the United States gave its support. The Boer republics were merged into the Union of South
Africa in 1910; this had internal self-government, but its foreign policy was controlled by London and it
was an integral part of the British Empire.
[19]
Ireland and the move to Home Rule
Part of the agreement which led to the 1800 Act of Union stipulated that the Penal Laws in Ireland were
to be repealed and Catholic emancipation granted. However King George III blocked emancipation,
arguing that to grant it would break his coronation oath to defend the Anglican Church. A campaign by
the lawyer Daniel O'Connell, and the death of George III, led to the concession of Catholic
Emancipation in 1829, allowing Roman Catholics to sit in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. But
Catholic Emancipation was not O'Connell's ultimate goal, which was Repeal of the Act of Union with
Great Britain. On 1 January 1843 O'Connell confidently, but wrongly, declared that Repeal would be
achieved that year. When potato blight hit the island in 1846, much of the rural population was left
without food, because cash crops were being exported to pay rents.
[20][21]
British politicians such as the Prime Minister Robert Peel were at this time wedded to the economic
policy of laissez-faire, which argued against state intervention. While funds were raised by private
individuals and charities, lack of adequate action let the problem become a catastrophe. Cottiers (or farm
labourers) were largely wiped out during what is known in Ireland as the "Great Hunger". A significant
minority elected Unionists, who championed the Union. A Church of Ireland former Tory barrister
turned nationalist campaigner, Isaac Butt, established a new moderate nationalist movement, the Home
Rule League, in the 1870s. After Butt's death the Home Rule Movement, or the Irish Parliamentary Party
as it had become known, was turned into a major political force under the guidance of William Shaw
and a radical young Protestant landowner, Charles Stewart Parnell.
Parnell's movement campaigned for "Home Rule", by which they meant that Ireland would govern itself
as a region within the United Kingdom. Two Home Rule Bills (1886 and 1893) were introduced by
Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, but neither became law, mainly due to opposition
from the Conservative Party and the House of Lords. The issue was a source of contention throughout
Disraeli
Ireland, as a significant majority of Unionists (largely but not exclusively based in Ulster), opposed
Home Rule, fearing that a Catholic Nationalist ("Rome Rule") Parliament in Dublin would discriminate
or retaliate against them, impose Roman Catholic doctrine, and impose tariffs on industry. While most of
Ireland was primarily agricultural, six of the counties in Ulster were the location of heavy industry and
would be affected by any tariff barriers imposed.
Leadership
Prime Ministers of the period included: Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, Lord
Derby, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, William Ewart Gladstone, Lord Salisbury,
and Lord Rosebery.
Queen Victoria
The Queen gave her name to an era of British greatness, especially in the far-flung British Empire with
which she identified. She played a small role in politics, but became the iconic symbol of the nation, the
empire, and proper, restrained behaviour.
[22]
Her success as ruler was due to the power of the self-
images she successively portrayed of innocent young woman, devoted wife and mother, suffering and
patient widow, and grandmotherly matriarch.
[23]
Disraeli
Disraeli and Gladstone dominated the politics of the late 19th century,
Britain's golden age of parliamentary government. They long were
idolized, but historians in recent decades have become much more
critical, especially regarding Disraeli.
[24][25]
Benjamin Disraeli (18041881), prime minister 1868 and 187480,
remains an iconic hero of the Conservative Party. He was typical of the
generation of British leaders who matured in the 1830s and 1840s. He
was concerned with threats to established political, social, and religious
values and elites; he emphasized the need for national leadership in
response to radicalism, uncertainty, and materialism.
[26]
Disraeli was
especially noted for his enthusiastic support for expanding and
strengthening the British Empire, in contrast to Gladstone's negative
attitude toward imperialism. Gladstone denounced Disraeli's policies of
territorial aggrandizement, military pomp, and imperial symbolism (such
as making the Queen Empress of India), saying it did not fit a modern
commercial and Christian nation.
Disraeli drummed up support by warnings of a supposed Russian threat to India that sank deep into the
Conservative mindset. His reputation as the "Tory democrat" and promoter of the welfare state fell away
as historians showed that Disraeli had few proposals for social legislation in 187480, and that the 1867
Reform Act did not reflect a vision of Conservatism for the unenfranchised working man.
[27]
However
he did work to reduce class anatagonism, for as Perry notes, "When confronted with specific problems,
he sought to reduce tension between town and country, landlords and farmers, capital and labour, and
warring religious sects in Britain and Irelandin other words, to create a unifying synthesis."
[28]
Gladstone
Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone (18091898) was the Liberal counterpart to
Disraeli, serving as prime minister four times (186874, 188085, 1886,
and 189294). His financial policies, based on the notion of balanced
budgets, low taxes and laissez-faire, were suited to a developing
capitalist society but could not respond effectively as economic and
social conditions changed. Called the "Grand Old Man" later in life, he
was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to British
workers and the lower middle class. The deeply religious Gladstone
brought a new moral tone to politics with his evangelical sensibility and
opposition to aristocracy. His moralism often angered his upper-class
opponents (including Queen Victoria, who strongly favoured Disraeli),
and his heavy-handed control split the Liberal party. His foreign policy
goal was to create a European order based on cooperation rather than
conflict and mutual trust instead of rivalry and suspicion; the rule of law
was to supplant the reign of force and self-interest. This Gladstonian
concept of a harmonious Concert of Europe was opposed to and ultimately defeated by the Germans
with a Bismarckian system of manipulated alliances and antagonisms.
[29]
Salisbury
Historians portray Conservative Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (18301903) as a talented leader who
was an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism.
[30]
Robert Blake has claimed that Salisbury was "a
great foreign minister, [but] essentially negative, indeed reactionary in home affairs".
[31]
Professor P.T.
Marshs estimate is more favourable than Blake's, he portrays Salisbury as a leader who "held back the
popular tide for twenty years."
[32]
Professor Paul Smith argues that, "into the 'progressive' strain of
modern Conservatism he simply will not fit."
[33]
Professor H.C.G. Matthew points to "the narrow
cynicism of Salisbury".
[34]
One admirer of Salisbury, Maurice Cowling agrees that Salisbury found the
democracy born of the 1867 and 1884 Reform Acts as "perhaps less objectionable than he had expected
succeeding, through his public persona, in mitigating some part of its nastiness."
[35]
Morality
The Victorian era is famous for the Victorian standards of personal morality. Historians generally agree
that the middle classes held high personal moral standards (and usually followed them), but have
debated whether the working classes followed suit. Moralists in the late 19th century such as Henry
Mayhew decried the slums for their supposed high levels of cohabitation without marriage and
illegitimate births. However, new research using computerized matching of data files shows that the
rates of cohabitation then were quite low under 5% for the working class and the poor.
[36]
Early 20th century
Prime Ministers from 1900 to 1923: Marquess of Salisbury, Arthur Balfour, Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman, Herbert Henry Asquith, David Lloyd George, Andrew Bonar Law.
Edwardian era 19011914
Queen Victoria died in 1901 and her son Edward VII became king, inaugurating the Edwardian Era,
which was characterised by great and ostentatious displays of wealth in contrast to the sombre Victorian
Era. With the advent of the 20th century, things such as motion pictures, automobiles, and aeroplanes
were coming into use. The new century was characterised by a feeling of great optimism. The social
reforms of the last century continued into the 20th with the Labour Party being formed in 1900. Edward
died in 1910, to be succeeded by George V, who reigned 191036. Scandal-free, hard working and
popular, George V was the British monarch who, with Queen Mary, established the modern pattern of
exemplary conduct for British royalty, based on middle-class values and virtues. He understood the
overseas Empire better than any of his prime ministers and used his exceptional memory for figures and
details, whether of uniforms, politics, or relations, to good effect in reaching out in conversation with his
subjects.
[37]
The era was prosperous but political crises were escalating out of control. Dangerfield (1935) identified
the "strange death of liberal England" as the multiple crisis that hit simultaneously in 19101914 with
serious social and political instability arising from the Irish crisis, labor unrest, the women's suffrage
movements, and partisan and constitutional struggles in Parliament. At one point it even seemed the
Army might refuse orders dealing with Ireland.
[38]
No solution appeared in sight when the unexpected
outbreak of the Great War in 1914 put domestic issues on hold. McKibben argues that the political party
system of the Edwardian era was in delicate balance on the eve of the war in 1914. The Liberals were in
power with a progressive alliance of Labour and, off and on, Irish Nationalists. The coalition was
committed to free trade (as opposed to the high tariffs the Conservatives sought), free collective
bargaining for trades unions (which Conservatives opposed), an active social policy that was forging the
welfare state, and constitutional reform to reduce the power of the House of Lords. The coalition lacked
a long-term plan, because it was cobbled together from leftovers from the 1890s. The sociological basis
was non-Anglicanism and non-English ethnicity rather than the emerging class conflict emphasized by
the Labour Party.
[39]
Great War
After a rough start Britain under David Lloyd George successfully mobilised its manpower, industry,
finances, Empire and diplomacy, in league with the French and Americans, to defeat the Central Powers.
A segment of extreme Irish nationalists had infiltrated Eoin MacNeill's Irish Volunteers, and plotted a
rebellion in 1916.
[40][41][42][43]
The economy grew by about 14% from 191418 despite the absence of so
many men in the services; by contrast the German economy shrank 27%. The Great War saw a decline
in civilian consumption, with a major reallocation to munitions. The government share of GDP soared
from 8% in 1913 to 38% in 1918 (compared to 50% in 1943).
[44][45]
The war forced Britain to use up its
financial reserves and borrow large sums from the U.S.
The spark that set off the war came in June 1914, when the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire declared war
on Serbia after Serb guerrillas murdered the Archduke and his wife. The system of alliances caused a
local conflict to engulf the entire continent. Britain was part of the Triple Entente with France and
Russia, which confronted the Central Powers of Germany, Austria and Italy. Following the assassination
Austria attacked Serbia, which was allied to Russia. Russia then mobilized its army, leading Germany to
enter into war against Russia. France could not afford a mobilized Germany on its border, and it
mobilized. Germany declared war on France. Britain was neutral at first as the Liberal government had a
pacifist tendency, but it was committed to defending Belgium, which Germany invaded. Britain declared
war on Germany and its allies. The romantic notions of warfare that everyone had expected faded as the
fighting in France bogged down into trench warfare. Along the Western Front the British and French
launched repeated assaults on the German trench lines in 191516, which killed and wounded hundreds
of thousands, but failed to make gains of even a mile. By 1916, with volunteers falling off, the
government imposed conscription in Britain (but was not able to do so in Ireland where nationalists of
all stripes militantly opposed it) in order to keep up the strength of the army. Industry turned out
munitions in large quantities, with many women taking factory jobs. The Asquith government proved
ineffective but when David Lloyd George replaced him in December 1916 Britain gained a powerful and
successful wartime leader.
The Navy continued to dominate the seas, fighting the German fleet to a draw in the only great battle,
the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Germany was blockaded and was increasingly short of food. It tried to
fight back with submarines, despite the risk of war by the powerful neutral power the United States. The
waters around Britain were declared a war zone where any ship, neutral or otherwise, was a target. After
the liner Lusitania was sunk in May 1915, drowning over 100 American passengers, protests by the
United States led Germany to abandon unrestricted submarine warfare. With victory over Russia in 1917
Germany now calculated it could finally have numerical superiority on the Western Front. Planning for a
massive spring offensive in 1918, it resumed the sinking of all merchant ships without warning. The US
entered the war alongside the Allies (without actually joining them), and provided the needed money and
supplies to keep them going. On other fronts, the British, French, Australians, and Japanese occupied
Germany's colonies. Britain fought the Ottoman Empire, suffering defeats in the Gallipoli Campaign)
and in Mesopotamia, while arousing the Arabs who helped expel the Turks from their lands. Exhaustion
and war-weariness were growing worse in 1917, as the fighting in France continued with no end in sight.
The German spring offensives of 1918 failed, and with the arrival of the Americans in summer at the
rate of 10,000 a day the Germans realized they were being overwhelmed. Germany agreed to an
Armistice actually a surrender on 11 November 1918. The war had been won by Britain and its
allies, but at a terrible human and financial cost, creating a sentiment that wars should never be fought
again. The League of Nations was founded with the idea that nations could resolve their differences
peacefully, but these hopes were unfounded. The harsh peace settlement imposed on Germany would
leave it embittered and seeking revenge.
Victorian attitudes and ideals that had continued into the first years of the 20th century changed during
the Great War. The army had traditionally never been a large employer in the nation, with the regular
army standing at 247,432 at the start of the war.
[46]
By 1918, there were about five million people in the
army and the fledgling Royal Air Force, newly formed from the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and
the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), was about the same size of the pre-war army. The almost three million
casualties were known as the "lost generation," and such numbers inevitably left society scarred; but
even so, some people felt their sacrifice was little regarded in Britain, with poems like Siegfried
Sassoon's Blighters criticising the ill-informed "jingoism" of the Home Front.
Following the war, Britain gained the German colony of Tanganyika and part of Togoland in Africa.
Britain was granted League of Nations mandates over Palestine, which was turned into a homeland for
Jewish settlers, and Iraq, created from the three Ottoman provinces in Mesopotamia; the latter of which
became fully independent in 1932. Egypt, which had been a British protectorate since 1882, became
independent in 1922, although British troops remained stationed there until 1956. Lloyd George said
after victory that "the nation was now in a molten state", and his Housing Act of 1919 would lead to
affordable council housing which allowed people to move out of Victorian inner-city slums. The slums
remained for several more years, with trams being electrified long before many houses. The
Representation of the People Act 1918 gave women householders the vote, but it would not be until
1928 that equal suffrage was achieved. Labour did not achieve major success until the 1922 general
election.
Anglo-Irish War/Irish Civil War
The section in
red left the UK
in 1922.
The European situation combined with the threat of conscription (which had been operating in Great
Britain but had not been introduced in Ireland) changed the political climate further.
In the Irish general election of December 1918, the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP)
lost all but six of its seats to the more radical nationalist party, Sinn Fin. (John
Redmond, the leader of the IPP, had died earlier that year, and his successor, John
Dillon, son of the noted Young Irelander John Blake Dillon, lost his own seat.)
Unionists won the remainder of the seats, almost exclusively in six counties of
Ulster, which would later become Northern Ireland. The Sinn Fin "MPs" (some,
like Laurence Ginnell, having formerly been members of the IPP), campaigned as
abstentionists, refusing to participate at Westminster. In January 1919 a unilaterally
independent Irish parliament was formed in Dublin, known as the first "Dil
ireann", with an executive under the President of Dil ireann, amon de Valera,
a leader of the Easter Rising of 1916, who had avoided execution due to his birth in
New York. (Although de Valera never made any claim to U.S. citizenship, the
British, struggling in the midst of the Great War, could not afford to estrange itself
from the United States, which did not formally enter the war until April 1917.)
A War of Independence was fought between 1919 and 1922, largely led by Michael Collins, who
employed unorthodox guerrilla and counter-intelligence tactics which inflicted heavy damage on both
the local police (the Royal Irish Constabulary, or RIC) as well as British intelligence agents in Dublin,
undermining British morale, although Collins reportedly later told the British: "You had us dead beat.
We could not have lasted another three weeks. When we were told of the offer of a truce we were
astounded. We thought you must have gone mad."
[47][48]
A treaty between the British government and
representatives of the Dil was finally agreed in 1922, which resulted in the partition of the island of
Ireland on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 into two distinct autonomous United
Kingdom regions, Northern Ireland and the short-lived Southern Ireland.
[49]
Although the new
Dominion status granted Irish nationalists far more autonomy than had been sought by the IPP, it was
unacceptable to hard-liners who opposed the treaty (Fianna Fil). A civil war was fought, which the pro-
treaty (Fine Gael) forces finally won in 1923. Michael Collins was assassinated on 22 August 1922 in
his native County Cork.
On 6 December 1922, exactly a year after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, the entire island of Ireland
effectively seceded from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, forming a new dominion of
the British Empire, the Irish Free State. As expected, the area known as "Northern Ireland" (six counties
in Ulster), immediately exercised its right under the Anglo-Irish Treaty to opt-out of the new state. On 7
December 1922, the day after the establishment of the Irish Free State, the Parliament of Northern
Ireland made an address to King George V to opt out of the Irish Free State, which the King accepted.
[50]
The surviving Union of Great Britain with part of Ireland continued to be called the "United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland" until 1927, when it was renamed United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland by the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927, and is known by this name to the
present time.
Independence of the Irish Free State
In 1919, the majority of Irish MPs refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and
formed a unilaterally independent Irish parliament, Dil ireann, with an executive under the President
of Dil ireann, Eamon de Valera. A War of Independence was fought between 1919 and 1921. Finally
in December 1922, twenty-six of Ireland's counties exited from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland and formed an independent Irish Free State. The southern part of Ireland that seceded from the
union is today the Republic of Ireland. It covers the same territory as the Free State, but adopted a new
constitution in 1937. Six counties in Ulster, called Northern Ireland, remain a part of the continuing
United Kingdom, which was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in
1927, in accordance with the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927.
Partition of Ireland
The Anglo-Irish Treaty was given effect in the whole of the British Isles through the Irish Free State
Constitution Act 1922. That Act established a new Dominion for the whole island of Ireland but also
allowed Northern Ireland to opt out of it. Under Article 12 of the Treaty, Northern Ireland could exercise
its opt out by presenting an address to the King requesting not to be part of the Irish Free State. Once the
Treaty was ratified, the Houses of Parliament of Northern Ireland had one month to exercise this opt out
during which month the Irish Free State Government could not legislate for Northern Ireland, holding
the Free State's effective jurisdiction in abeyance for a month.
On 7 December 1922 (the day after the establishment of the Irish Free State) the Houses of Parliament
demonstrated its lack of hesitation by resolving to make the following address to the King to opt out of
the Irish Free State:
MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN, We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the
Senators and Commons of Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, having learnt of the
passing of the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922, being the Act of Parliament for the
ratification of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, do,
by this humble Address, pray your Majesty that the powers of the Parliament and
Government of the Irish Free State shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland.
[51]
On 13 December 1922 Prime Minister James Craig addressed the Parliament of Northern Ireland,
informing them that the King had responded to the Parliament's address as follows (the King having
received it on 8 December 1922):
[52]
I have received the Address presented to me by both Houses of the Parliament of Northern
Ireland in pursuance of Article 12 of the Articles of Agreement set forth in the Schedule to
the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act, 1922, and of Section 5 of the Irish Free State
Constitution Act, 1922, and I have caused my Ministers and the Irish Free State
Government to be so informed.
Legacy
Despite increasing political independence from each other from 1922 and complete political
independence since the new constitution of 1937, the union left the two countries intertwined with each
other in many respects. The Irish Free State, as it was then known, used the Irish pound (known
colloquially as the "punt") from 1928 until 2001, when the euro replaced it. Until joining the ERM in
1979, the Irish pound was directly linked to the pound sterling. Decimalisation of both currencies
occurred simultaneously on Decimal Day in 1971. Coins of equivalent value had the same dimensions
and size until the introduction of the British twenty pence coin in 1982. British coinage, therefore,
although technically not legal tender in the Republic of Ireland was in wide circulation and usually
acceptable as payment, and vice versa. The new British twenty pence coin and later British one pound
A passport from the time.
Sackville Street in Dublin in the
United Kingdom, c. 1908
coin were the notable exceptions to this, as there was initially no equivalent Irish coin value, and when
subsequently, Irish coins of these values were introduced, their designs differed significantly, thereby
not allowing for 'stealth' passing of the coins in change.
Irish citizens in the UK have a status almost equivalent to British citizens. They can vote in all elections
and stand for Parliament. British citizens have similar rights to Irish citizens in the Republic of Ireland
and can vote in all elections apart from presidential elections and referendums.
Under the Irish nationality law anyone born on the island of Ireland to a British or Irish parent can have
Irish citizenship and so most children born in Northern Ireland can have a British or an Irish passport (or
both). Before 2005 there was no requirement for one parent to be a British or Irish citizen and so all
persons born on the island of Ireland before then are entitled to be Irish
citizens.
[53]
Ireland under the Union
Ireland was never fully integrated
into the British state or political
culture.
[54]
Despite losing its own
parliament, much of the system of
government in Ireland remained in
place after the union: the offices of
Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary
remained (although the latter came
to eclipse the former), as well as the Privy Council of Ireland and
the various government departments. Ireland retained its own
legal system, and its own courts; though the House of Lords in
London resumed its place as a court of appeal. The retention of laws and courts in Ireland was paralleled
with the position of Scotland under the union, which continued its own legal system. The main
difference from Scotland was in religious policy and demography. While the majority of the Irish were
Catholic, England and Scotland were both predominantly Protestant.
The question over how the British state should respond to Irish demands, called "the Irish question" was
a major influence on British politics throughout the long nineteenth century. In 1844, future British
prime minister Benjamin Disraeli described the situation in Ireland:
That dense population in extreme distress inhabited an island where there was an
established church which was not their church; and a territorial aristocracy, the richest of
whom lived in distant capitals. Thus they had a starving population, an absentee aristocracy,
and an alien Church, and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. That was the Irish
question.
Hansard, The Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, Volume 72
[55]
Early Irish opposition to the Union
In the context of rising national awareness in Ireland, there were several inter-related popular campaigns
against British policy in Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Catholic Emancipation was finally brought about in 1829, following a campaign led by Daniel
O'Connell. O'Connell had been elected as Member of Parliament for County Clare, but had been
prevented from taking his seat in the British House of Commons at Westminster because of the
requirement to swear the Oath of Supremacy; the oath had been expressly worded to prevent Roman
Catholics from entering parliament.
O'Connell had also campaigned for "Repeal", i.e. for the repeal of the Acts of Union and a return to
Ireland's position under the Constitution of 1782. O'Connell was an early leader of Irish nationalism. He
wrote in 1842, "I am not British", and also declared Ireland a "separate nation".
[56]
British thinkers tried to respond to these demands, but philosopher John Stuart Mill struggled to think of
the Irish as a separate nation, and feared any such recognition's implications for Britain.
[57]
Most English
elites assumed their ways were superior and the Irish were not their equals but merely a "degraded
caste".
[58]
Ireland was in the Union, but still felt and was treated as separate. British ministers of the
Crown rarely visited Ireland, and delegated their authority to the Irish secretary, Ireland's sole voice in
the cabinet.
[59]
More demands from Ireland for the re-establishment of its own parliament were to be repeated through
the course of the 19th century, building up until the Irish Home Rule movement came to dominate Irish
politics from the late 1870s onwards.
Campaign for Irish Home Rule
Irish demands ranged from the "repeal" of O'Connell, the "federal scheme" of William Sharman
Crawford (actually devolution, not federalism as such), to the Home Rule League of Issac Butt. Ireland
was no closer to home rule by the mid-19th century, and rebellions in 1848 and 1867 failed.
O'Connell's campaign was hampered by the limited scope of the franchise in Ireland.
[60]
The wider the
franchise was expanded, the better anti-Union parties were able to do in Ireland.
[61]
Running on a
platform that advocated something like the self-rule successfully enacted in Canada under the British
North America Act, 1867, Home Rulers won a majority of both county and borough seats in Ireland in
1874.
[61][62]
By 1882, leadership of the Home Rule movement had passed to Charles Stewart Parnell of
the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). A wider franchise also changed the ideological mix among non-Irish
MPs, making them more receptive to Irish demands. The 1885 election resulted in a hung parliament in
which the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) held the balance of power. They initially supported the
Conservatives in a minority government, but when news leaked that Liberal Party leader William Ewart
Gladstone was considering Home Rule, the IPP ousted the Conservatives and brought the Liberals into
office.
[63]
Gladstone's First Home Rule Bill was closely modeled on the self-government given to British settler
colonies, starting with the Act of Union 1840 ("The Canada Act"), and especially the British North
America Act, 1867.
[64]
Irish MPs would no longer vote in Westminster but in a separate Dublin
parliament, which would control domestic areas, but not foreign policy or military affairs, which would
remain with London.
[65]
Gladstone's proposals did not go as far as most Irish nationalists desired, but
were still too radical for both Irish and British unionists: his First Home Rule Bill was defeated in the
House of Commons following a split in his own party. Gladstone took the issue to the people in the 1886
election, but the unionists (Conservatives plus Liberal dissenters) held a majority over the Home Rule
coalition (Liberals and Irish nationalists). Pro-Home Rule parties won majorities in Ireland, Scotland,
and Wales, but not in England, where most seats were contested.
[66]
Before the 1892 election, Parnell was caught in one of the "one of the most celebrated sex scandals of
the century", which incurred the wrath of the Catholic Church and most of its clerics, especially since
Parnell's paramour, Mrs Kitty O'Shea, and her nominally Catholic husband, divorced as a result.
[67]
The
IPP was split. Parnell died largely out of favour in his native country. The 1892 election gave pro-Home
Rule forces a narrow majority, however; again the Liberals did better in Scotland and Wales than
England.
[68]
Gladstone introduced a Second Home Rule Bill in 1893, which this time would have kept
Irish MPs in the British parliament, but was defeated (as expected) in the Conservative-dominated
House of Lords.
[69]
Home Rule in the balance
With the Conservatives opposed to Home Rule, it slipped from the mainstream of British politics once
they came into power in the 1890s. However, the Conservative government also felt that the demands
for Home Rule were essentially materialist in origin, and that to improve conditions in Ireland would
satisfy opinion there; this has been described as "killing home rule with kindness". Reforms passed as a
result included the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 and the Wyndham Land Act. Outside of
constitutional change, the British state tried other methods to placate Ireland. Between 1868 and 1908:
spending on Ireland was generally increased, huge tracts of land were purchased from landlords and
redistributed to smallholders, local government was democratised, and the franchise widely extended.
The ending of so many social and economic grievances did not end Irish disenchantment, however.
What this did accomplish was a simplification of the issues. No longer could British governments fool
themselves into thinking that something other than satisfying Irish demands for national recognition and
self-determination would answer the Irish question.
[70]
Some Britons were beginning to accept Irish nationalism as legitimate. British liberal support for home
rule rested on the premise that the Irish people had withdrawn their consent to be governed by the United
Kingdom by electing the Nationalists to repeated majorities, and the popular consent was a basic
prerequisite for morally legitimate government.
[71]
The competing idea among Unionists was that it was
impossible to give Ireland independence or it would be used as a base for Continental powers to attack
Britain. Writing much later, after 1922, Winston Churchill stated that this idea had taken on the status of
dogma and fossilised in British minds long after it had ceased to have any basis in fact and that only the
"large outside shock" of the Great War had changed this.
[72]
The Liberals regained power in 1905. Following a confrontation with the House of Lords over the
"People's Budget", a wider constitutional conflict developed, resulting in two general elections during
1910. The second in December 1910 saw the Liberals lose seats in the Commons, necessitating the
support of the Irish Parliamentary Party, now led by John Redmond. Redmond, holding the balance of
power in the Commons, renewed the old "Liberal Alliance" this time with H. H. Asquith as Prime
Minister. For budget reasons, Asquith had to agree to a new Home Rule Bill and to the removal of the
veto power of the Lords with the passage of the Parliament Act 1911. The Irish Parliamentary Party saw
their support repaid with the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, which, with the removal of the House
of Lords' veto power by the Parliament Act, became a clear possibility for the first time. The Third
Home Rule Bill, introduced in 1912, provoked increasingly bitter opposition from unionists, particularly
those in the mostly Protestant-dominated province of Ulster and their wing of the Irish Unionist
Alliance.
The Bill finally passed into law as the Government of Ireland Act 1914 a few weeks after the start of the
Great War, but its implementation was simultaneously suspended for the duration of the war. The
situation in Ireland had deteriorated severely, with the Unionist Ulster Volunteers and the Nationalist
Irish Volunteers openly drilling, and with both sides seeking to import arms for an anticipated post-war
George V, the last King
to be styled as King of
the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland
conflagration. WWI had exacerbated tensions further, with Unionists and some segments of the Irish
Parliamentary Party encouraging volunteers to fight for the Allied nations. Nationalists were ambivalent
about the war, which many saw as Britain's conflict, not Ireland's.
Rebellion
The Easter Rising of 1916, planned a year in advance, in favour of a completely independent Irish
Republic was suppressed after a week of fighting but the executions of some 15 leaders of the uprising,
as well as the hanging one month later of a former British diplomat (Roger Casement), who had been
enmeshed in the rebellion, have long been cited as having helped alienate Catholic and nationalist
opinion. After the week-long rebellion, the Cabinet decided in May 1916 that the 1914 Act should be
brought into operation immediately and a Government established in Dublin. Asquith tasked Lloyd
George, then Minister for Munitions, with opening negotiations between Redmond and Carson.
Redmond and Carson came close to reaching a deal, but ambiguities of the wording of the final
document were purposely intrigued by Walter Long to jeopardise Home Rule, Lloyd George admitting
that Long had behaved treacherously.
[73]
Redmond broke off negotiations when he realised partition was
not to be temporary as he had been led to believe. A second attempt to introduce the Act was made by
the Prime Minister Lloyd George in 1917 when he called together all parties within Ireland to decide
their future at an Irish Convention; however, after six months the Convention failed to reach agreement
on the important question of whether Ulster was to be under the authority of any new Dublin parliament.
The inconclusive findings of the Convention were passed by the government to a Long Committee which
decided by October 1919, that two Irish parliaments should be established, paving the way for the Fourth
Home Rule Bill, enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1920.
[74]
List of monarchs
Until 1927, part of the monarch's royal title included the words King of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1927, the words United
Kingdom were removed from the royal title so that the monarch was instead
styled as King/Queen of Great Britain, Ireland...[and other places]. The
words United Kingdom were restored to the monarch's title in 1953 with the
reference to Ireland replaced with a reference to Northern Ireland.
George III (18011820) (monarch from 1760)
George IV (18201830)
William IV (18301837)
Victoria (18371901)
Edward VII (19011910)
George V (19101922) (title used until 1927 but remained monarch
until his death in 1936)
See also
History of Ireland (18011923)
History of the United Kingdom
IrelandUnited Kingdom relations
Terminology of the British Isles
Politics in the British Isles
British Empire
Irish head of state from 1936 to 1949
Notes
References
1. ^ The Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom in 1922 as a result of the Irish War of Independence
and the subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty, but this fact was not reflected in the long-form name of United
Kingdom (and the monarch's title) until the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act in 1927.
1. ^ Ferguson, Niall (2004). Empire, The rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global
power. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02328-2.
2. ^ Auguste Mayer's picture as described by the official website of the Muse national de la Marine (in French)
(http://www.musee-marine.fr/cartel2.php?id=55)
3. ^ Kenneth Baker, "George IV: a Sketch," History Today 2005 55(10): 3036.
4. ^ Brock, Michael (2004) "William IV (17651837)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004)
doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29451 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2Fref%3Aodnb%2F29451)
5. ^ Jeremy Black, A military history of Britain: from 1775 to the present (2008), pp. 7477
6. ^ William W. Kaufmann, British policy and the independence of Latin America, 18041828 (1967)
7. ^ Will Kaufman and Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson (eds). Britain and the Americas: culture, politics, and
history (2004), pp. 46568
8. ^
a

b
E. L. Woodward, The Age of Reform, 18151870 (1938), pp. 32530
9. ^ Malcolm Chase. Chartism: A New History (2007)
10. ^ E. L. Woodward. The Age of Reform, 18151870 (1938), pp. 35457.
11. ^ Bernard Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism (Cambridge University Press, 1970) ch 1
12. ^ David McLean. "Finance and "Informal Empire" before the First World War", Economic History Review
(1976) 29#2 pp. 291305 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2594316), at jstor.org
13. ^ Roman Golicz. "The Russians Shall Not Have Constantinople", History Today (2003) 53#9, pp. 3945
14. ^ Orlando Figes. The Crimean War: A History (2012)
15. ^ Richard Millman, Britain and the Eastern Question 18751878 (1979)
16. ^ Amanda Foreman. A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War (2012)
17. ^ Frank J. Merli; David M. Fahey (2004). The Alabama, British Neutrality, and the American Civil War
(http://books.google.com/books?id=OXsE5usQFDcC&pg=PA19). Indiana U.P. p. 19. ISBN 0253344735.
18. ^ A. J. P. Taylor. The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 18481918 (1953), Chapter 12.
19. ^ Denis Judd. Boer War (2003)
20. ^ Christine Kinealy. This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 184552, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1994;
ISBN 0-7171-1832-0, p. 354
21. ^ Cecil Woodham-Smith. The Great Hunger: Ireland 18451849 (1962), London, Hamish Hamilton: 31
22. ^ Walter L. Arnstein, Queen Victoria (2003)
23. ^ Lynne Vallone. "Victoria", History Today, 2002 52(6): 4653
24. ^ John Vincent. "Was Disraeli a failure?", History Today (October 1981) 31#10, pp. 58 online
(http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=d50e00a0-2954-4865-b1ea-
69d511ac5641%40sessionmgr12&vid=1&hid=107&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&
AN=4868984)
25. ^ Richard Aldous. The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli (2007) excerpt and text search
(http://www.amazon.com/Lion-Unicorn-Gladstone-vs-Disraeli/dp/0393065707)
26. ^ J.P. Parry. "Disraeli and England", Historical Journal (September 2000), 43#3 pp. 699728 in JSTOR
(http://www.jstor.org/stable/3020975)
27. ^ Maurice Cowling. 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and revolutiont (1967).
28. ^ Jonathan Parry. "Disraeli, Benjamin, earl of Beaconsfield (18041881)", Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography (2004); online edn, May 2011 accessed 23 February 2012
(http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.cc.uic.edu/view/article/7689,) doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7689
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2Fref%3Aodnb%2F7689)
29. ^ H.C.G. Matthew, "Gladstone, William Ewart (18091898)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(2004); online edn, May 2011 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/10787)
30. ^ David Steele, Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography (Routledge, 2001), p. 383
31. ^ Robert Blake, The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill (1970), p. 132.
32. ^ P.T. Marsh, The Discipline of Popular Government: Lord Salisburys Domestic Statecraft, 18811902
(Hassocks, Sussex, 1978), p. 326.
33. ^ Paul Smith, Lord Salisbury on Politics. A Selection from his Articles in the Quarterly Review, 18601883
(Cambridge, 1972), p. 1
34. ^ H.C.G. Matthew, ed. Gladstone Diaries, (1990) X, pp. cxxxixcxl
35. ^ Maurice Cowling. Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England (2 vol. 198085), vol I, p. 387.
36. ^ Rebecca Probert. "Living in Sin", BBC History Magazine (September 2012); G. Frost, Living in Sin:
Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England (Manchester U.P. 2008)
37. ^ H.C.G. Matthew. "George V (18651936)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004); online edn,
January 2008.
38. ^ George Dangerfield. The Strange Death of Liberal England: 19101914 (1935)
39. ^ Ross McKibbin. Parties and People: England, 19141951 (2010)
40. ^ For a good survey see I. F. W. Beckett. The Great War: 19141918 (2nd ed. 2007)
41. ^ Adrian Gregory (2008). The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War
(http://books.google.com/books?id=bq-AMQAACAAJ). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521728836.
42. ^ Ian F.W. Beckett. The Home Front, 19141918: How Britain Survived the Great War (2006) excerpt and
text search (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Front-1914-1918-Britain-Survived/dp/1903365813)
43. ^ Arthur Marwick. The Deluge: British Society and the First World War (1965)
44. ^ David Stevenson (2011). With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918
(http://books.google.com/books?id=06KYLGALKNEC&pg=PA370). Harvard U.P. p. 370.
ISBN 9780674062269.
45. ^ Niall Ferguson. The Pity of War (1998), p. 249
46. ^ The Great War (http://users.tibus.com/the-great-war/figures.htm) in figures.
47. ^ Comments by Collins re truce (http://books.google.com/books?
id=oNSCKLkokakC&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=%22you+had+us+dead+beat%22&source=bl&ots=uCZd4i
TvrD&sig=2BjFNpH-nGzUAiVvHE627uFdaSU&hl=es&sa=X&ei=BB5GUoq_KOT-
4AO994DgBQ&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22you%20had%20us%20dead%20beat%22&f=false)
Sources
48. ^ Comments by Collins re truce (http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/tt/ch07.html)
49. ^ Order in Council of 3 May 1921 (SR&O 1921, No. 533). Their constitutional roots remained the Act of
Union, two complementary Acts, one passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, the other by the Parliament of
Ireland.
50. ^ Northern Ireland Parliamentary Report, 7 December 1922
(http://stormontpapers.ahds.ac.uk/stormontpapers/pageview.html?volumeno=2&pageno=1145#bak-2-1149)
and Anglo-Irish Treaty, sections 11 & 12 (http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/anglo_irish/dfaexhib2.html).
51. ^ Northern Ireland Parliamentary Report, 7 December 1922
(http://stormontpapers.ahds.ac.uk/stormontpapers/pageview.html?volumeno=2&pageno=1145#bak-2-1149)
52. ^ Northern Ireland Parliamentary Report, 13 December 1922, Volume 2 (1922); pp 11911192
(http://stormontpapers.ahds.ac.uk/stormontpapers/pageview.html?volumeno=2&pageno=1145#fwd-2-1189)
53. ^ Emma Quinn; Emma Quinn, John Stanley, Corona Joyce, Philip J. Oconnell (2008). Handbook on
Immigration and Asylum in Ireland 2007 (http://books.google.com/books?id=rXWDkX_XpicC&pg=PA26).
ESRI. pp. 26. ISBN 978-0-7070-0274-3. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
54. ^ Jenkins 2006, p. 8.
55. ^ "State of IrelandAdjourned Debate (Fourth Night) (House of Commons Sitting of 16 February 1844)"
(http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1844/feb/16/state-of-ireland-adjourned-debate-
fourth#column_1016). The Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Series, Volume 72. London: Parliament of the United
Kingdom. column 1016.
56. ^ Quoted in Jenkins 2006, p. 43.
57. ^ Jenkins 2006, pp. 4748.
58. ^ Jenkins 2006, p. 49.
59. ^ Jenkins 2006, p. 10.
60. ^ Biagini, 2.
61. ^
a

b
Hoppen, 567
62. ^ Morton, 79
63. ^ Biagini, 9
64. ^ Kendle, 44
65. ^ Kendle, 45
66. ^ Biagini, 10
67. ^ [1] (https://www.studiesirishreview.ie/catalogue/back-issues/2010-volume-99/spring-2010/review-article-
brian-p-murphy-osb)
68. ^ Boyce, 39
69. ^ Boyce, 28
70. ^ Boyce, pp 4748
71. ^ Biagini, p 51
72. ^ Churchill, Winston (1929). The Aftermath (http://books.google.com/books?
ei=BX60UeaoKIWp4AOptoDQBg). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 290. Retrieved 9 June 2013.
73. ^ Jackson, Alvin: Home Rule: An Irish History 18002000 pp.193-95, Phoenix Press (2003) ISBN 0-75381-
767-5
74. ^ Jackson, Alvin: pp. 22730
Jenkins, Brian (2006). Irish Nationalism and the British State: From Repeal to Revolutionary
Nationalism (http://books.google.com/books?id=FYK7cKG3y-EC). Montreal & Kingston, ON:
McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 9780773577756. Retrieved 9 June 2013.
External links
British History Online (http://www.british-history.ac.uk)
Act of Union 1800 (http://ds.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/peel/ireland/1801act.htm)
Preceded by
Kingdom of Great Britain
17071801
Kingdom of Ireland
15411801
United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland
18011922
Succeeded by
United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland
1922present
Irish Free State
19221937
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland&oldid=628124082"
Categories: Former countries in the British Isles States and territories established in 1801
States and territories disestablished in 1927 Former countries in Ireland Former kingdoms
Former monarchies of Europe History of Ireland (18011923) History of the United Kingdom
Ireland and the Commonwealth of Nations
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