The British Empire

The British Empire was the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and for more than a century Britain was
the foremost global power. It began in the 15th and 16th centuries when global exploration sanctioned by the
English and Scotish people began to establish overseas colonies. There are many reasons why these colonies
were established, but one of the principal reasons was trade and financial benefit. Initially many colonies were
established in North America and the Caribbean, but spread to Africa and Asia. The growth of the empire was
not without opposition, notably from France and the Netherlands, and a big loss was sustained in 1783 when
thirteen American colonies broke away from British rule. Australia and New Zealand were later added to the
growing list.
The years 1815 to 1914 are referred to as Britain's imperial century, and at this time, the Empire included over
14 million square miles of territory and 450 million people. It included more than a quarter of the world's
population and it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire, a phrase attributed to a Scottish writer,
John Wilson. With supremacy at sea, Britain took on the role of global policeman, sometimes called the Pax
Britannica. As well as having formal control over its own colonies, with a dominant position in world trade
Britain could effectively control the economies of many countries including China, Argentina and Siam.
The empire was vital for trade and during the reign of Queen Victoria, at the height of the British Empire,
British ports were full with ships arriving from far and wide carrying the goods that were processed and sold
making Britain a wealthy nation. The Great Exhibition of 1851, the very first World's Fair, was a celebration of
the diversity and richness of the Empire.
The decline of the Empire took place largely in the early part of the twentieth century. There have been many
reasons suggested as to the decline, but perhaps the chief reason was that Britain no longer had military and
naval supremacy, and following the second world war, with its legacy of debts, Britain was no longer able to
financially support or afford an Empire. The United States had grown in population and wealth, and together
with Russia was regarded as a superpower.
It might be asked if the British Empire was good for the world. The answer to that perhaps depends upon
where you are standing. There is no doubt that Britain gave a huge legacy to developing nations, teaching
them the ways of democracy, and providing a structure that could lead to self government. On the other hand,
it could be argued that by taking goods and resources from the colonies, Britain exploited and profiteered
unfairly.
During the Victorian age, Britain was the world's most powerful nation. Though not always effortlessly, it was
able to maintain a world order which rarely threatened Britain's wider strategic interests.
The single European conflict fought during Victoria's reign - the Crimean War of 1854 - 1856 - contrasted
markedly with the 18th century, during which the British were involved in at least five major wars, none of
which lasted less than seven years.
The Victorians believed that peace was a necessary pre-condition of long-term prosperity.
Victoria's empire

Portrait photograph of Victoria

In 1882 Britain was in the later stages of acquiring the largest empire the world had ever seen. By the end of
Victoria's reign, the British empire extended over about one-fifth of the earth's surface and almost a quarter of
the world's population at least theoretically owed allegiance to the 'queen empress'.
These acquisitions were not uncontested. A number of colonial wars were fought and insurgencies put down
as bloodily as the colonisers considered necessary.
It would be a gross exaggeration to claim, as many contemporaries did, that those living in a British colony felt
privileged to be ruled by a people anxious to spread the virtues of an ordered, advanced and politically
sophisticated Christian nation to those 'lesser breeds' previously 'without the law'.
That said, there is no gainsaying the fact that both many colonial administrators and Christian missionaries
took on their colonial duties with a fierce determination to do good.
Britain's status as the financial capital of the world also secured investment inflows which preserved its
immense prosperity.
One has only to walk along Liverpool's waterfront and view the exceptional 'Three Graces', (the Mersey Docks
and Harbour Board, Royal Liver and Cunard buildings) planned and erected in the decade or so after Victoria's
death, to understand the centrality of commerce and overseas trade in making Britain the world's greatest
power during the 19th century.
Liverpool's status as a World Heritage City is fitting testament to a period when Britain did indeed 'rule the
waves'.
Industrial Revolution
Victoria came to the throne during the early, frenetic phase of the world's first industrial revolution.
Industrialisation brought with it new markets, a consumer boom and greater prosperity for most of the
propertied classes.
It also brought rapid, and sometimes chaotic change as towns and cities expanded at a pace which precluded
orderly growth.
Life expectancy at birth - in the high 30s in 1837 - had crept up to 48 by 1901.
Desperately poor housing conditions, long working hours, the ravages of infectious disease and premature
death were the inevitable consequence.
The Victorians wrestled with this schizoid legacy of industrialism. The Victorian town symbolised Britain's
progress and world pre-eminence, but it also witnessed some of the most deprived people, and depraved
habits, in the civilised world.
Taming, and then improving, Britain's teeming cities presented a huge challenge. Mortality data revealed that,
in the poorer quarters of Britain's larger cities, almost one child in five born alive in the 1830s and 1840s had
died by the age of five. Polluted water and damp housing were the main causes.
Death rates in Britain as a whole remained obstinately above 20 per thousand until the 1880s and only
dropped to 17 by the end of Victoria's reign.
Life expectancy at birth, in the high 30s in 1837, had crept up to 48 by 1901. One of the great scourges of the
age - tuberculosis - remained unconquered, claiming between 60,000 and 70,000 lives in each decade of
Victoria's reign.
Civic engagement
Despite substantial medical advances and well-informed campaigns, progress in public health was desperately
slow in Victoria's reign.
This had much to do with healthy scepticism about the opinions of experts, particularly when those experts
advocated greater centralised state interference in what they considered to be the proper sphere of local
authorities and agencies.
Furthermore, state involvement meant higher taxes and higher taxes were said to hamper both business and
job creation. Localism undoubtedly stymied many public health initiatives at least until the last two decades of
the reign.
Christian gentlemen considered it a duty to make legacies to worthy causes.
The Victorian era saw considerable expenditure on monuments to civic pride. The competitive ethic which
drove so much business enterprise was channelled by local worthies into spending on opulent town halls and
other civic buildings.
By no means all of these were intended for the use of a propertied elite. Libraries, wash-houses and swimming
baths were all funded as part of a determination to provide working people with the means to improve
themselves.
Civic identity and civic engagement were more powerful forces in Victorian than in early 20th-century Britain.
Nor were the Victorian middle and upper classes parsimonious over charitable giving. The 1860s alone saw the
formation of the Society for the Relief of Distress, the Peabody Trust, Barnardo's Homes and the Charity
Organisation Society.
These national organisations were multiplied several-fold by local charities. Christian gentlemen considered it a
duty to make legacies to worthy causes.
True, much of this giving came with strings. Most Victorian charities were aimed at those sections of the
working classes disposed towards helping themselves. Its overall impact, however, should not be
underestimated.
Ireland

Distress caused by the famine at Kilrush, Ireland, in 1849

The United Kingdom's population at Victoria's accession in 1837 was about 25.5 million, eight million of whom
lived in Ireland. At her death in 1901, it had risen to 41 million.
These figures, however, mask an enormous contrast. While the population of England and Wales increased by
some 116% (15 million to 32.5 million), that of Ireland almost halved (eight million to 4.5 million), its
population declining in every decade of the reign.
This stark contrast is explained by two linked factors. Ireland, the Protestant north east around Belfast
excepted, did not experience an industrial revolution in the Victorian age.
It also endured a devastating famine from 1845 - 1847, the result of a failed potato crop among a peasant
population dangerously dependent on one food source for sheer existence.
Ireland lost more than one million people to the ravages of famine in the 1840s. It lost far more over the next
half century to the steady drip of emigration to Britain, the Americas and Australia.
This ticking demographic timebomb had far-reaching consequences. Large numbers of Irish Catholics - both
those who stayed and those who left - blamed the British government for the famine and saw in it the ultimate
proof that the Act of Union had been a ruse from which Britain benefited and for which Ireland continued to
suffer.
The famine extinguished any realistic hope that the Irish, like the Scots a century earlier, might come to realise
the economic, commercial and cultural benefits of political union with a larger and more prosperous national
partner.
Inevitably, 'home rule' campaigns grew in both numbers and violence in the second half of Victoria's reign.
These also impacted massively on British politics.
'The Irish Question' dominated the last phase of the career of William Gladstone, probably Victoria's ablest -
and certainly her most driven - prime minister.
His Liberal party's split on home rule for Ireland in 1886 began the long process of marginalisation of the
political party which dominated much of the queen's reign. Ireland would not get home rule in Victoria's
lifetime, but it set the political agenda unlike any other issue.
Politics
What, finally, of the Victorian political structure? It is easy to see that it was far from democratic.
At the beginning of Victoria's reign, about a fifth of adult males were entitled to vote. That proportion
increased, through parliamentary reform acts passed in 1867 and 1884, to one-third and two-thirds
respectively.
No women could legally vote in parliamentary elections until almost 18 years after Victoria's death - and the
queen herself was no suffragist. Women did, however, play an increasingly influential role both in locally-
elected school and poor law boards and in local government from the 1870s onwards..
If not democratic, the political system was becoming increasingly representative. By 1901, few argued - as had
frequently been asserted against the Chartists in the 1830s and 1840s - that to allow working men to vote
would be to cede power to an ignorant, insensate and unworthy majority.
Victorian politicians increasingly learned how to 'trust the people'. They also noted how many among 'lower
orders' could help themselves economically while improving themselves educationally.
The working-class Victorian autodidact was an increasingly significant figure. His modest successes enabled his
'betters' to claim that Britain was a specially advanced, perhaps even a divinely favoured, nation.
Britain managed to modernize its political system without succumbing to the political revolutions that afflicted
virtually all of its European competitors.
The quality of political debate in Victorian Britain, in newspapers and in both houses of parliament, was also
very high. The struggle for political supremacy between William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli in the late
1860s and 1870s represents perhaps the most sophisticated political duel in the nation's history.
During the Victorian era, then, the United Kingdom could plausibly be considered as the world's superpower.
However, Germany and the United States had already begun to surpass its industrial capacity and Germany's
naval build-up would shortly present a powerful challenge to long-held British supremacy.
On the home front, the nation was only beginning to get to grips with widespread poverty while considerably
more than half the adult population remained without a vote. Victorian supremacy by 1901 was only skin
deep.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/overview_victorians_01.shtml

The Expansion of Victorias Empire

When Victoria ascended the throne in 1837 as an eighteen year old, the British Empire was in a period of transition.
It's scattered territories covered two million square miles. These territories mainly in the Caribbean and in India
existed mainly for trading purposes, to make money for British merchants and to provide British industrialists with the
raw materials for their emerging factories and for a market for the products of those factories. By the time Victoria
died in 1901, the Empire covered some 12.8 square miles, one fifth of the world and included 60 dependencies and a
number of dominions. The Empire by then served not just merchants and industrialists but also settlers, missionaries,
explorers, financiers and those wanting work within the Colonial service.

The Empire in 1901 had become the largest empire the world had ever seen and had a lasting impact on not just
Britain but vast areas of the world - an impact that remains with us today. As a result of the Empire Britain became a
net importer of food and raw materials, and therefore dependant on trade whilst every country that was part of the
Empire was affected by it. Boundaries, settlement, economic development, cultural change, legal systems were all
affected by the British Empire and debates continue as to the exact nature of the impact of Empire.

Expansion of the Empire

This period of economic expansion coincided with a period of imperial expansion as the empire increased form
just over 2 million square miles in 1837 to over 12 million square miles in 1901. The connection between the
economic expansion and the expansion of the empire has been much debated by historians. At the centre of
debate has been the role of money and to what extent has money been the motivating force behind the
expansion of empire .
Informal Empire
A major criticism of the theory of informal though is that most of British trade was not with the Empire but
with other countries. Although Britain in 1900 was dependant on trade for 75% of her cereals and 40% of her
meat, her major suppliers were USA, France, India, Germany, Holland and Australia. Apart from India and the
settler colonies the Empire had little economic significance. Informal empire suggests an amount of control but
there was no influence or control over most of these trading partners.
http://www.britishempire.me.uk/sportandempire.html
What was the British Empire?
Territories under the control of a mother country
An empire is a collection of territories which are under the control of a country. For centuries empires were
seen as crucial for countries wanting to increase their economic and military power and it has only been in
recent years that empires have been regarded as anachronistic in a democratic world. The constituent parts of
an empire, the colonies, could provide the raw materials lacking in the mother country. It could provide a
market for home produced goods and an area for investment, and a place for the unemployed to settle and
make better lives for themselves. Colonies could provide opportunities for
enterprising capitalists and evangelising missionaries. In those years when mercantilism was the prevailing
economic theory, empires were regarded as absolutely essential if a country was to achieve economic growth.
Established in 1606 in Virginia
The British Empire began in the early c17th when in 1606 the Virginia Company was given a royal charter to
establish a settlement to provide Britain with some of the materials it currently imported including tar and
timber. the company was taken over by the government in 1620 but a feature of the development of the
empire was that it was a product of the energy of private individuals, private enterprise and private trading
companies. Groups of settlers continued to migrate to North America throughout the c17th so that by 1700
there were 500,000 settled in 13 colonies. In the West Indies there were also a number of British colonies by
this time exploiting the recently acquired taste for sugar by the British.

The loss of the American colonies was a blessing in disguise

The American colonies were lost in the War of Independence but trade with the Americas continued to flourish
especially with the newly established United States. With British military and naval dominance established by
the defeat of France, the British Empire changed in location and character in the c19th. India, the Far East and
the Pacific colonies of Australia and New Zealand became the focal point of the empire as it increased in size to
become by 1914 the largest empire the world had ever seen with a population of 400 million people covering
one fifth of the world and living in over 60 dependencies and dominions.

Little uniform structure of government

The term British Empire might suggest some degree of uniformity of organisation. This was far from the truth
for there was a multiplicity of ways in which territories were governed. By 1914 the white settler colonies had
become dominions with a large degree of self government. India was treated as a special case and had her
own Secretary of State in the London cabinet with a Viceroy in India as the Head of the government. Most
other territories were governed by a Governor appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The way in
which these territories were governed was often a matter for the man on the spot who often acted as an
umpire trying his best to arbitrate between the different interests of businessmen, settlers and missionaries
and doing his best to ensure that local people had their interests protected. Some territories like Egypt were
run as protectorates with a British representative advising on foreign affairs but leaving most other matters to
the local ruler.
British or English Empire?
The term British Empire can be misleading for just as there is much discussion today about what constitutes
Englishness and Britishness, so there was in the c19th. The c19th was a period in which the Celtic nations
gradually came to accept being part of the United Kingdom but their role in developing the Empire was largely
overlooked. Although the Scots and the Welsh came to embrace the Empire, in Ireland - an Act of Union been
passed as recently as 1800- there was opposition to Ireland's place within the United Kingdom throughout the
century. The Empire was used by politicians though as a means to achieve greater unity in Britain not only
between the different national groups but also between the classes, especially after the working classes had
been given the vote in 1867. As the century developed and more and more people from the Celtic nations
migrated to the USA or to colonies within the Empire, so English people came to be the dominant people
within the UK, accounting for 75% of the UK's population by 1911. There were many within the upper echelons
of society who interchanged the terms British and English and believed the Empire was created by and worked
for the English whereas the reality was quite different.
The contribution of Scottish, Welsh and even Irish people to the development of the Empire was huge. A large
proportion of the British army was made up of Irish soldiers whilst there were many Scottish and Welsh
missionaries, explorers, engineers and doctors who worked in the colonies. A brief roll call of names will reveal
many from the Celtic nations: Livingstone and Wolseley were just the tip of the iceberg. When one considers
who lived in the Empire just 12% of the Empire's population were European, let alone British. The established
church in the UK might have been the Church of England but in the Empire Islam and Hinduism were the
majority religions.
Motives for Empire
The Empire was established for different motives. In the early years - in the 17th and 18th centuries -private
enterprise and profit was the usual motive with little involvement by the government but in the c19th other
motives emerged. Missionaries settled in the Empire to bring Christianity and western civilisation to
undeveloped societies. Settlers emigrated to seek a better life in a century of frequent economic depressions.
Communications made it easier to travel across the world and bring news of gold rushes in faraway places.
Territories were annexed by generals and civil servants seeking to make a name for themselves and to help
bring order to places they perceived as backward.
The mission to civilise
A justification for the British Empire that made it different from all other empires of the time was that the
British Empire existed to help backward peoples better themselves. As a result of the British dominating world
trade and the seaways of the world in the first half of the c19th, the British thought of themselves as superior
to all non-western societies and it became the 'mission' of the British to develop their colonies. This gave the
empire a racist character which had not existed in the early empire. The British abroad lived in societies that
were carbon copies of the societies they had left behind, with familiar architecture, food, sports and above all
the codes of a class bound society.
The turning point for the Empire had been the Indian Rebellion when a large section of northern India turned
against the British at a time when it was ruled by the East India Company. The Rebellion had caused a thorough
rethink about the way the British ruled and whether Indians and other native peoples were capable of
development. There was a feeling that the British in India had been let down and it caused the British in India
to change how the country was ruled and then to create barriers to separate the British from Indian people.
The Raj was born.
The scramble for Africa
In the last quarter of the century Britain became embroiled in a 'scramble' with other European powers to
acquire as much African territory as possible. This resulted in 90% of Africa being annexed by European powers
between 1880 and 1900 with Britain acquiring nearly 5 million square miles of new territory. The main motive
for this land grab for Britain was to prevent other powers from gaining land that might threaten existing British
colonies or existing British trade interests. This was largely done by giving private companies the powers to
raise armies and to impose rule on local tribes, usually done by forcing treaties on them and if tribes were not
compliant by using the Gatling gun to demonstrate British power or to wipe out opposition. The way in
which Cecil Rhodes was given a royal charter in 1890 so that his British South Africa Company could annex land
from local tribes in southern Africa was typical of the way the British government sought to prevent the spread
of the French and German empires.
The Empire gave the illusion of power
One of the achievements of the British Empire was that it disguised the real state of British economic, military
and naval power. The Empire gave the illusion of power yet the reality was quite different. From the time the
US Civil war ended in 1865, Britain gradually lost her pre-eminent position as the world's major economy so
that by 1914 both Germany and the USA had overtaken Britain in industrial production. Already by the end of
the century people were debating whether the Empire was a burden or not. Few colonies contributed towards
the cost of their defence and although millions from the colonies fought in the trenches of the First World War,
by then ideas of greater Imperial solidarity which had been debated at the end of the century had been
rejected in favour of greater independence for the white settler dominions. As for the majority of the colonies,
there may have been talk of a mission to develop the colonies but the reality was that colonies were only
developed to enable the British to increase its own trade. The nation that talked of 'a mission to civilise' found
that there was never a time when it would beappropriate to grant independence.
Although the Empire continued to exist for many years after the First World War, the call by the peoples of the
empire for a greater say in their own government got ever louder and it was only when it was realised that the
cost of maintaining the Empire was not a cost it could realistically bear, that the British government began to
dismantle the Empire.

The Development of the British Empire during the Victorian Era Part 1
A Dominant Nation
In 1815 few could have predicted what was to happen to the British Empire . The country may have been
celebrating the triumphs of Wellington and Nelson but the nation was at a crossroads and experiencing
economic and social change that for many meant the very real possibility of imminent revolution. The
existence of an empire had been threatened by the American revolution but since the loss of the American
colonies in 1783 and the destruction of France's military and naval might, Britain stood at the threshold of a
new era which would be dominated by Britain's monopoly of the techniques of steam power and the
existence of a group of entrepreneurs who existed in a political and economic climate that encouraged
innovation. In 1815 British industry was based on the textile industry but within a few decades the United
Kingdom was to become the workshop of the world and it was a growing empire that provided the market and
the raw materials for this growing economy which was not challenged until the turn of the twentieth century.
Victorias accession
At Queen Victoria's accession the empire consisted of about 2 million square miles and 100 million people. It
had grown in a haphazard way and consisted of territories acquired for a variety of reasons. Some were the
spoils of victory, some were settlements of British people looking for a new life or imprisoned from their old
life. The largest territories in India were run by a private company that had its own civil service and its own
private army. The central government had acquiesced in the steady growth of the empire but had not
masterminded what had happened. During Victoria's reign this pattern was to continue but the expansion was
on an enormous scale.
A stranglehold on world trade
At the end of the eighteenth century, virtually all of the products of the non-European world flowed through
Britain: products such as coffee, sugar, rum, cotton, silk. The American Revolution did nothing to change
Britain's stranglehold on world trade. London was the centre of world finance and ports like Bristol and
Liverpool flourished from the flow of raw materials through them. London was the home of the East India
Company and Britain was the home base of the slave trade. As Britain embraced the industrial revolution the
skills and experiences of the eighteenth century were to be put to good use as Britain built an empire that was
to have a lasting impact on those who lived in it.
Population growth
If Britain had the expertise and the men to organise empire it was the population growth of the new century
that was provided the impetus for the growth of the empire in the nineteenth century and the industrial
revolution which made it possible. The increase in population (from 10 million in 1801 to twenty two million in
1871) provided a market for might be produced by industry but only if prices were low (as wages were low).
For this to happen the old mercantilist system which was the basis of the eighteenth century empire had to be
replaced with Free Trade. In the 1820s the Navigation Acts were abolished and tariffs reduced. Later in the
1840s Peel's government abolished the Corn Laws which had kept the price of corn high for farmers. With
Britain having a monopoly in industrial production and control of the trade routes of the world provided by the
Royal Navy, Free Trade would mean cheap food for the British factory worker. As industry developed so there
was a search for new markets which led to the empire expanding in the Pacific, North America and the East.
The importance of India
The greatest expansion was in India which by 1867 was importing 21 million pounds worth of exports, the
same as the USA. Control of India was exercised by the East India Company until 1858 and its officials, whether
in its civil service or army, were responsible for the extension of land under its control. At the end of the
eighteenth century the Company controlled much of the eastern Ganges valley and enclaves around Bombay
and Madras (today Mumbai and Chennai) but with a combination of diplomacy and war its servants extended
the control of the Company to much of the remainder of India. Some of these campaigns were Company policy
seeking to create new markets, but other lands were taken by individuals acting on their own initiative. Men
like Charles Napier were to become heroes at home for their exploits in defeating local Indian princes or
forcing them to accept humiliating treaties. Communications before the age of the telegraph meant that it was
impossible for local administrators to act on the orders from Calcutta - the HQ of the East India Company - so
many of the campaigns fought were done so with generals acting on their own.
War as crucial
Although the British were to justify their conquests by claiming that there was a philanthropic motive, there is
no doubt that war was crucial to the way in which the British Empire expanded, particularly in the Victorian
period. Wars in Afghanistan, India, China, Burma, Egypt, Sudan, New Zealand, Canada, west Africa, south Africa
were all important in establishing British control and influence. The army was organised mainly for the purpose
of fighting colonial wars and over half of the regular army was abroad at any given time. When the army was
called upon to fight an enemy as well armed as it was it was found wanting and before World War one there
was a drastic reform of the way the army was organised and deployed. Likewise the navy was a world-wide
navy whose purpose was to keep the sea lanes open for British commerce. As soon as it was realised that the
navy might have to fight a European navy to defend the shores of Britain, again there was drastic reform and
not before there were a number of scares about the capability of the country to defend itself

Reform of the army and navy

Reform of the army and navy took place after 1870 when Britain's pre-eminence was challenged. Until that
time the navy ruled the world's oceans and the army seemed to be more than a match for any opposing native
force. British technological superiority and the possession of a large and growing empire led many British
people to believe that they were a chosen race and it was their duty to take the British model to whatever
lands they controlled. There was a growing evangelical movement in Britain in the early nineteenth which had
already led to the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery in the British Empire. Christian missionaries were at
the forefront of the settlement in New Zealand and increasingly in other parts of the Empire including India
where there were strong moves by some churchmen to change Hindu customs and convert Hindus. This
feeling of superiority was given public expression at the Great Exhibition of 1851 which was a celebration of
Britain's place in the world and her technological advantage.

The imperial mission

If there was a doubt about the mission of Empire, the Indian Rebellion of 1857 removed that doubt . From
1857 the idea that local religions and cultures could be tolerated and the men of Empire could live the life of
the local inhabitants was regarded as anathema to most . If the initial focus of the Empire had been trade, from
the middle of the nineteenth century it became as important to export Christianity. The old eighteenth century
British Empire was now being replaced by one that made the spread of Christianity as important as the
creation of trade.

The Development of the British Empire during the Victorian Era part 2
The rise of Germany, France and the USA
From 1870 the Britain Empire was being challenged by the rise of the USA, Russia and Germany. The USA had
got over its civil war and was rapidly expanding and creating its own empire, initially by extending its own
boundaries, by from the 1890s by creating its own overseas empire. Russia was beginning to industrialise
following the reforms of Alexander II and extended its empire into central Asia where there were raw
materials. The Emancipation of the Serfs encouraged the flow of free labour into the cities and stimulated the
growth of industry. The creation of Germany following the Franco-Prussian War led to Germany becoming a
major industrial power and with the coming to power of William II in 1888 Britain's predominant position in
world affairs was coming to an end.
Politicians take up the banner of empire
With Britain's position in the world being challenged, politicians began to take a keener interest in imperial
affairs. Disraeli was keen to capitalise on the threats to the Empire and in a speech delivered at the Crystal
Palace in 1872 linked the values and the objectives of the Empire with the Conservative Party and then in
1876 created the title of Empress of India for Victoria. The Crystal Palace speech had come just a couple of
years after John Ruskin's lecture at Oxford University where he said the Empire should be at the centre of
politics and that the youth of the country should see it as their duty to help found colonies and thereby
advance the power of England. One of those who would have leant about this speech was Cecil Rhodes who
began his studies at Oxford in 1873 and went on to devote much of his life to the advancement of the British
Empire in Africa and the creation of an empire that stretched from Cairo to the Cape. The ideas of Social
Darwinism were gaining ground at this time and many saw the possession of an Empire as reflecting the power
of a nation and this led to a more aggressive form of imperialism in the last quarter of the nineteenth century
- New Imperialism- as European nations sought to establish stronger and larger Empires of their own at a time
when there were fewer and fewer territories to colonise. As countries sought to establish colonies and the
navies and armies to defend them this inevitably caused tensions.
New Imperialism
The New Imperialism began to capture the public's attention with the publication of books and newspapers for
a mass audience that was becoming more and more literate as a result of educational reform. Authors like
George Alfred Henty and Henry Rider Haggard wrote adventure stories often given an imperial setting with
colonial heroes. Colonial wars were now being reported and successful Generals were feted as national heroes.
Events like the Relief of Mafeking created an outpouring of national patriotic fervour and until the defeats of
the Boer War, the people of Britain felt as if they were a chosen race.
The Scramble for Africa
With European countries seeing the establishment of empires as a way of improving their economies and
giving themselves increased status, Britain found that in the last quarter of the c19th, it had to act to defend its
economic and strategic position in the world. With European countries seeking to increase or establish
empires Britain had to establish firmer control over territories that hitherto it had had loose relations with act
to prevent the presence of European powers in areas crucial to its interests. Nowhere was this change in policy
more apparent than in Africa. When Britain acted to establish firmer control over Egypt and sent General
Wolseley to secure Egypt as a British protectorate in 1882, this greatly annoyed the French who had previously
Worked with Britain to advise the Egyptian government. For the rest of the century there was an imperial
rivalry between the countries and in 1898 there was almost war. Similarly when Germany settlers in South
West Africa threatened to join forces with the Boers and establish control over Bechuanaland, Britain decided
to forestall this possible move and established a protectorate thus creating a rivalry with Germany. At this time
(1884) there were about 10,000 tribal kingdoms in Africa but by the end of the century hardly an African
kingdom remained as Africa was divided between the European powers. Most of this division was achieved
with little loss of European lives but at the cost of the destruction of African culture, lives and most tribal
kingdoms.
A crisis of confidence
The value and the purpose of the Empire though was already being questioned even before the Boer War
showed up the limitations of the British Army and the fitness of the nation. Britain stood alone in splendid
isolation and had made potential rivals of all the major powers in the world. The efficiency of both the army
and navy had been questioned in the last years of the nineteenth century and Britain had lost the naval
superiority it enjoyed. Britain's army was not equipped for a continental war and the colonies were doing little
to fund their defences. By 1900 Britain had been overhauled by the USA who was producing more coal and
steel whilst Germany was about to overtake Britain. More faith had to be put in to diplomacy to make the
country secure and in the years before 1914 the policy of Splendid Isolation was abandoned as treaties were
made with first Japan and then France and Russia. The Alliance system though far from bringing security to
Britain was a major factor in bringing about WW1.
The generals were Christian soldiers
The generals who carved out this new empire were seen as Christian soldiers and they became models of
Christian virtue. Public schools like Rugby prepared its students for service in the Empire. As Arnold, Head of
Rugby School from 1828 to 1842 put it: First religious and moral principle, second gentlemanly conduct, third
academic ability. Schools like Rugby might have been preparing boys for service in the Empire but politicians
did not take a great interest in the Empire until Britain's preeminent position was challenged in the period after
1870.
http://www.britishempire.me.uk/britishempire.html

Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901)

Warmhearted and lively, Victoria had a gift for drawing and painting; educated by a governess at home, she
was a natural diarist and kept a regular journal throughout her life. On William IV's death in 1837, she became
Queen at the age of 18.

Queen Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and, especially,
empire. At her death, it was said, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun never set.

In the early part of her reign, she was influenced by two men: her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and
then her husband, Prince Albert, whom she married in 1840. Both men taught her much about how to be a
ruler in a 'constitutional monarchy', in which the monarch had very few powers but could use much influence.

Albert took an active interest in the arts, science, trade and industry; the project for which he is best
remembered was the Great Exhibition of 1851, the profits from which helped to establish the South
Kensington museums complex in London.

Her marriage to Prince Albert produced nine children between 1840 and 1857. Most of her children married
into other Royal families of Europe.
Edward VII (born 1841), married Alexandra, daughter of Christian IX of Denmark. Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh
and of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (born 1844) married Marie of Russia. Arthur, Duke of Connaught (born 1850)
married Louise Margaret of Prussia. Leopold, Duke of Albany (born 1853) married Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont.

Victoria, Princess Royal (born 1840) married Friedrich III, German Emperor. Alice (born 1843) married Ludwig
IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Helena (born 1846) married Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. Louise
(born 1848) married John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll. Beatrice (born 1857) married Henry of Battenberg.

Victoria bought Osborne House (later presented to the nation by Edward VII) on the Isle of Wight as a family
home in 1845, and Albert bought Balmoral in 1852.

Victoria was deeply attached to her husband and she sank into depression after he died, aged 42, in 1861. She
had lost a devoted husband and her principal trusted adviser in affairs of state. For the rest of her reign she
wore black.

Until the late 1860s she rarely appeared in public; although she never neglected her official Correspondence,
and continued to give audiences to her ministers and official visitors, she was reluctant to resume a full public
life.

She was persuaded to open Parliament in person in 1866 and 1867, but she was widely criticised for living in
seclusion and quite a strong republican movement developed.

Seven attempts were made on Victoria's life, between 1840 and 1882 - her courageous attitude towards these
attacks greatly strengthened her popularity.

With time, the private urgings of her family and the flattering attention of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister in
1868 and from 1874 to 1880, the Queen gradually resumed her public duties.

In foreign policy, the Queen's influence during the middle years of her reign was generally used to support
peace and reconciliation. In 1864, Victoria pressed her ministers not to intervene in the Prussia-Denmark war,
and her letter to the German Emperor (whose son had married her daughter) in 1875 helped to avert a second
Franco-German war.
On the Eastern Question in the 1870s - the issue of Britain's policy towards the declining Turkish Empire in
Europe - Victoria (unlike Gladstone) believed that Britain, while pressing for necessary reforms, ought to
uphold Turkish hegemony as a bulwark of stability against Russia, and maintain bi-partisanship at a time when
Britain could be involved in war.

Victoria's popularity grew with the increasing imperial sentiment from the 1870s onwards. After the Indian
Mutiny of 1857, the government of India was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown, with the
position of Governor General upgraded to Viceroy, and in 1877 Victoria became Empress of India under the
Royal Titles Act passed by Disraeli's government.

During Victoria's long reign, direct political power moved away from the sovereign. A series of Acts broadened
the social and economic base of the electorate.

These acts included the Second Reform Act of 1867; the introduction of the secret ballot in 1872, which made
it impossible to pressurise voters by bribery or intimidation; and the Representation of the Peoples Act of 1884
- all householders and lodgers in accommodation worth at least 10 a year, and occupiers of land worth 10 a
year, were entitled to vote.

Despite this decline in the Sovereign's power, Victoria showed that a monarch who had a high level of prestige
and who was prepared to master the details of political life could exert an important influence.

This was demonstrated by her mediation between the Commons and the Lords, during the acrimonious
passing of the Irish Church Disestablishment Act of 1869 and the 1884 Reform Act.

It was during Victoria's reign that the modern idea of the constitutional monarch, whose role was to remain
above political parties, began to evolve. But Victoria herself was not always non-partisan and she took the
opportunity to give her opinions, sometimes very forcefully, in private.

After the Second Reform Act of 1867, and the growth of the two-party (Liberal and Conservative) system, the
Queen's room for manoeuvre decreased. Her freedom to choose which individual should occupy the
premiership was increasingly restricted.

In 1880, she tried, unsuccessfully, to stop William Gladstone - whom she disliked as much as she admired
Disraeli and whose policies she distrusted - from becoming Prime Minister. She much preferred the Marquess
of Hartington, another statesman from the Liberal party which had just won the general election. She did not
get her way.

She was a very strong supporter of Empire, which brought her closer both to Disraeli and to the Marquess of
Salisbury, her last Prime Minister.

Although conservative in some respects - like many at the time she opposed giving women the vote - on social
issues, she tended to favour measures to improve the lot of the poor, such as the Royal Commission on
housing. She also supported many charities involved in education, hospitals and other areas.

Victoria and her family travelled and were seen on an unprecedented scale, thanks to transport improvements
and other technical changes such as the spread of newspapers and the invention of photography. Victoria was
the first reigning monarch to use trains - she made her first train journey in 1842.

In her later years, she became the symbol of the British Empire. Both the Golden (1887) and the Diamond
(1897) Jubilees, held to celebrate the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the Queen's accession, were marked with
great displays and public ceremonies. On both occasions, Colonial Conferences attended by the Prime
Ministers of the self-governing colonies were held.

Despite her advanced age, Victoria continued her duties to the end - including an official visit to Dublin in
1900. The Boer War in South Africa overshadowed the end of her reign. As in the Crimean War nearly half a
century earlier, Victoria reviewed her troops and visited hospitals; she remained undaunted by British reverses
during the campaign: 'We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.'

Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, on 22 January 1901 after a reign which lasted almost 64
years, then the longest in British history.

https://www.royal.uk/victoria-r-1837-1901

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997

When did the British empire end? Was it on the night of August 15 1947, when India and Pakistan gained
independence, and devastated Britons felt (as Enoch Powell later remembered) as if their world was "coming
apart"? Was it in the autumn of 1956, when Britain invaded Suez only to withdraw its forces in humiliation
within a week? Was it in April 1980, when Margaret Thatcher teared up in front of a television set in
Westminster, watching the transfer of power in Rhodesia? Or in June 1997, when Chris Patten wept on camera
as the union flag came down in Hong Kong? Rather like a chap found dead in a club chair, nobody seems able
to say quite when the British empire expired, but everyone agrees it is no more.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/20/featuresreviews.guardianreview2

VICTORIANS: DAILY LIFE

Although the Victorian era was a period of extreme social inequality, industrialisation brought about rapid
changes in everyday life that affected all classes. Family life, epitomised by the young Queen Victoria, Prince
Albert and their nine children, was enthusiastically idealised.

MIDDLE CLASSES

The tremendous expansion of the middle classes, in both numbers and wealth, created a huge demand for
goods and services. The pound was strong and labour was cheap.

Keen to display their affluence, and with the leisure to enjoy it, the newly rich required a never-ending supply
of novelties from the countrys factories and workshops: new colours for ladies clothes (such as mauve), new
toys for their children, fine cutlery from Sheffield, silverware from factories like JW Evans in Birmingham,
dinner and tea services from the Staffordshire Potteries, and plate glass from Liverpool.

What in the 18th century would have been available only to aristocrats was now on show in every smart
middle-class home.

The middle classes needed servants too, and in 1900 almost a third of British women aged between 15 and 20
were in service. Domestic servants represented the largest class of workers in the country, and country houses
like Audley End, Essex, had large service wings to accommodate them.

POVERTY
Luxuries were not available to the millions of working poor, who toiled for long hours in mills (like Stott Park
Bobbin Mill, Cumbria), mines, factories and docks. The dreadful working and living conditions of the early 19th
century persisted in many areas until the end of the Victorian age. The dark shadow of the workhouse loomed
over the unemployed and destitute.
By the 1880s and 1890s, however, most people were benefiting from cheaper imported food and other goods.
New terraces of houses for the more prosperous working classes were increasingly connected to clean water,
drains and even gas.
A series of Factory Acts from the 1830s onwards progressively limited the number of hours that women and
children could be expected to work. Any attempts to organise labour, however, were banned by law until late
in the century.
One of the many rows in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, photographed in the 1860s. The town developed into a
popular seaside resort in the 19th century, but most of its inhabitants continued to work in the towns
prosperous herring industry into the 20th century.

DIVERSIONS FOR ALL

By 1900 there were many diversions and entertainments for rich and poor alike.

Theatres, music halls, libraries, museums and art galleries were built in every major town and many minor
ones, often founded by a new breed of philanthropist. Seaside towns were no longer the preserve of the rich,
and places like Great Yarmouth and Blackpool developed as popular resorts for the working classes.

There were many new sports, such as lawn tennis and croquet, and old sports with newly defined rules, such
as rugby, football and cricket. Games were an essential ingredient of the education provided by the public
schools that multiplied during this period, to make gentlemen out of the new middle classes.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/victorian/daily-life/