Introduction - British Empire 1815-1914

British Empire
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An Introduction to
British Empire 1815-1914


Slavery in the West Indies

The Black Watch during the Asante War of 1873/4

Diamond miners in South Africa

The Parliament building in Cape Town

Missionaries of the Church Missionary Society

The Aborigine cricket team of 1868

We have failed to take the British Empire seriously as a historical topic
For too long as a nation we have failed to take the British Empire seriously as a historical topic. Serious debate has been confined to academia and those schools that teach one of the few courses on the British Empire. The mainstream media seems happy just to discuss whether statues should stand or fall and to debate the Empire in terms of how evil it was. We have failed to look at the real themes of empire eg why, how and by whom it developed, the nature of empires, and their legacy. Real debate about the British Empire has been stifled by self-righteous activists who believe that it should be judged on moral terms and contemporary values as if we hold the moral high ground. To base history on attempts to try and come to some moral truth, would mean the subject loses all objectivity. We must accept the past was different and that our job as historians is to explain why and how it was different. This website attempts to look at some of the key questions about the British Empire and consider answers to these and other questions that we need as a nation to be considering rather than for reasons of our own sensibilities, not confront the realities of empires, then and now.
The British Empire in 1886
Without an understanding of the British Empire we cannot understand the world in which we live. The British Empire at its height ruled over a quarter of the world's population with territories in every part of the world. There wasn't a part of the world that it did not touch and the areas marked red on classroom maps were just the tip of the iceberg, with Britain's informal empire as if not more important than the official empire. The British Empire affected the course of western civilisation and influenced the development of every territory it came into contact with.
The world has been shaped by the British Empire
The world today would look very different had there not been a British Empire. A large proportion of the world's boundaries reflect the way Britain divided up and administered  her colonies, and the legacy of those boundaries still causes tension in part of the world, particularly the division of India by the British in 1947. British parliamentary and judicial institutions still exist in many parts of the world as does the British education system. In many former colonies you will still see today children going to school in uniforms introduced by the British.

The British did not just have an impact on those living in the territories of the Empire. It also affected the lives of those living in Britain, both during the time of Empire and in subsequent decades as we have seen during the recent Brexit debate when there was a call in some quarters for a return to the days of Empire.

Today we find such aspects of the British Empire unpalatable when viewed using the values of the 21st Century and the tendency has been not to discuss or teach those parts of our history which offend our sensibilities. In an Ofsted Report of 2004 inspectors found that the empire "is a significant subject that currently receives insufficient time in schools". The report went on to say that "pupils should know about the empire and that it has been interpreted by historians and others in different ways". If schools did teach aspects of empire it was the injustice of it all. Ofsted said that the teaching of empire had been neglected and there was a reluctance by teachers to deal with the subject.

The Sutlej Bridge

Missionaries in Lahore

The development of tea in India

Global trade

The development of architecture in Britain

Indians in South Africa

Statues, slavery and evil
Given the importance of the imperial legacy it is somewhat surprising that there is so much ignorance today about the nature of the British Empire. Any discussion in the media today about the British Empire often very quickly descends into a discussion about slavery, knocking down statues and how evil the British Empire was.
The British Empire was portrayed as a civilising empire
We need a grown up debate
We are in danger of interpreting history as a moral narrative and selecting evidence to fit in with political objectives. Such an approach is unhistorical and flawed. To attempt to analyse history on ever changing contemporary values is wrong. And does little to answer the basic questions any historian needs to answer.In an article in History Today published in October 2007, Piers Brendon asks how we can arrive at a moral audit of the British Empire. He comes to the conclusion that Britain is in grave moral deficit, mainly because of the Empire’s recurrent use of violence, but that The history of empires is the history of human misery. What is needed is a grown-up debate about how, when and by whom the British Empire was developed, and what was the nature of the interaction between soldiers, settlers, officials and native peoples. We also need to look at the nature of empires and to what extent all empires are violent but more importantly why do we treat empires differently. Why is the British Empire considered evil yet we cannot get enough of documentaries about the Roman Empire? How should we analyse African kings like Shaka who caused widespread destruction? Why is the destruction of statues of Cecil Rhodes demanded by student activists yet Queens Victoria and Elizabeth are revered despite both helping to enlarge the Empire and being advocates of imperialism?
Decisions were taken by men on the spot
We talk of empire as if it were monolithic. The British Empire at its height consisted of over a hundred territories all ruled in different ways – some were dominions with democratic parliaments, others ruled by autocratic governors and other territories had governors and legislative assemblies. For much of its history the empire was very decentralised with decisions being taken by the men on the spot. The small Colonial Office did not have a large budget and its main focus was in ensuring that there be as few costly enterprises as possible.
The original Colonial Office
The Colonial Office acted as an umpire
The Colonial  Office often acted as an umpire between the competing interests of the missionaries, settlers, soldiers and native people. One way by which the Colonial Office sought to minimise its expenditure was to grant private companies the powers of the state. The East India Company had for a long time been the model for this, having been given its charter by Queen Elizabeth in 1601,  and although it was  disbanded in 1858,  at the end of the c19th there existed private companies in South, West and East Africa.  This empire, like all empires was expansionist, but it was only in the last quarter of the c19th that the Empire became overtly expansionist. Ronald Hyam has described the British Empire as being a fluid, changing and complex phenomenon. It certainly changed over time and its story will vary enormously depending on who is telling the story and from what perspective and experiences. Any understanding of the British Empire must recognise these complexities and deal with them. What we must not do is to settle for the simplistic approach of basing our history on a moral approach otherwise we end up using violence as a barometer of empires and fail to look at other key questions.
The Sikh Wars of the 1840s were part of the British expansion towards the North West of India
Violence is an essential part of empires
Empires are created and sustained with the use of violence and the British Empire was quite typical. In 1902 a War Office report showed between 1857 and 1899, there were fifteen wars in various parts of the British Empire, and these were wars which involved more than 3,000 British troops. Not included were the many conflicts, often ongoing for years, where less than 3,000 troops were used, and also the Boer War which involved the use of 450,000 British and imperial troops.
Gott shows how violence was ever present
These figures related to the conquering of territories and the suppression of uprisings by native peoples. The threat of the use of violence was an ever-present threat in colonial society as the British tried to transform native societies. How much violence was a part of imperial rule can be seen by recent books such as ‘Britain’s Empire’ by Richard Gott. What Gott shows is that violence was not unique, it was ever present throughout the empire. Gott documents the numerous wars and local conflicts the British were involved in and the sheer brutality of the British occupation in many territories. What it does not show though is the extent of violence in all empires, and in fact in society in general. Such questions need to be asked.

Britain’s Empire is an excellent book being accessible and dealing well with the myth that the British Empire was a civilising one. It is one recent book which re-assesses the nature of traditional narratives and the myths that surround them. The teaching of the British Empire was for the first sixty years of c20th used as a way of sustaining a triumphalist view of our past and creating a view of ourselves and the world that was anachronistic. In recent times Michael Gove has wanted to introduce a revised version of this approach which in essence was the story of the expansion of Britain. That this re-evaluation demanded by the Conservatives happened against the backdrop of Brexit was no coincidence. Old myths about the British Empire need to be examined. Is there a better topic in which to consider how and why interpretations of the past change over time?

The First Matabele War

The Ashante Wars

The Concentration camps in South Africa

The Battle of Omdurman

Wars against the Aborigines

The Maori Wars

The Indian Rebellion

Why so much controversy about the British Empire?
We are sensitive about discussing the realities of Empire because the British Empire still evokes so much passion and controversy. Why is this? Possibly because it was only recently decolonised, between 1947 and 1997, and there are survivors alive today who suffered from British injustice and the brutality of its empire.
The Hola Camp massacre
There are survivors in Kenya and the UK of  the Mau Mau Rebellion and atrocities like the Hola Camp massacre. Yet an analysis of the statistics  shows that the Mau Mau killed 1,880 civilians, nearly a third of them being loyalist Kikuyu Guard. The rebellion was a complex one and it was not just a colonial war but a civil war as well. Survivors of this conflict have recently been able to get compensation for what they suffered. The British Empire was the largest empire the world had seen and in an era in which empires are anachronistic, it is inevitable that the British Empire will come in for severe criticism. The British portrayed their empire as a civilising one, yet the role that violence played shows the contradiction of such  claims.

In addition to Gott’s book mentioned above, there have been others that have begun to deal with issues of legacy and violence such as Ghosts of Empire by Kwasi Kwarteng. Piers Brendon’s The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997 is also a very welcome book that gives an excellent overview of the British Empire as does John Darwin’s Unfinished Empire.
We need to face up to our past
Now is the time when we should as a nation begin to look at the important issues surrounding the British Empire in order to better understand not just ourselves but the world. We need to come to terms with the reality of Empires and understand their importance in world history. This objective is not just for scholars but for the general public. We need to do this without fear of dealing with sensitive issues, and where alternative views are put forward that some find unpalatable,  they should be dealt with headlong. It is hoped that this website, with its sections on Key Questions and Turning Points as well as features on those individuals who played a part in the imperial process, can contribute in some small way to this process.

Peter Crowhurst
April 2020
Who is this website for?
I have produced this website for anyone who is interested in knowing more about the British Empire, especially during those years when it reached its greatest size and degree of influence - the Victorian period. Whether you are coming to the empire for the first time, or you are a casual reader  or you are a first year undergraduate, I hope there will be something here for you.
What does the website offer?
This website has information about the growth of the British Empire from the time of the Napoleonic wars until the outbreak of World War One. There are  introductory essays on An Outline History of the British Empire’ and ‘Key Features of the c19th British Empire’  and also an essay on ‘Why Study the British Empire?’ then sections on some of the main controversies that engage historians and the public and the main turning points and profiles of some of those who helped make the British Empire. There is a reference section with glossaries of colonial wars, people and the territories of the British Empire and also suggestions for further reading, both fiction and non-fiction. If you are looking for something which is not here or you have suggestions as to what might be included please contact me.
Where should I begin?
If you are new to the study of the British Empire you may want to read my essay on Why Study the Empire?  and then go on to read  ‘Key Features of the c19th British Empire?  This discusses the idea of empire and how British and English the empire was. If you want to know a little  about the background of the establishment of the British Empire, you may want to read ‘An Outline History of the British Empire.
Who am I?
I am a retired History teacher who spent most of my teaching career as Head of History in a large comprehensive school in West Sussex where I taught all ages and periods of British and World History. In the last few years of my career I introduced topics on the British Empire to various year groups  and since retirement have developed further my interest in the British Empire.
My Talks
As well as preparing material for the website, I also give talks on a range of topics linked to the British Empire. Recent talks include: General Garnet Wolseley, Olaf Caroe -the last Governor of the North West Territories of India, The Boer War,  Cecil Rhodes and Kipling’s Rottingdean Years. I am now preparing a talk on ‘Ranji-  an Imperial Servant’. More details on these talks can be found here.

As well as talks on the British Empire 1815 - 1914, I also give talks and guided walks on the North Laine area of Brighton. See my website on North Laine for more details: www.northlainehistory.info

Contact Me
You can contact me using the form on the contact page
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