British Empire

At its height the British Empire covered almost a quarter of the world's land surface (the largest in history) and included large areas of North America, Australia, Africa and Asia. Britain now has only 14 small overseas territories, including Bermuda, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and the Cayman islands. Most of the former members of the British Empire are now members of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Creation of an Empire

By the beginning of the 20th century, Britain had created an empire that was larger than any previous empire. But it was an empire that lacked the consistency of purpose, location and character of its Roman and Ottoman predecessors. The purposes of its founders had included escape from persecution, the exploitation of natural resources, the establishment of trading links, the pursuit of military advantage, and the mercantilist objective of preserving a positive balance of payments. Its colonies were scattered, seemingly at random, throughout the five continents. Their forms of governance had included both direct rule and indirect rule; both assimilation (meaning the adoption of British laws and customs), and the preservation of traditional society, customs and laws. Some subject peoples experienced benign paternalism, and some suffered systematic brutality.

Historians have long sought explanations for Britain's paradoxical ability to dominate an imperial population some twenty times its own size, and for the willingness of many of its former colonies to associate themselves with it as free and equal members of the Commonwealth.

Links to reports of events in the creation of the empire are available on the timelines subpage

Causes and influences

Trade policy was among the reasons for the growth of empire. The decay of the feudal system had, by the 16th century, enabled labour to move into manufacturing activities such as cloth production, and cloth producers and others were seeking new markets for their products. In line with the mercantilist orthdoxy of the time, governments granted monopoly rights (royal charters) to colonising companies, and imposed restrictions (Navigation Acts ) designed to make them accept British exports. Personal economic and/or religious advantage motivated the colonists themselves, but their activity also served the purpose of official trade policy. Different purposes were served by the possession of the Caribbean colonies during the two centuries of the first empire. The revenues received over a period of 150 years by their absentee English owners from the sugar plantations, and by the English slave traders from the triangular trade in goods and slaves, were so vast that there have been (admittedly controversial) claims that they made a significant contribution to the financing of the industrial revolution. Commercial advantage was allowed to outweigh - what were eventually recognised as overwhelming - humanitarian considerations until the Atlantic slave trade was prohibited in 1807. Trade was the sole purpose of the initial British presence in India, and military action leading to annexation occurred only when that presence was threatened.

A determining factor of the rapid expansion that occurred during the time of the second empire was the achievement of naval supremacy by the virtual destruction of the French and Spanish navies in the battle of Trafalgar. The development of trade was still a policy objective, but it was often overlaid by the practice of forcibly excluding European competitors, and it sometimes - particularly in Africa - became a straightforward scramble for power in which the British military machine usually prevailed.

The British colonies

The term "colony" is not in current use, but its use in this article is intended to denote any country that was under partial or total British control. The settlements in North America began not long after the ending - with the loss of Calais - of England's military adventures on the European mainland, but they were enterprises of different sort. They were undertaken by associations of private individuals, not by the state; and the colonists were farmers, not soldiers. The British government