An Imperial Nation?
Imperial Expansion
• 1815-1914: 10m square miles and 400m people
added to Empire
• 1857: Indian Mutiny leads to shift towards direct
rule
• Trading dominance also means an effective
‘informal Empire’ (eg Argentina)
• International competition encourages ‘scramble
for Africa’ late 19th century
• 1919 (via territorial gains from Germany in Africa)
Empire reaches its greatest extent: ¼ of world
population and land mass (‘sun never set’)
Sir John Seeley, The Expansion of
England (1883)
• Seeley described the
(imperial) expansion of
England as ‘the great
fact of modern English
history’.
• Yet he also observed:
'We seem to have
conquered and peopled
half the world in a fit of
absence of mind'.
against popular imperialism
• Whatever else it may have been, the British Empire in
the early and mid-19th century was not a “people’s”
empire. Those who say it was, or that imperialism
pervaded British culture and society generally during
this period, are simply wrong… There is no direct
evidence that the great majority of Britons supported
the empire, took an interest in it, or were even aware
of it for most of the century; whereas much
circumstantial evidence points the other way.’ They
were too busy and too poorly educated to care, while
the middle class and upper class imperialists were
happy to keep the empire to themselves. (Bernard
Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists)
why Empire was absent from minds:
Porter’s argument
• Class variable: Empire a preoccupation of narrow upperclass elite, or those in upper-middle-class who have
economic tie (‘gentlemanly capitalism’), but not the mass
of population (though what about eg Lancashire cotton
workers or Dundee Jute workers who did have economic
tie?) Reinforced by David Cannadine’s picture of Empire
reflecting and reinforcing class hierarchy in Ornamentalism
• Critical of cultural historians who make too much of
‘shards’ of evidence.
• Empiricist research questions extent of imperial reference
in popular culture eg only 5 of 80 pre-1880 London statues
• Debate partly depends on what one means by
imperialist
• Porter tends to see other motives/interests as primary
• Middle class more motivated by capitalism, liberalism,
or Christian evangelicalism
• Even when popular imperialism appears to be at its
height it is largely a vehicle for something else: opening
of new markets, expansion of social services, school
holidays …
• Genuine imperialists a small elite of middle/upperclass outsiders and zealots – eg Joseph Chamberlain,
Alfred Milner
but …
• But is then a false debate, based on a very exclusive
definition of imperialist (‘zealots’), and taking out of
play anyone who could have a reason
• In fact in his introduction Porter also says that there
was no non-imperialist choice: even critics of aspects
of imperialism (eg J.A. Hobson) accept that colonies
are inevitable.
• The new imperial history instead sees the influence of
Empire as everywhere. US historiographic and lateimperial context. British post-imperial reevaluation
changes in last third of the nineteenth
century: politics
• Democracy (1867 franchise
to urban working-class
men): Disraeli 1872 Crystal
Palace speech – popular
appeal of Empire tied to
monarchy (1872 Victoria
becomes Empress of India);
Liberal Unionists split from
Liberals over Irish Home
Rule leading to Tory
dominance and new
aggressive imperialism of
men like Joseph
Chamberlain and Alfred
Milner
popular culture
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Exploration of eg Stanley and
Livingstone and popularisation of
Empire; formation of geographical
societies
Pressure group politics: Imperial
Federation League, founded 1884
Public outcry at death of General
Charles Gordon at Khartoum, Egypt
Fiction of writers like Rudyard Kipling
(‘white man’s burden’); G.A. Henty
(boys’ adventure and masculinity)
Mass literacy: 1870 universal
elementary education; 1881 free
Music Hall (debates about reach,
content and meaning)
Or does popular imperialism reach its
zenith in first decades of new century?
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Empire at maximum size 1920
Greater Britain of Empire and Commonwealth: ties of kin
1911-19: about 3m emigrate (surplus of 1m)
18th C 5,000/year; 19th C 20,000/year; pre WWI
300,000/year
• Complex back and forth flow: analysis of passengers on
ships
• Imperial settlements within Britain (Elizabeth Buettner,
Empire Families): Surrey Hills, Bayswater; but also British
enclaves in Empire
• ‘I pledge allegiance to my country, the British Empire’
(winner of school pledge competition South Australia,
1904)
The ‘white dominions’ and a Greater
Britain
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1867: Dominion of Canada becomes a selfgoverning federation
1901: Commonwealth of Australia
established
1909: Union of South Africa given Dominion
status
1917: Imperial War Cabinet
1926: Imperial Conference declares Great
Britain and the dominions autonomous and
equal though freely associated as members
of the British Commonwealth of Nations:
push or pull?
1931: Statute of Westminster embodies
decision of 1926 Imperial Conference:
essentially equal members of
Commonwealth
4 nation state evolving into multi-nation
Empire state with shared Britannic identity?
A new sort of imperialism?
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International competition / ‘decline’
EHH Green, ‘The Crisis of Conservatism
Tariff reform and economic importance of Empire trading
Greater Britain of white dominions
Imperialism and motherhood
Racial thinking?
Youth movements: Boy Scouts (1908); militarism and uniforms or era
Emergence of popular national press: Daily Mail (1896); Daily Express (1900)
Jingoism of ‘Khaki’ Election of 1900: J.A. Hobson ‘The Psychology of Jingoism’
(Ends WWI?):
http://archive.org/stream/psychologyofjing00hobsuoft#page/n11/mode/2up
Politicisation and state support: Empire Marketing Board
Weakness of anti-imperialism?
Welfare vision of imperial development eg Men of Africa (Colonial Empire
Marketing Board, 1940): http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/5730
Economics of Empire
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Britain loses advantage as first industrial
nation: new imperialism a sign of economic
weakness rather than strength?
Increasing importance of invisible trade of
financial sector, and role in stabilising world
economy (weakens after WWI; but trade
with Empire increasingly important)
Debate over going further via bonds of
Empire, imperial preference (tariff reform) eg
Joseph Chamberlain (also potential social
benefits: tax and social reform)
1913 Britain sends 22% exports to Empire;
1938 sends 47%
1920-24 takes 27% imports from Empire;
rising to 37.9% in 1938
By 1938, Empire receives 99% of British
overseas investment
1933 Sterling Area created (context of world
economic depression)
Intersection with everyday lifestyles
• Helps lower prices
• Tropical fruit no longer a
luxury
• Chocolate overtakes boiled
sweets (milk chocolate bars
1920s)
• Banal nationalism: presence
on coins, stamps, adverts …
• But what does this mean in
relation to the question of
whether there was a
popular imperialism:
mindless?
new institutions, invented traditions,
the role of the state
• British Empire Exhibition at
Wembley – 17 million
visitors
• Empire Day
• Monarchy, radio, and
Empire
• School text books and
exams (David Cannadine
memoir of growing up after
the Second World War
• Are such phenomena
reflections of the view from
above, rather than below?
Cinema and popular imperialism
(1935)
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Popular entertainment driven by the
market a better indication of
feelings?
Or eg Sanders of the River
propaganda: Sanders saving Africans
from self-destruction
Radical Paul Robeson furious with
result. Film dedicated to dedicated to
"the handful of white men whose
everyday work is an unsung saga of
courage and efficiency".
John Mackenzie: ‘an extraordinary
indian summer in the popular culture
of Empire … reflected assumptions of
racial and cultural superiority’
Sanders of the River (1935):
http://archive.org/details/Sandersoft
heRiver
Historians growing up
• John Mackenzie: uncles and aunts emigrate to Canada
and Australia; father (stonemason) goes to Africa for
work on and off from 1920s to 1960s; JM spends some
of childhood in Zambia; returns to Scotland for
education and finds ‘Empire to be all around me’
• David Cannadine (‘an imperial childhood’ in
Ornamentalism): b, 1950; significance of coronation
fostering idea of greater Britain; enforced by reading,
education, triumphs of civil engineering. But a
superficial childhood vision, which clashes with
increasing public anti-imperial and ‘de-imperializing’
episodes; but ‘part of me found it all very sad – for me,
not for them’. But ultimately not ‘drenched’ in empire.
Problems with popular imperialism
• Meaning of popular culture: escapism; top down or bottom
up; irony; convention rather than conscious embrace
• Move away from seeing working class as passive, duped,
irrational
• Comparative perspective
• Lack of movements in support
• The left and anti-imperialism
• Lack of resistance or upheaval in response to withdrawal
• 1947/8 Colonial Office survey exposes public ignorance
• Implications of the popular imperialism debate for the
understanding of impact of End of Empire on nation
Further reading, links to sources and
reviews
• IHR Empire in Focus:
http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Empire/#r
evwar
• Sander of the River (1935):
http://archive.org/details/SandersoftheRiver