The House of Hannover
(1714 – 1901)
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King George I
George II, George III, George IV
King William IV
Queen Victoria
George I (1714-1727)
• The first Hanoverian king
• James II’s son wanted to return as James
III. He was Catholic. He tried to win the
throne by force. The Old Pretender.
• 1715 – first Jacobite rebellion
• 1745 second Jacobite rebellion led by
Bonnie Prince Charlie (=The Young
Pretender, James II’s grandson, ).
Defeated at Culloden in 1746.
George I
• Didn’t speak English
• Didn’t get involved in British politics
• Left most decisions to the Cabinet
• Britain’s first PM: Robert Walpole
• Walpole made sure that the
power of the king would always
be limited
• Another influential PM: 1756-61, 1766-86
William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham
His focus was on trade
The Seven Years’ War (1756-63)
Britain gained control of Quebec & Montreal
French trade interests destroyed in India
- George III ended the war
George III (1760-1820)
• First Hanoverian king to be born in Britain
• John Wilkes – champion of free speech
• Loss of the American colonies
American War of Independence (1775-83)
● Australia – Captain Cook 1770, the First Fleet
arrived with convicts in 1788
Hulks – prison ships
George III (1760-1820)
• 1800 – Act of Union with Ireland
• New Country after 1 Jan 1801: United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
This union lasted for 120 years.
• 1707 – Act of Union with Scotland
• 1603 – Union of the Crowns
• 1536 – Act of Union of England and Wales
The Industrial Revolution
(about 1750s - late 1800s)
• 1750 – Britain was an agricultural society
• 1850 – Britain was an industrial nation
Several influences came together at the
same time to revolutionise British industry.
- iron
- cotton, wool (1764 spinning machine,
1785 a power machine for weaving)
- improved transport
John Wesley (1703-1791)
• An Anglican cleric
• Travelled around the country preaching in
small groups to the lower classes
• Had a very personal and emotional style of
preaching
• The Methodist Church
-first part of the Church of England
-later became a separate church
The French Revolution 1789
• Divided Britain
• 1793 – Britain went to war after France
had invaded the Low Countries
• 1805 – Trafalgar, Lord Nelson as
commander of Br fleet
-Trafalgar Square, London
- Nelson’s Column
The French Revolution
• 1815 – Waterloo
• British general: Wellington
• Napoleonic Wars – brought economic
prosperity.
• Peace came in 1815 – everything changed
• General misery. Petty crimes – severe
punishments
• Workhouses – Charles Dickens
• Growth of towns and cities
1832 – The Reform Bill
• It gave the vote to a large circle of middleclass men
• 1833 – reformed parliament:
• 1833 – The Emancipation Act - abolition of
slavery in the British Empire
William Wilberforce
• 1833 – the first effective Factory Act
• 1834 – Tolpuddle in Dorset
1838 - The People’s Charter
• Equal representation, universal suffrage
and vote by ballot
• = the Chartists
• 1839 – riots in Newport, Wales
• 1840 – the movement was defeated
1840s: ‘We must make this country
a cheap country for living.’
• 1842 – abolishment of many import duties
• 1846 – abolishment of the Corn Laws that
kept the price of corn higher than
necessary
• Free trade instead of protectionism
• PM: Sir Robert Peel
Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901)
• Crowned at the age of 18
• Got married in 1840. Her husband was a
German prince, Prince
Albert of Saxe-Coburg
• Prince Albert died in 1861.
• Had 9 children
• Her rule was the longest of
any British monarch
1851 – The Great Exhibition,
Crystal Palace, London
• The world’s first international trade
The railway system
• By 1840 – about 4000 kms of track
• 1851 – passenger trains
• People moved to suburbs
• The rise of the middle class
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
• 1854-56 – the Crimean War
• The ‘lady of the Lamp’
• Improved the conditions
of military hospitals
Second Reform Bill - 1867
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1 million working-class men got the vote
1872 – the Ballot Act made voting secret
Trade unions were given a legal status
Education Act of 1870 – established
primary schools where there were no
Church schools
1860s-1870s
• The modern state as we know it was built
• Number of voters in 1884: 60% of men in
towns and 70% of men in the country
• Civil service
• The value of monarchy was questioned
• 1868: Our life in the Highlands
• Balmoral Castle
Victorian values
• Associated with middle class people
• loyalty, Protestant work ethic
• Franz Winterhalter:
Queen Victoria
and her family
Prime Ministers
• Lord Palmerston (1855-58, 1859-65)
• Benjamin Disraeli (1868, 1874-1880)
• William Gladstone (1868-74, 1880-85,
1886, 1892-94)
Foreign policy
• 1815-65 – Britain was the undisputed
mistress of the world
• 1854 – the Crimean War
• 1839-42 – the war in Afghanistan
• 1839 – the Opium War
• 1857 – the Indian Mutiny
• 1877 – Empress of India
Ireland
• 1845-47 – the Irish Potato Famine
• About 1 million people died, 1 million
people emigrated to the US and Britain
• Population of Ireland:
5 million in early 19th c
8 million in mid-19th c
now: about 6 million
• Struggle for self-government (Home Rule)
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Wales
• By 1870s: Wales
became an industrial
society
• Coal and steel
industry in the south
• Population: 0,5 million
(1800s) – 2 million
(1900s)
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Scotland
• Industrial area:
Glasgow and
Edinburgh
• Highland Clearances
The British Empire
• 1497 – John Cabot claimed the ‘New
Found Land’ for Henry VII
• Elizabeth I (1588-1603)
• Sir Francis Drake – 1580
• Buccaneers
• Chartered companies: 1600 – English
East India Company
• Virginia
North America
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1585 – Sir Walter Raleigh
1607 – Jamestown
1620 – Pilgrim Fathers
Religious refugees: 1639 Connecticut,
1634 Maryland – haven for Roman
Catholics
• 1664 – New Amsterdam
• 1756-63 – Seven Years’ War
The Caribbean
• 1623 – Saint Christopher
• 1655 – Jamaica
• 1672 – the Royal Africa Company was set
up to import black slaves
• Reasons so far: trade
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religious persecution
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penal settlement
• 1718 – Transportation Act
• 1782 – loss of the 13 American colonies
Asia
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The Indian subcontinent
1700s – 3 trading posts
Company Rule
1857- 8 – Indian Mutiny
Under the direct control of the Br govt
1877 – Victoria= Empress of India
Burma
Afghanistan
Australia
• 1770 – Capt Cook
• 1788 – First Fleet
• Convicts
• Gibraltar - 1714
• New Zealand
• 1805 – Trafalgar
• Br= master of the
seas
Africa
• Dutch settlement in the south
• Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)
• 1806 Britain purchased the Cape Colony
from the Dutch
• 1910 Union of South Africa – dominion
• ‘Scramble for Africa’
• Egypt – the Suez Canal
The Middle East
• 1919 – the British Empire at its height
• The Treaty of Versailles gave Britain most
of the German Empire in Africa
• Collapse of the Ottoman Empire – british
acquisition of Palestine and Iraq in 1918
• Dissolution of Empire
• Commonwealth of Nations
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1887 – Golden Jubilee
1901 – Victoria died
Edward VII (1901-10)
Liberal reforms – beginnings of the welfare
state
• Lloyd George PM and his budget
• George V (1910-36)
• The House of Windsor
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1911 Parliament Act
House of Lords – limited power
1914 – WWI
Central Powers – Allies
End: 11 Nov 1918
Votes to women: 1918, 1928
• Suffragettes
• Emmeline Pankhurst
• Rise of the Labour Party
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The Irish problem
1914 – Home Rule
1916 – Easter Rising
1921: the Irish Free State and Northern
Ireland
• 1926 – General Strike
• The Great Depression 1929 –
• Edward VIII abdicated
because of Mrs Simpson
• George VI 1936-1952
• WWII
• The Blitz
Loss of Empire
• United Nations Charter in 1945 called for
progress towards self-government
• The Partition of India – 1947
• 1931 – British Commonwealth of Nations
• Loss of power and status on the world
stage
• The old imperial spirit revived in 1982 –
Falklands War
• Elizabeth II (1952 –
• Born in 1926
• Immigration
• Social Darwinism
• Britain and the EU
• Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013)
• PM 1979-90
• Thatcherism
• Northern Ireland
• 1921, Ulster, 1972, The Troubles
• Devolution: Northern Ireland Assembly