The Legacy of the British Empire?

A Huge Impact on the World

The British Empire has had a huge impact on the world in which we live. A brief look at an atlas from before WW1 will show over 100 colonies that were then part of the Empire but now are part of or wholly sovereign states. Within these states much remains of the commercial, industrial, political and cultural apparatus set up by the British. In many former colonial areas, political issues remain to be solved that had their genesis during the British era. Kwasi Kwarteng, a British MP and historian has recently written a book ‘Ghosts of Empire’ in which he focuses on a few of these areas (Kashmir, Burma, Sudan, Iraq, Nigeria and Hong Kong) and details the legacy of the British.

The legacy of the British has been varied and complex but in recent years much attention has been on making value judgements about whether the Empire was a good or bad thing. It would seem that as a nation we are more concerned about beating ourselves up and making the nation feel guilty than understanding how and why the British came to exist, and setting the growth of the British Empire into context. The British Empire was built on the use of and the continual threat of violence and there were appalling examples of the use of force. As well as the Slave Trade and Slavery, there was the Amritsar Massacre, the Jamaican Uprising, the Boer War concentration camps and the response to the Indian Rebellion. However, we must not just focus on these events but examine the Empire in all of its complexities.

Four in Ten view the Empire as a good thing

On the other hand, a number of recent polls have indicated that more than four in ten Britons view the British Empire as a good thing and colonialism as something that we can feel proud of. Only one in five in a YouGov poll sees the British Empire as a reason to feel regret. Such views most likely reflect differences between Labour and Conservative supporters, and the kind of education that was received. Anyone who was taught a version of Empire which focused on the glorious exploits of Clive, Gordon and Raffles and saw the Second World War as won by Britain fighting alone will have a different view to someone who was taught nothing of empire but the Slave Trade.

The Teaching of the Empire should be Honest

The British Empire was complex and the teaching of it needs to reflect these complexities. Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chanceller of the University of Buckingham, has made the point that the teaching of the Empire should be honest and not dominated by special interest groups. ‘History teaching should be honest or it is merely propaganda’..’The history of the British Empire was not all bad, and no all good. Understanding its subtlety and its importance to British and world history is essential for every student. Dr Andrea Major, associate professor in British colonial history, called for better teaching of the British Empire when she told the Telegraph, ‘There is a collective amnesia about the levels of violence, exploitation and racism involved n many aspects of imperialism,…. We need better education and more open debate on all aspects of British colonial history, warts and all  - not as an exercise in self-flagellation but as a means of better understanding the world around us and how we are perceived by others’.

We need to ditch teaching about our perceived glorious past and face up to the darker side of our past, but not forgetting that the Empire had a huge impact on the world today and that it was not all bad – even if such legacies were not necessarily intended.

The Man on the Spot often determined what happened

Many of the former colonies of the Empire retain vestiges of the political systems set up by the British. The colonies were run in a variety of ways – some eventually as self-governing dominions (largely the white settler colonies), others by authoritarian governors but others with an element of local participation. Much depended on ‘The Man on the Spot’. Whoever was in control of a colony had to be  aware of the views of the local elites and govern through them. When there was opposition to British rule, and there was much opposition, there was always attempted suppression of that violence but with limited resources at their disposal, the British often had to make compromises in the form of allowing a certain amount of local participation. This might mean members of the local elite being used as advisers or becoming members of a chosen legislative council. Later that might mean participation of the people at large in elections to choose a legislative or executive council.

Britain also had a liberal Parliamentary constitution which was able to impose constraints on the actions of colonial authorities and residents, and Britain governed in a way that allowed for a degree of local self-government. The widening of the franchise in the c19th also resulted in enlightened MPs sitting in the House of Commons and with the widening of the franchise after 1832, politicians in Britain had to take into account the views of the electorate.

The Empire was an empire of Liberty

The British believed their empire was a liberal empire. They saw it as a force for good, bringing development and civilisation, if even at times British forms of government and her preferred trading system had to be forced on indigenous populations. Free trade was seen as  morally good , and a form of trade that was linked to the spread of free speech, ideas and free movement.

The British Empire had developed through the efforts of private enterprise but when the privileges accorded the private company were abused parliament was ready to step in. In the 1770s, Parliamentary investigations into the East India Company (HEIC) conclude that a despotic form of government had been established by the nabobs and elite with the HEIC that went right to the heart of the administration in India. Huge amounts of money were being made by the Company’s servants, often through the extortion of local people. Eventually parliament passed the Regulating Act, to make clear the imperial government’s right to oversee the running of British held India. This was the first in a number of Acts that restricted the power of the HEIC which eventually in 1858 had all its power taken away and ceased to exist.

The influx of evangelical MPs from the 1790s also resulted in the abolition of  the Slave Trade and  Slavery in the Empire. Having abolished slavery the House of Commons set up a committee to oversee the treatment of indigenous people in the Crown colonies.

The American Revolution had taught the imperial government the dangers of not allowing a degree of self-government so when there were a series of uprisings in Canada in the 1830s, Lord Durham was sent out to report on the situation and produce a report with his recommendations.  The Durham Report of 1839 concluded that the rebellions were born out of political frustration and consequently self-government was accorded to Canada in a federal structure that was introduced in 1867. This became the model for the white settler dominions  although the Crown Colonies and India were not accorded the same democratic rights. In India the government did all it could to avoid giving away any kind of democratic but pressure on the local government did result in some political reforms, but only when the alternative was possible widespread rebellion. The policy of the British to ruling their territories was one that combined repression with compromise and the British constitution allowed for this.

This policy of repression and compromise meant that violence played an important role in the running of the empire and it has left a legacy of bitterness, anger and resentment towards the British. The British did not create colonies in areas where no-one lived. There were encounters with indigenous people wherever they went. The main motive for establishing a colony was to exploit the labour and raw materials of the lands the British  occupied. If that could be done through a treaty then there would be no need for a colony but if there was resistance to trading with the British, then land had to be occupied and local people subjected to  British rule. The encounters between the British and local people meant the end of local systems of law, the end of aspects of local culture that ran counter to British concepts of civilisation, and often the end of local systems of farming which were brought into the British global system of trade.

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