Britain and its Empire, 1763-1919

The British Empire was not just a collection of territories or a world map coloured pink – it was a set of lived experiences, a state of mind. Over the course of the 19th century peoples in wildly different parts of the world were brought under the influence and rule of one specific and highly idiosyncratic European country. At times there was a clash between British concepts of justice and law and the nature of British rule overseas. How did the British sustain an increasingly global Empire with such a paradox at its heart?

Central to the British idea of Empire was a concept of its moral purpose. The demands of trade, which lay at the root of the early development of Empire, were thought of in terms of extending a moral vision, which caused an Empire based inevitably on exploitation first to outlaw and suppress the international slave trade and then to both enforce and to agonise over its own trade in opium. British missionary societies preached the superiority of their beliefs and morals, while educating colonised people in the ideas and techniques that would enable them to challenge the justice of British colonial rule.

No survey of the Victorian Empire is complete without looking at the impact that control of a global empire had on the Victorians themselves. By the end of the century Empire pervaded every aspect of their daily lives and had been absorbed into their view of the world and their place within it. It provided them with their heroes and their stories and ideals; it gave them their sense of moral worth and virtue; and at the same time it pricked their conscience and led them to think of their own mortality.

British imperialism remains a hotly contentious topic and we will be looking at its implications for how we regard the past – and ourselves – today.