End of British Empire

The British Empire was the largest, richest, and most powerful empire in the world. There were British colonies all over the globe. Its demise was not a single event, but rather a series of several events over many years. What remained of the British Empire developed into the Commonwealth in the twentieth century with former British dependencies obtaining sovereignty but retaining ties to the UK.

The rise of the British Empire

To fully understand the end of the British Empire and its implications, we must take a quick look at the beginning of the British Empire first.

The origins of the British Empire

While there is no official start date for the beginning of the British Empire, the foundations were laid in 1497, with successful foreign explorations under the reign of King Henry VII. Then, the sixteenth century, named the ‘Age of Discovery’, brought with it better shipbuilding. This led to more exploration and, eventually, the discovery and colonisation of new lands.

Why did Britain want to become an empire?

Finding new countries and building colonies meant more land. The colonies would provide England with valuable materials such as metals, sugar, and tobacco, which in turn could be used by the empire itself or sold to other countries.

The colonies would also offer wealthy Englishmen money-making opportunities, and they provided jobs and new places to live for those who needed them.

The first British colony

The first-ever British colony was set up in Roanoke, Virginia (North America) in 1585. However, it failed, and a second one was set up in 1587. The second attempt did not go well. Sometime between 1587 and 1590, the colonists disappeared without a trace and were never found again. It has been dubbed the ‘Lost Colony of Roanoke’.

It wasn’t until 1607 that the first permanent English colony was founded. This was at Jamestown, Virginia, by Captain John Smith.

Over the centuries that followed, Britain gained and lost several territories all over the world.

Fig. 1 - Map showing all territories that belonged to the British Empire at one time or another. Those underlined in red are the UK and accompanying British Overseas Territories, meaning territories that belong to the British Empire today.

The end of slavery in the British Empire

Sadly, the slave trade was ‘big business’. However, the Industrial Revolution meant that goods produced by slavery became less important to the British economy. Also, people’s views on slavery began to change: they started to see it as brutal and inhumane. This eventually led to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

Britain and slavery

The so-called Atlantic slave trade involved the transportation of slaves from Africa, mainly to the Americas. Britain was also part of the slave trade. Between 1662 and 1807, the British and British colonial ships purchased an estimated 3,415,500 Africans, with 2,964,800 surviving the 'middle passage'. They were sold into slavery in the Americas.

Fig. 2 - Map showing the intercontinental and transatlantic slave trade.

British abolition of slavery

The slave trade reached its peak in the 1780s. However, people started to voice their concerns over the slave trade, the implications of slavery and the brutality of the system.

The biggest event in standing up to slavery came in the form of the Haitian Revolution. The slaves started a massive revolt on 23 August 1791 on the island of Saint Domingue (nowadays Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The revolt would last for 13 years, but on 1 January 1804, Haiti was declared independent. This revolt was a turning point in the fight to abolish slavery.

There were two prominent British abolitionists who played a vital role in the successful campaign against slavery:

Even though the Slave Trade Act of 1807 was in place, plantation slavery still existed in some British colonies, and it was not until 1838 that the full enslavement stopped.

The end of the British Empire

The British Empire would diminish over decades when the colonies started to gain their independence. The beginning of the end of the British Empire was not one single event. That being said, the actual end of the British Empire happened in 1997, when the British handed Hong Kong back to China. This was the final British colony that left Britain.

Fall of the British Empire after the Second World War

The majority of the colonies’ independence happened after the Second World War. While these colonies provided a wealth of valuable raw materials, manpower, and strategic bases, after the war it simply became too expensive to manage such a vast empire. The war left Britain pretty much bankrupt, and it needed a large loan from the U.S. to rebuild the country.

At the same time, there were already anti-colonial movements going on in different parts of the British Empire.

In 1947, India gained its independence. Considering that the vast majority of the British colonies gained their independence after India did, India’s independence is seen as the beginning of the end of the British Empire.

Between 1945 and 1965, the 700 million people living under British rule outside of the UK fell to 5 million, with 3 million of those living in Hong Kong.

Macmillan and the end of the British Empire

PM Harold Macmillan continued the process of ending the empire. While there was a lot of protest from some in government, there was also a general agreement among others that the age of imperialism had passed.

Things were also about to change in Africa. South Africa was white-dominated and the home of apartheid. Macmillan, who urged to move towards racial equality, held his 'wind of change' speech in South Africa in 1960, where he said:

Fig. 5 - Map showing the decolonisation of Africa. The areas in beige were under British military administration after WWII. Those in the different shades of pink refer to the decolonisation of the different territories and show the year of decolonisation between brackets.

Between 1957 and 1968, Macmillan gave independence to all the remaining African colonies as well as to the majority elsewhere.

Even though the majority of the transitions went peacefully, there were two exceptions:

1. The Mau Mau Uprising of the 1950s: the protests and violent riots were met with the British executing many Kenyans and imprisoning many more in camps where they were living in inhumane conditions.
2. Rhodesian Bush War (Zimbabwe): the Rhodesian Bush War was a civil conflict from 4 July 1964 to 12 December 1979. It was a conflict between the Rhodesian white minority-led government, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army. According to the Rhodesian government statistics, more than 20,000 people were killed.

British culture and the end of the British Empire

British rule and emigration left cultural marks all over the (former) British Empire. Some examples are:

Britain after the empire

While at first it was believed that giving up the Empire would lead to a serious economic loss, the imperial balance sheets have revealed that Britain put in more money than it received. The colonies were profitable enough, but their upkeep was too high.

As for the regular British people, there seemed to have been little to no impact on their daily lives with the end of the British Empire. It did not affect them personally, financially, or politically. British historian Bernard Porter wrote:

The end of British Empire: a timeline

Let's look at the timeline of the end of the British Empire.

The Commonwealth, or Commonwealth of Nations, was originally created in 1926 and it was formalised through the Statute of Westminster in 1931. The current Commonwealth of Nations was formalised by the London Declaration in 1949.

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 member states. Almost all of these states are former territories of the British Empire. Queen Elizabeth II is the head of 15 member states, 34 other member states are republics, and 5 others have different monarchs.

The 15 member states with Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state are:

1. The United Kingdom
2. Australia
3. Canada
4. New Zealand
5. Antigua and Barbuda
6. The Bahamas
7. Belize
8. Grenada
9. Jamaica
10. Papua New Guinea
11. Saint Kitts and Nevis
12. Saint Lucia
13. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
14. Solomon Islands
15. Tuvalu