Three Weeks’ Post Apart: British Children Travel the Empire

Abstract

It is no exaggeration to state that the British Empire and maritime travel were inextricably intertwined. In the nineteenth century, tremendous advances in transport technology — most importantly, the development of passenger steamships — went hand in hand with imperial expansion.1 Correspondingly, more Britons than ever before participated in imperial migrations across the seas. Men, women, boys and girls all experienced the Empire in ways specific to their time, their circumstances, their gender and their social class. Imperial travels opened up new lives not only to the sailors who manned the ships but also to the countless numbers who became expatriates or settlers.2 Some Britons made but one journey overseas and lived out their days as permanent residents of the territory where they disembarked; others repeatedly travelled to and fro, periodically returning to their British homeland following time spent in the colonies.