British Empire Research Articles

No Surrender from down under: The Australian Anti‐Irish Home Rule Movement, 1911–14

As the third Irish Home Rule crisis grew more threatening from 1911 onwards, Ulster Unionists began searching for allies across the British Empire, including in Australia. This article highlights the role and influence of the Australian anti‐Home Rule movement from 1911 to 1914, investigating why the Loyal Orange Institution in Australia published resolutions sympathetic to the Unionist cause. The article also investigates who the supporters were, who donated thousands of pounds in aid, or who enlisted in an Australian Ulster volunteer contingent. Most importantly, it considers how widespread and organised these Ulster sympathisers were, particularly by 1914 when they produced an anti‐Home Rule petition.

The Mystery of the Tanganyika Knife and the Rediscovery of the Polish Refugee Experience of Britain’s Wartime Empire

My Polish grandmother was sixteen when she arrived in Bolton. By the time teenagers today sit their GCSE examinations, she had travelled the distance of almost three-quarters of the globe. From Drohobycz in Poland (now modern Ukraine) following the arrest and murder of her father by the USSR’s NKVD aged 6, to a detention camp in Soviet Kyrgyzstan, to Iran, Tanganyika, and South Africa, before finally settling in England. Hers is a story of Stalin’s crimes, but it is simultaneously a story of how refugees utilised the global connections and routes created by the British Empire. It is also a postwar story of how she made a home in the nation that facilitated her wartime life. She carried with her few possessions, bar a bone letter-opener knife with an elephant carved into the handle, which she passed down to me. Bringing scholarship around refugee experiences, family histories, and material culture into conversation, this journal article seeks to achieve three things. First, it brings the story of the Polish refugees who utilised the imperial routes, colonies, dominions, and nations of British ‘interest’ to greater attention. While there has been some research into this in Britain, it has been an under-explored aspect of wartime experience which shows us as much about the war in the East as it does the inherently global nature of the war. Second, it asks what role the memory of the Polish refugee experience serves, both for those who lived through it and for subsequent generations. And finally, it addresses how this memory, beyond the Polish diaspora, might be used to explore more the nuances of life during the Second World War.

Walk the walk, slowly and carefully when centering women and survivors in the Perpetrator Work of Coercive Control: In conversation with Jo Todd

With decades of knowledge within the domestic abuse sector, Jo Todd is the leader of one of the UK’s most respected organisations in the Work With Perpetrators sector: Respect. Established as a membership organisation, Respect sums more than 23 years of promoting “safe, effective work with perpetrators, male victims and young people who use violence” with the aim of tackling domestic abuse and centering the victim-survivor experience.Recently, Jo Todd was awarded with the “Commander of the British Empire” (CBE) medal for her highly-distinguished, innovative contribution around services to victims of domestic abuse. The award though, has not removed any humility from Jo. In early September, I happily engaged in a rich conversation with a strong, grounded woman that I am sure more than one can find inspiration from. For this special issue, our discussion delved into the role and actuality of work with perpetrators and coercive control, highlighting the significance for the victims-survivors, the meanings of justice regarding coercive control and the implications of its criminalisation. Finally, we ended our conversation imagining the dreamt, but also the real, future of the issue.Mónica Sánchez Hernández:Thank you very much Jo for joining me today to talk about your experience and your thoughts about coercive control. You must be really proud of your recent award. Regardless of any colonial/imperial connotations that the CBE medal might have, it must be good to have your work acknowledged — especially in the current times.Well, I’d like to begin the interview by asking you what triggered your interest to move from supporting survivors to the “dark side” of working with perpetrators. Is there any particular moment, any experience that you remember?

Spatial Continuities? The Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Meetings, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Diplomacy of South Asian Decolonisation, 1944–1965

The Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ (subsequently Heads of Government) Meetings or Conferences were the flagship events of the New Commonwealth in the two decades after the Second World War and the beginning of formal independence and decolonisation in South Asia. The post-war Commonwealth leadership sought to maintain unity on key international issues, which served British strategic interests, at least in the view of British leaders, officials, and influential commentators. The collision of interests between the expansion of Commonwealth membership to include South Asian and, later, African states and the managed decolonisation of the British Empire produced conflicts and compromises that often shaped the progress of the Prime Ministers’ Meetings. The New Commonwealth’s functioning as an international forum can be better understood by developing insights gained from interdisciplinary methodologies to explore the central role of Jawaharlal Nehru’s uses of space at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Meetings to highlight continuities that, ironically, facilitated the profound changes of this era. Taking seriously the multivalent meanings and historical complexity of the Britain and the World analytical framework, we show how British space increasingly came to be used to advance South Asian political goals.

“Once it was Ireland, Now it is Kenya”: anti-colonialism and internationalism in the pages of the Connolly Association’s Irish Democrat in the 1950s–60s

ABSTRACT Irish Democrat was the paper of the Connolly Association, a diaspora organisation established to build support for Irish republicanism within the British labour movement. The Connolly Association and the Irish Democrat had strong links to the Communist Party of Great Britain, which advocated for a peaceful mass movement to challenge the British presence in Northern Ireland and to remove discrimination faced by Catholics in the Six Counties. Encouraged by the wave of decolonisation across the British Empire in the 1950s-60s, both the CA and the CPGB saw the struggle against Unionist rule in Northern Ireland as analogous to events in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This paper explores the narration of anti-colonial and national liberation movements elsewhere in the British Empire in the pages of the Irish Democrat and the overdetermination of Irish national questions by post-war discourses of radical decolonisation. It also traces the formation across difference of specific solidarities between the Connolly Association and other migrant communities within the multicultural political geography of post-war Britain, including out of campaigns against racial discrimination, the “colour bar” and post-war immigration controls.

From rupture to disruptive innovation: the colonial subcontinent’s ‘Devil’s Wind’; the Mughal Bagh (garden) and the English-style public park

ABSTRACT Set against the backdrop of the 1857 uprising against British colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent, the article examines the impact of this tumultuous event on the Mughal era Bagh (garden). The uprising, while causing a sudden and unprecedented rupture in the subcontinent’s political, cultural and urban landscape, also led to a form of disruptive innovation that displaced the well-established Bagh, a private space for leisure or veneration of the deceased, by a novel garden type, an English-style public park. More often than not, this new garden type emerged from remodelling the Bagh, to result in a Bagh-turned-Public Park. This innovative venture not only physically replaced the original Bagh but also changed the notion of leisure from the Mughal-to-the-metropole-inspired variant. Concurrently, this landscape endeavour served the agenda of empire to stamp British authority. To make its case, the city of Delhi, whose large corpus of Mughal- era Baghs underwent remodelling, is selected. As the epicentre of the uprising, Delhi was the recipient of the colonial regime’s spatially tumultuous military and civic interventions to turn it into a tamed modern city, among whose new spatial icons was the English-style public park. Two gardens are examined to demonstrate the rupture and disruptive innovation, as colonial civic actors overlaid an English-style landscape on the Bagh. This seemingly innocuous landscape intervention was as disruptive and efficacious as its spatially violent military counterpart in transforming Delhi into a colonial modern city. The article concludes by taking stock of the Bagh-turned-Public Park in the present as a colonial legacy that continues to be an integral part of the leisure landscape of Indian cities.

Chinese Indenture in the Interwar Netherlands East Indies and the ‘Coolie Ordinance’

ABSTRACT Formal indenture became widespread in the Chinese labour diaspora on Dutch-ruled Sumatra later than in the British Empire and ended later than anywhere else, apart from in some small and isolated settings. It also took a different form and was differently named as ‘the penal sanction’. Despite attempts by reformists in the East Indies and the Hague to phase it out, the penal sanction survived into the inter-war years because of resistance from vested conservative interests in both places. It was finally wound up as a result of a combination of international pressures from several sides and socioeconomic changes in the colony itself.

Retaining Chinese Indentured Labour in Interwar British and French Pacific colonies

ABSTRACT British attempts to reform or close down the indentured labour system as it applied to Chinese labourers across the British empire were carried out on an ad hoc basis, one colony at a time. In the southwest Pacific islands indentured labour recruitment was retained into the 1930s and beyond. Between 1920 and 1953 thousands of Chinese workers suffered under penal clauses for labour offences and endured harsh conditions on contracts that often extended beyond five years. This article investigates the means by which colonial authorities in Hong Kong and the southwest Pacific were able to maintain the indentured labour system despite the British Colonial Office preference for abolition. It compares government correspondence, labour contracts and ordinances from Nauru under British-Australian mandate, Western Samoa under New Zealand mandate, and the Anglo-French Condominium of New Hebrides (Vanuatu). It demonstrates that Chinese indentured labourers were retained with only minor changes to their contracts, put in place for the most part so that colonial administrators could avoid national and international censure.

Situating the English-Foreign-Language Press

The introduction to this special issue on “the English-language press abroad” builds on the different case studies to theoretically reflect on this rather neglected press category. The label applies to titles published in English in a country that did/does not have English as (one of) its de jure or de facto language(s) and that was not part of the British (formal) Empire. By situating those titles in a broader historical canvas that stretches back to the first-ever English-language serial abroad (1620, in the Netherlands), the introduction proposes three categories of (potentially overlapping) functions: titles that act as cultural brokers (including for an expat community), titles that act as agents of cultural diplomacy and/or informal imperialism and titles that use English as a lingua franca to conjure up cosmopolitan and supranational realities. The introduction argues that any discussion of such titles needs to connect scales, but can barely do away with the national. This also applies to issues of heritage and preservation, while the digital age creates manifold possibilities for rediscovering these titles in a critical manner.

Ascension

In the middle of the South Atlantic lies Ascension Island, a modest island constructed in the background of Cold War politics and military history. This essay examines Ascension Island in three parts: first, from geologic prehistory to British naval occupation; second, the operation of the island by the United States military and installation of NASA tracking stations; and third, the lost histories in the wake of empire building. Ascension, initially deemed uninhabitable, became a technical island. This essay explores a distant island which may mirror our future world.

Arming Sheīkh Saīd: Conflict and Cooperation in Italian and British Imperial Policy in the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea, 1927-1940

ABSTRACT After the Great War, Imam Yahya, the spiritual and temporal ruler of Yemen, established control over the Yemeni highlands and fought wars against his rivals to extend his power. Jacopo Gasparini, the governor of Italy’s Eritrean colony, increased Italian trade with Yemen, primarily by shipping arms to Imam Yahya. Italian influence in the Arabian peninsula worried British officials. Britain’s primary goal was to protect its imperial road through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea by ensuring that no European Power established itself on the eastern shore or on strategic islands of the Red Sea. In 1927, Italy and Britain signed the Rome Understanding, agreeing to limit their imperial competition in the peninsula. Both parties maintained the Rome Understanding and its successor agreement in the 1938 Easter Accords until the outbreak of the Second World War, although both violated its spirit and letter when convenient. In the latter half of the 1930s, Imam Yahya wanted to acquire naval cannon to defend Sheīkh Saīd, a promontory that overlooked the strategically important Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Both Italian and British officials resisted providing them, as both feared that the other could seize Sheīkh Saīd and use these cannon to bar the southern exit of the Red Sea. After lengthy negotiations, the Italians eventually relented and shipped four naval cannon to Imam Yahya to try to earn his favour before the outbreak of Anglo-Italian conflict in World War Two. The episode of arming Sheīkh Saīd shows the nature of conflict and cooperation in Anglo-Italian relations in the Arabian Peninsula and the ultimate failure to reconcile their imperial interests.

Fighting for Oxford and Cambridge: National Security and Imperial Ambition in the ‘Transition of Power’

ABSTRACT This article uses the rise of the doctrine of ‘national security’ in US statecraft and strategy to re-examine Brian McKercher’s work on the ‘transition of power’ from Britain to the United States. World War II marked the great watershed in American foreign relations, in particular the ability, and more specifically the willingness, of Americans to project power beyond the western hemisphere. Not coincidentally, the war also marked another crucial turning point in American war and diplomacy: the transition from concepts like ‘national self-defence’ and ‘the national interest’ to a strategic doctrine that blended the blunt necessity of defence with the capacious ambition of interests. This new doctrine of ‘national security’ conceived of self-defence in a new way, not just as the protection of territorial sovereignty but as the protection of values, morals, and political norms. This much more capacious idea of defence was designed to be the bastion of a new liberal order to safeguard Western civilisation. In this light, American internationalists conceived of US power as the rightful heir to the mandate of the British Empire, albeit in ways that privileged command of the global commons over direct control of foreign territory. This article investigates the construction of ‘national security’ and the nature of Anglo-American empire in a new light.

Historiography and Political Discourse The history of Roman imperialism in the thought of Theodor Mommsen and Tenney Frank

This article explores the nexus between power and historiography, particularly ancient Roman imperialism, in the German and American historical writings from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Scholars have intensively explored the use of the roman imperialism in supporting the British imperialism. However, the relations between Roman imperialism and its usage in German and American historiography remain critically unexplored. Through the of Michel Foucault’s power-knowledge and discourse analysis, this paper aims to delves into the relationships between power of those traditions and historical productions. The central questions are: How does the narrative surrounding Roman imperialism shape discussions on the nation-state building and expansion beyond state borders? And how does the discourse on Roman imperialism incorporates racial theories? particularly in the works of German scholar Theodor Mommsen and American scholar Tenney Frank. Despite their different approaches, both scholars drew from Roman history to achieve similar political aims. This paper contends that history, as exemplified by Roman imperialism, serves as a powerful tool in justifying political actions.

Book Review: Age of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire by Erik Linstrum

Book Review: <i>Age of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire</i> by Erik Linstrum

Bringing English Back in School Education: English in Government Schools of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh

In the immediate aftermath of Indian Independence in 1947, there was a palpable attempt to replace English with Hindi and other Indian languages to unleash the processes of decolonisation. English was castigated as the language of the British Empire and was seen to be the basis of power and privilege for a handful of English-educated elites. A new nation-state thought it imperative to replace English with other languages which ultimately led to language-based reorganisation of Indian states. Subsequently, there was the replacement of English with Indian languages as mediums of instruction at different levels of education. Such a demand was hugely supported by a large number of Indian intelligentsia. However, six to seven decades down the line, there appears to be a reversal of earlier language politics as governments in various states of India are bringing English back as an aspirational language. This article attempts to understand the context of such a reversal. It also analyses ideological constructions of linguistic reality and its hold on popular perception. Ideologically constructed realities of language become a concrete, tangible force to reckon with. The article explores the renewed interest and urgency in learning English, using the frameworks of language ideology and the Bourdieusian framework of ‘language as a praxis’. Following Hilary Janks, the article underlines the significance of providing critical access to English by historicising and denaturalising its prevalence as one of the major contact languages at the international level.

STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF EARLY 20TH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE OF IMPERIAL CITY

Calcutta’s established role as India’s premier city from 1774 was increasingly questioned due to its climate and geographic location particularly in the context of British governance and control. By 1857, during the Mutiny, the limitations of Calcutta as the capital became evident, leading Viscount Canning to relocate the British administration to Allahabad. The debate over relocating the capital continued, culminating in 1911 with Hardinge’s proposal to move it to Delhi. This move was seen as a strategic and symbolic shift, with Delhi’s central location and historical significance making it an ideal choice to represent British imperial power. The decision to build a new capital in Delhi, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, was driven by the desire to create a city that embodied both the grandeur of British rule and the historical continuity of India's ancient capitals Jain (1991). Lutyens’ design, characterized by grand processional avenues, monumental plazas, and imposing facades, was intended to project a vision of peaceful dominance and dignified governance. The new city, initially called Imperial Delhi, aimed to reflect the achievements of British rule and serve as a backdrop befitting an empire of Rome’s magnitude. This paper examines the architectural and symbolic values embedded in Lutyens’ design for Imperial Delhi, focusing on its grandiose urban elements and their intended impact. It also explores how contemporary interventions have altered this historic urban landscape, reshaping the legacy of what was envisioned as a majestic symbol of British imperialism. Through this analysis, the paper seeks to understand the evolving significance of Delhi's architectural heritage and its transformation in the modern era.

Postcolonial Identity and Discourse: Foucauldian Analysis of Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone

This research article delves into the intricate interplay between postcolonial identity and discourse in Kamila Shamsie's novel, "A God in Every Stone," employing a Foucauldian analytical framework This paper presents a Foucauldian analysis of Kamila Shamsie's novel, "A God in Every Stone." Drawing upon the works of Michel Foucault (2016), the paper examines the novel through the lens of power, knowledge, and the construction of historical narratives. Through a close reading of key characters and events, this analysis elucidates how colonial power structures and systems of knowledge production intersect in the novel to shape individual and collective identities. The present study has been conducted on Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone to highlight the process of colonization. The interpreter has examined the ways by which the colonized resisted colonial rule. Foucault’s model of Power has been used as the conceptual framework of the study to analyze the postcolonial aspects of Shamsie’s (2014) novel. The present study is qualitative in nature. The data has been collected through the close reading technique of the A God in Every Stone. For data analysis, those textual lines have been selected in which the elements of power and resistance are present covertly. The interpreter has explored different dimensions of Foucault’s power, i.e., Sovereign power and disciplinary power. British Empire justified its colonial rule over the colonized through the colonial discourse which was prejudiced against non-white people. The colonized people resist colonial rule through their dialogues in this novel. In A God in Every Stone, the major protagonist is Vivian Rose Spencer. She is an English woman who carried out digging in Turkey to unearth the ancient silver circlet. The interpreter has inferred that the colonizers used many disciplinary strategies to subjugate the colonized people. The Indian soldiers were trained by the British imperialists to fight in the battlefield on the Western Front. Many innocent Indian soldiers lost their lives in fighting the enemies of the British Empire. The major character of the novel Qayyum Gul, fought bravely in the battlefield. Unfortunately, he lost an eye during the battle. When he returned to Peshawar, he joined a freedom movement, which aimed to liberate India from the British colonizers. Ultimately, this Foucauldian analysis of "A God in Every Stone" underscores the intricate dynamics of power and knowledge in the colonial context and sheds light on the complexities of historical representation and identity formation in a postcolonial world.

Racism and Colonialism in Foster’s A Passage to India: A Critical Discourse Analysis

The major concern of this research work is to analyze the concepts related to racism and the aftermaths of British colonial rule in India taking into consideration a very distinctive and remarkable work, A Passage to India (1924) by E.M. Forster in which these contemporary issues are discussed. Racism along with the colonialism has been a very integral part of the past and our society which this current study aims to explore. The qualitative method has been employed in this research and for this reason the present research paper is split into two major sections: The first portion investigates the meaning of racism along with colonialism and how people were treated discriminately during the colonial rule of mid of 19th century. The second section explores the concept of racism and colonialism according to E.M. Forster and the societal conditions in which he produced his work. The finding of present study shows that racism and colonialism creates the hatred between the oppressed and the oppressor, people belonging to the oppressors’ league enjoy more opportunities as compared to the oppressed ones and develops various limitations which lead to the creation of discrimination among the people belonging to different races.

(UN) COVERING KARACHI: THE CREATION OF A BRITISH VISUAL LANGUAGE IN SINDH

Karachi, a city of 14000 people, was evolving as an important port for strategic geopolitical reasons and increasing trade at the time of the British conquest in 1843. However, it was not equipped with the infrastructure — such as an all-weather port — required for its continued economic progress. The fort town had a Chabutra (Custom House), shrines, temples, and caravanserais interspersed among the large havelis and houses of Hindu merchants and government functionaries. Neither the fort nor the Chabutra survived British colonial rule in Sindh. In fact, in keeping with their plans for the city, the British demolished these structures fairly early on in their rule of Sindh. The subsequent establishment of British institutions and political infrastructure was reinforced by the construction of buildings and monuments that looked distinctly European in style. This was not only because of the architectural styles employed in these buildings but also in the choice of ornamentation. For example, by patronizing artisans that were well versed in stone engravings and sculpture making, the British shifted attention away from the art of traditional frescoes, painting, and glazed tiles. This paper explores how the Occident imported architectural and visual cultural styles and forms into their colonies to create an entirely new visual language for their colonized subjects in South Asia. It argues that this was done deliberately to ensure political legitimacy in the eyes of their subjects as well as to highlight their own cultural superiority. The lack of native creative expression and the emergence of the modernist movement eventually led to their disappearance from structures built after Independence. This was a colonial project deeply entrenched in discourses of racism and inequality. Keywords: Colonial Architecture, Hegemony, Tradition, Architectural Movements, Colonialism

FRASER’S HILL 1919 – 2019: REVIEW ON LANDSCAPE’S EVOLUTION AND FEATURES THROUGH ARCHIVAL RECORDS AND SITE OBSERVATION

The creation of the hill station landscape was one of the tangible evidences of British imperialism in Malaya from the late 18th century until 1957. In the past, British expatriates retreated from lowland to higher lands due to their inability to adapt to hot climates and the threat of malaria. However, despite looking at landscapes as colonial remains, hill stations depict the human genius in taking the opportunity offered by the natural environment with specific geographical factors to satisfy one’s needs and bring comfort to their health. Fraser’s Hill is one of the hill stations in Malaysia and is famously known as a tourist’s destination because of its colder climate. Unfortunately, there are unstoppable threats to this landscape and the risk of it being forgotten as a historic landscape. Hence, this paper is objectively to document the history and evolution of Fraser’s Hill landscape and to explore its built environment over a 100-year timeline. These objectives were achieved through a qualitative review of archival documents and on-site observation on Fraser’s Hill. The evolution of Fraser’s Hill proves that this historic landscape is more than just a cold mountainous landscape because it portrays the value of cultural landscapes that deserve to be protected.