British Attitudes to the Colonies, ca. 1820-1850

1969 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. L. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The People ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Colonial Office

In an article in the Journal of British Studies in November 1965, Helen Taft Manning, referring particularly to the period 1830 to 1850, asked the question, “Who ran the British Empire?” She was especially concerned with the influence of the famous James Stephen, but her question raises matters of wider concern.“Patterns of historical writing are notoriously difficult to change,” she wrote.Much of what is still being written about colonial administration in the nineteenth-century British Empire rests on the partisan and even malicious writings of critics of the Government in England in the 1830s and '40s who had never seen the colonial correspondence and were unfamiliar with existing conditions in the distant colonies. The impression conveyed in most textbooks is that the Colonial Office after 1815 was a well-established bureaucracy concerned with the policies of the mother country in the overseas possessions, and that those policies changed very slowly and only under pressure. Initially Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Charles Buller were responsible for this Colonial Office legend, but it was soon accepted by most of the people who had business to transact there.This legend is still to be found, as Mrs. Manning says, in general textbooks, among the more important of the fairly recent ones being E. L. Woodward's Age of Reform, and more surprisingly in the second volume of the Cambridge History of the British Empire. Of course, Wakefield and the so-called colonial reformers are well recognized as propagandists.

Who Ran the British Empire 1830-1850?

1965 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Taft Manning
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The People ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
The Government ◽  
Colonial Office

Patterns of historical writing are notoriously difficult to change. Much of what is still being written about colonial administration in the nineteenth-century British Empire rests on the partisan and even malicious writings of critics of the Government in England in the 1830s and '40s who had never seen the colonial correspondence and were unfamiliar with existing conditions in the distant colonies. The impression conveyed in most textbooks is that the Colonial Office after 1815 was a well-established bureaucracy concerned with the policies of the mother country in the overseas possessions, and that those policies changed very slowly and only under pressure. Initially Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Charles Buller were responsible for this Colonial Office legend, but it was soon accepted by most of the people who had business to transact there. Annoyed by the fact that the measures proposed by the Wakefield group did not meet with instant acceptance, Wakefield and Buller attacked the Permanent Under-Secretary, James Stephen, as the power behind the throne in 14 Downing Street and assumed that his ideas of right and wrong were being imposed willy-nilly on the unfortunate colonists and would-be colonists.The picture of Stephen as all-powerful in shaping imperial policy was probably strengthened by the publication in 1885 of Henry Taylor's Autobiography. Taylor was one of Stephen's warmest admirers and had served with him longer than anyone else; when he stated that for a quarter of a century Stephen “more than any one man virtually governed the British Empire,” historians were naturally inclined to give credence to his words.

scholarly journals Maketu’s Execution and the Extension of British Sovereignty in New Zealand

Te Kaharoa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Moon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Treaty Of Waitangi ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Colonial Office

The execution of a minor chief in 1842 in Auckland Prison for the crime of murder would normally be of little significance in the evolution of a nation’s statehood, unless it triggered some form or rebellion or even revolution.  The history of colonial rule in the British Empire in the nineteenth century contains many examples of murderers receiving capital punishment for their crime. However, the constitutional significance of the Governor’s determination to execute the criminal was of substantial, principally because it signified the Crown’s willingness – at this relatively early stage in Crown Colony Government in New Zealand – to extend its jurisdiction so that British law would apply to Maori communities.  Too often, it has been taken for granted that the Treaty of Waitangi asserted (initially in principle and gradually in practice) British sovereignty over Maori as well as Europeans in the country.  However, what the Maketu example illustrates is that the limits of British sovereignty in New Zealand prior to 1842 were confined exclusively to the non-Maori population, as had been the expectation of the Colonial Office in the two years leading up to the conclusion of the Treaty.

The History Of Modern Vaccination In Cooch Behar State In The Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 180-190
Author(s):  
Rajkumar Bind
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Vaccination Programme ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
The State ◽  
The People ◽  
Small Pox ◽  
Preventive Method ◽  
History Of

This paper examines the development of modern vaccination programme of Cooch Behar state, a district of West Bengal of India during the nineteenth century. The study has critically analysed the modern vaccination system, which was the only preventive method against various diseases like small pox, cholera but due to neglect, superstation and religious obstacles the people of Cooch Behar state were not interested about modern vaccination. It also examines the sex wise and castes wise vaccinators of the state during the study period. The study will help us to growing conciseness about modern vaccination among the peoples of Cooch Behar district.   

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. B. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Robert Southey ◽  
History Of ◽  
Charles Lamb

Fuller’s books about England’s religious past helped to stimulate an outpouring of historical writing. Peter Heylyn wrote about some of the same subjects as Fuller, and so did Gilbert Burnet, Edward Stillingfleet, John Strype, and Jeremy Collier. Burnet, who looked for models for his history of the English Reformation, was sarcastic about Fuller, partly because of the latter’s “odd way of writing.” Fuller’s work was not highly regarded in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the nineteenth century Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge deeply admired him for his insights and praised him for his writing. Several nineteenth-century historians defended his work. His reputation has remained uncertain, despite fresh assessments in recent years. Coleridge was remarkably apt in his viewpoint. Fuller saw the broader significance of the events he described and was one of the most sensible scholars and writers of his time.

Non-violent revolutions are believed to take place: A Discourse-Historical analysis of the Armenian Velvet Revolution in Armenian news media

2021 ◽  
pp. 175048132110177
Author(s):  
Shushan Azatyan ◽  
Zeinab Mohammad Ebrahimi ◽  
Yadollah Mansouri
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Velvet Revolution ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

The Velvet Revolution of Armenia, which took place in 2018, was an important event in the history of Armenia and changed the government peacefully by means of large demonstrations, rallies and marches. This historic event was covered by Armenian news media. Our goal here was to do a Discourse-Historical Analysis of the Armenian Velvet Revolution as covered by two Armenian websites: armenpress.am-the governmental website and 168.am-the non-governmental website. In our analysis we identified how the lexicon related to the Armenian Velvet Revolution was negotiated and legitimized by these media, and which discursive strategies were applied. We concluded that ‘Armenpress’ paid more attention to the government’s speeches, discussions, meetings and tried to impose the opinion of the government upon the people. In contrast, ‘168’ tried to present itself as an independent website with a neutral attitude toward the Velvet Revolution but, in reality, as we can conclude from the negative opinions about the Velvet Revolution in the coverage of ‘168’, it also represented the government’s interests. There was also a discursive struggle over the exact meaning of ‘revolution’ and the sense of ‘velvet’ in politics and the academic field that was to some extent introduced by these media.

scholarly journals Federal Aspects of Preferential Trade in the British Empire

1918 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. D. Allin
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Commercial Policy ◽  
New Era ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

The battle over the Corn Laws was fought out in Great Britain as a domestic issue. But it had nevertheless a great imperial significance. During the mercantilistic régime the colonies had been regarded as a commercial appanage of the mother country. The victory of the free traders opened up a new era in the economic history of the empire. The colonies were released from the irksome restrictions of the Navigation Laws. They acquired the right to frame their own tariffs with a view to their own particular interests. In short, they ceased to be dependent communities and became self-governing states.But the emancipation of the colonies was by no means complete. The home government still claimed the right to control their tariff policies. The colonies were privileged, indeed, to arrange their tariff schedules according to local needs; but it was expected that their tariff systems would conform to the fiscal policy of the mother land. The free traders, no less than the mercantilists, were determined to maintain the fiscal unity of the empire. There was still an imperial commercial policy; its motif only had been changed from protection to free trade. The colonies were still bound to the fiscal apron strings of the mother country; but the strings were no longer so short, nor the knots so tight as they had formerly been.

scholarly journals Soldiers & Colonists: Imperial Soldiers as Settlers in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
John McLellan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Land Grants ◽  
Family Networks ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Arrival ◽  
Government Records ◽  
Decision To Stay

<p>The approximately 18,000 imperial troops who arrived in New Zealand with the British regiments between 1840 and 1870 as garrison and combat troops, did not do so by choice. However, for the more than 3,600 non-commissioned officers and rank and file soldiers who subsequently discharged from the army in New Zealand, and the unknown but significant number of officers who retired in the colony, it was their decision to stay and build civilian lives as soldier settlers in the colony. This thesis investigates three key themes in the histories of soldiers who became settlers: land, familial relationships, and livelihood. In doing so, the study develops an important area of settler colonialism in New Zealand history. Discussion covers the period from the first arrival of soldiers in the 1840s through to the early twentieth century – incorporating the span of the soldier settlers’ lifetimes. The study focuses on selected aspects of the history of nineteenth-century war and settlement.  Land is examined through analysis of government statutes and reports, reminiscences, letters, and newspapers, the thesis showing how and why soldier settlers were assisted on to confiscated and alienated Māori land under the Waste Lands and New Zealand Settlement Acts. Attention is also paid to documenting the soldier settlers’ experiences of this process and its problems. Further, it discusses some of the New Zealand settlements in which military land grants were concentrated. It also situates such military settlement practices in the context of the wider British Empire.  The place of women, children, and the regimental family in the soldier settlers’ New Zealand lives is also considered. This history is explored through journals, reminiscences, biography and newspapers, and contextualised via imperial and military histories. How and where men from the emphatically male sphere of the British Army met and married women during service in New Zealand is examined, as are the contexts in which they lived their married lives. Also discussed are the contrasting military and colonial policies towards women and marriage, and how these were experienced by soldier settlers and their families.  Lastly, the livelihood of soldier settlers is explored – the thesis investigating what sort of civilian lives soldier settlers experienced and how they made a living for themselves and their families. Utilising newspapers, reminiscences, biography, and government records the diversity of work army veterans undertook in the colony is uncovered. Notable trends include continued military-style roles and community leadership. The failed farming enterprise is also emphasised. Going further, it offers analysis of the later years of life and the different experiences of soldier settlers in their twilight years, particularly for those with and without family networks in the colony. The thesis challenges the separation between ‘war’ and ‘settlement’ by focusing on a group whose history spanned both sides of the nineteenth-century world of colony and empire.</p>

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