Developing the Empire 1815-1870

1
Developing the Empire 1815-1870

• Commerce and Imperial Expansion

2
What were the gains of the Congress of Vienna?

• West Indies Britain made permanent territorial
  gains in Trinidad (from Spain) and on the South
  American mainland, in Demerara, Berbice and
  Essequibo (from the Dutch).
• South-East Asia Ceylon and Mauritius.
• West AfricaSierra Leone (a humanitarian venture
  begun in 1787, which was designed to serve the
  interests both of Africans from Britain and North
  America as well as freed slaves), and trading
  posts on the Gambia.

3
The significance of those gains

• What is the strategic significance of Malta and
  the Cape etc?
• Control through naval bases
• Trade taking on world-wide dimensions
• Moral implications of global policeman

4
The significance for Trade

• Markets for British manufacturers, such as
  cottons to the Indian sub-continent
• The crucial role of the Empire as suppliers of
  raw materials and food, such as sugar from the
  West Indies.
• The prime importance of areas outside formal
  political control, such as the southern states of
  the USA, as suppliers of raw cotton for the
  developing industry in Lancashire.

5
The dynamics of economic change

• The dynamics of economic change involves both
  growth and decline
• Consider the rapid growth of British
  manufacturing predominance and the decline of
  manufacturing in India.

6
Empire-building Strategy or Opportunism?

• The growth of Britain's empire in Africa, India
  and elsewhere in the eastern hemisphere by 1815
  is sometimes seen as the systematic search for a
  new empire to replace the wealth of the lost
  American colonies.
• Not only is there little evidence of such
  conscious planning and implementation, but the
  value of the western empire to Britain remained
  enormous, completely overshadowing her Asian
  trade until the 1840s.

7
So Empire in A fit of absent-mindedness?

• Seeleys famous quotation from 1870 is actually a
  frivolous remark which does capture some truth
• The reality was more subtle, shaped by the
  vagaries of global warfare and the unpredictable
  encounters of the British with widely different
  local societies and their rulers
• Africa is another story.

8
The role of the Navy

• The massive size of the Royal Navy by 1815 which,
  together with control of a network of bases, gave
  Britain command of the worlds oceans.
• Consider the relative power of ships of war by
  comparison with land forces discuss the
  advantage in the projection of force worldwide
  this gave Britain.

9
What did the Navy do from 1815-1870?

• Investigate the role of the navy
• in the suppression of piracy
• in the First and Second Opium Wars
• in the policing of anti-slavery legislation
• in the development of world trade
• as the arm of British foreign policy

10

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