It wasn’t long before the settlers were confident enough not to need the motherland. In 1776 America declared its independence from Britain and war broke out between them. For eight years the country was drenched in blood. A defining moment in its history and an enduring inspiration for its art. Against all expectations the British Crown was defeated by its own colony. Back in Britain many felt the loss of America was a national humiliation. They were determined the same thing should not happen again. Britain’s focus now moved to the east and to its interests in India. ibid.
One foreign minister described his government’s policy in the 1870s as ‘Fortify Occupy Grab and Brag’. Jeremy Paxman, The Victorians: Having It All, BBC 2009
It was the empire on which the sun never set. Or as some said, on which the blood never dried. At its height Britain ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. Many convinced themselves it was Britain’s destiny to do so. Much of the empire was built on greed and a lust for power. But the British came to believe they had a moral mission too: a mission to civilise the world. Jeremy Paxman, Empire I, BBC 2012
How did such a small country get such a big head? ibid.
India was decisive: it gave Britain the resources, the markets, the manpower and the prestige to build a worldwide empire. ibid.
They paid local soldiers to fight for them. ibid.
This protection racket would be repeated all over India. ibid.
If you look like a ruler, the people will treat you like a ruler ... An enormous bluff. ibid.
Indian troops rose up and killed their own officers. ibid.
After four and a half months British relief forces arrived ... The pretence of British rule had been shattered; the bluff called. ibid.
Egypt was an emergency, an anomaly, and experiment ... They stayed for seventy years. ibid.
Egypt was not a colony, it was a protectorate ... The Suez Canal – it had to be protected. ibid.
Lawrence was just the man to inspire the Arabs into a desert revolt ... Lawrence promised his Arab fighters freedom from foreign rule. ibid.
The Arabs were having to give up their land to the Jews. ibid.
Everyone still lives with the consequences of Britain’s presence in Palestine. ibid.
In the last three decades Britain has embarked on seven foreign wars. ibid.
As we made ourselves at home in strange and faraway lands ... how do we live with the people we rule? Jeremy Paxman, Empire II: Making Ourselves at Home
Singapore: modern Singapore is a creation of empire. It was founded by Britain as a trading post in 1819. ibid.
The British were determined to remain distinct. ibid.
As well as sports there were amateur theatricals ... There were Burns nights and Bridge evenings, dances and fancy dress parties galore. And of course tea on the terrace. The club served British comfort food. ibid.
The Scots in particular left their homeland in vast numbers. ibid.
Native peoples were forced off their land. ibid.
The biggest land grab of all was still to come: Africa. ibid.
The empire offered the inhabitants of a grey damp island in the north Atlantic the prospect of limitless adventure. Jeremy Paxman, Empire III: Playing the Game
Sport ... was one of the foundations of the empire ... The British public school practised two religions: Christianity and Sport. ibid.
On Kitchener’s desert train had come machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. At Omdurman near Khartoum the stage was set for one of the bloodiest battles in the history of empire. ibid.
Spears against machine-guns: the result was never in doubt. ibid.
Charles George Gordon – idealistic, reckless and slightly deranged and now very dead. ibid.
Off the coast of China British traders made fortunes from ships freighted with addictive drugs. Jeremy Paxman, Empire IV: Making a Fortune
This was piracy with a twist ... Privateering. ibid.
The empire had been conceived in robbery but it grew fat on the cultivation of sugar. ibid.
The British didn’t introduce slavery to the Caribbean but they took to it with enthusiasm ... The plantations devoured slaves ... Each estate was its own little tyranny. ibid.
The earliest Britons in India were traders ... With wealth came power: the East India Company gradually took control of huge swathes of the land. ibid.
It was the greed of Robert Clive and men like him that built Britain an empire. ibid.
At one time chintz made up three quarters of India’s exports. ibid.
At the heart of Empire was the City of London ... Britain took the lead in global banking, finance and insurance. ibid.
The story of how Hong Kong came to be British reflects the empire’s often ruthless pursuit of profit. ibid.
There were an estimated twelve million peasants addicted to opium. ibid.
The British grew opium poppies in India ... Opium was making Britain rich. ibid.
The Opium Wars were about to begin ... China had been forced to enter the modern global economy. ibid.
The British continue to ship opium into China until well into the twentieth century. ibid.
The spoils of empire made Britannia rich. ibid.
Rubber was the plastic of the nineteenth century. ibid.
By the 1920s Lancashire’s cotton mills dominated the world market. ibid.
Gandhi was coming to Britain and would visit Lancashire. ibid.
They [India] would demand and eventually get independence in 1947. ibid.
For many British people the empire was all about doing good. By force if necessary. Jeremy Paxman, Empire V: Doing Good
Two Victorian obsessions: religion and free trade. ibid.
Livingstone was still in the grip of a passion to explore. For almost two years he drove himself on ... He died in Africa. ibid.
John Chilembwe’s upbringing had given him radical, even subversive, ideas. The notion for example that all humanity was equal before God. His mission church next to Livingstone’s estate became the centre of a movement that took for its motto – Africa for the Africans. ibid.
This phrase was pretty widely used – a genius for empire. ibid.
Rhodes was the mavericks’ maverick ... He made his fortune in a diamond town. ibid.
If ever there was a country founded on blood and greed Rhodesia was it. ibid.
Huge areas were governed by handfuls of white men thrown in at the deep end and told to get on with it. ibid.
The world had turned against the very idea of imperialism. ibid.
Mau Mau – their goal was freedom from British rule. ibid.
The authorities rounded up Mau Mau suspects thousands at a time herding them into vast internment camps. ibid.
The sun had most definitely set on the empire. ibid.
The British grew ashamed of the empire and tried to wipe it from the national memory. ibid.
Much of the world is as it is today because of the empire ... It’s a story that belongs to all of us. ibid.
A young girl who grew up to reign over the widest empire in the history of the world. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire I: Engines of Change PBS 2001
The British would now embark on the greatest period of expansion in their history. But their attempt to export Victorian values around the world would provoke a clash of cultures and convictions. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire II: Passage to India
A great army of servants who catered to the needs of the British in India. ibid.
Crimea: it had been forty years since the British army had fought a major war. It was ill prepared and worse led. ibid.
The Great Mutiny had begun. At first it was confined to one area in the north. ibid.
The beleaguered British garrisons held out week after week under constant bombardment. ibid.
The powers of Europe conducted a brutal race for colonies, a race that would become known as the Scramble for Africa. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire IV: The Scramble For Africa
The Wild West was tame compared to Kimberley. Here there was a bar for every sixteen men. And shootings were an everyday occurrence. But Rhodes thrived as a diamond digger. ibid.