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1497 |
John Cabot discovered
Newfoundland (five years after Columbus discovered the
New World), but England showed little interest in the New World
for almost a hundred years |
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1576-1578 |
Martin Frobisher
made two voyages seeking "Northwest Passage" to the
Orient, and explored Labrador coast |
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1577-1580 |
on circumnavigation
of globe, Sir Francis Drake claimed present-day San Francisco
Bay region for England as New Albion, but the area was
not colonised |
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1583 |
Sir Humphrey Gilbert
claimed Newfoundland
as the first British Colony |
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1584 |
Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow landed on
Roanoke Island
and named the region Virginia, but attempted colonisation
failed
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1587-1603 |
Anglo-Spanish
war saw considerable English depradation of Spanish holdings
in New World, and consequent English interest in colonisation
and monopolization of trade as Spanish power waned |
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1600.12.31 |
founding of the
East India Company began modest encroachments in the
Indian subcontinent, resulting two hundred years later in a
British domination that completely reshaped world trade and
wealth |
|
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1607 |
London Company
established Jamestown
Colony; British colonial settlement in the New World
grew consistently thereafter |
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1660 |
Britain's constitutional monarchy
restored; the two secretaries of state reorganised into Northern
Department (for relations with Protestant Europe) and Southern
Department (relations with Catholic Europe, and later Ireland
and the colonies) |
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1710-1714 |
War
of the Spanish Succession |
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1713.04.11 |
Treaty of Utrecht:
Britain retained conquests and cessions of Hudson
Bay, Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia,
St. Kitts, Gibraltar,
Minorca, and the monopoly
of African slaves to Spanish America transferred to Britain
for thirty years |
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1754-1763 |
Seven Years War
between Britain and France (and Spain in 1762) on all seas and
on three continents, with Britain gaining the advantage almost
everywhere |
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1763.02.10 |
Treaty of Paris:
Britain retained conquests of Québec,
Île St. Jean
and Île Royale,
Grenada, Senegal,
most French and Dutch possessions in India,
and Spain ceded Florida
to Britain in exchange for the return of Cuba, leaving Britain
at the apogee of imperial power, rivaled only by Spain; the
growth of the Indian Empire and the Indian Army permitted
Britain to extend its influence and conquests in Africa and
Asia with Indian resources over the next century in a way that
the British tax-payer would not have supported |
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1768 |
Britain added third secretary of
state to administer the recently expanded American colonies |
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1775-1783 |
American
War of Independence eventually brought France and Spain
into the war against Britain, seeking to recover lost territories
and influence |
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1782 |
Britain's Southern Department and
Northern Department reorganised into Home Office and Foreign
Office respectively |
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1783.09.20 |
Treaty of Paris: Britain recognised
the independence of the United
States of America, marking the end of the "first"
British empire, and a shift of focus eastward and toward exploitation
of resources rather than colonial settlement; Britain also surrendered
Tobago and Senegal
to France, and Spain retained Minorca |
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1793 |
French
Revolutionary Wars began |
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1794 |
War Office created,
with responsibility for the colonies |
|
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1802.03.25 |
Treaty of Amiens, ending French
Revolutionary wars |
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1803.05
|
Napoleonic
Wars began |
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1807 |
slave trade abolished
in British dominions |
|
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1814.05.30 |
Treaty of Paris: Britain significantly
enlarged its empire, retaining conquests of the Cape
of Good Hope, Ceylon,
Malta, Heligoland,
Tobago, St.
Lucia, Mauritius,
and Ionian Islands |
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1830s |
growing Russian power led to the
"Great Game" of Russian containment in Asia as the
main feature of British foreign policy for the next century,
a game in which the loss of India would result in Britain surrendering
superpower status to Russia (which effectively happened with
Indian independence in 1947) |
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1833.08.23 |
slavery abolished
in the colonies |
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1854-1856 |
Crimean
War to defend the Ottoman Empire from Russian encroachment
unravelled the Holy Alliance and European stability of 1815,
sewing the first seeds of the First World War, but contained
Russian southward expansion for a hundred years |
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1854 |
Colonial
Office created, separate from War Office |
|
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1858.08.02 |
Government of India Act
after mutinies and revolts throughout India transferred government
from the East India Company to the Crown with separate administration
by India Office |
|
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1867.03.29 |
British North America Act confederated
Province of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia as the Dominion
of Canada, the first major self-governing colony as
the British Army withdrew from colonial settler states and turned
over defence to them |
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1869.11.17 |
opening of the Suez Canal
changed global geopolitics and Britain purchased a share of
the control of this strategic link in 1875 |
|
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1870 |
unification of Germany led
to her rise as an imperial and naval rival to Britain and the
latter's cooperation with France and Russia to contain the German
threat |
|
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1882.09.13 |
British occupation
of Egypt brought full
control of the Suez Canal until 1956 |
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1884 |
Lord Roseberry
first called the evolving empire a "Commonwealth of Nations" |
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1885.02.26 |
Berlin Congo Conference
ended with Germany and Belgium expanding claims in Africa and
restricting British influence |
|
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1887 |
first Colonial Conference
of British colonial heads of government: the Cape, Australian
and New Zealand contributed to Britain's naval budget for the
defence of empire, but only New Zealand continued to do so after
1909 |
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1899-1902 |
Second
Anglo-Boer war resulted in eventual British conquest of
Transvaal and Orange Free State, but Boers won the peace through
considerable concessions, and Britain remained diplomatically
isolated |
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1901 |
at death of Queen Victoria , the
British Empire at its zenith encompassed a quarter of the world's
land mass and population |
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1911 |
Colonial Conferences
renamed Imperial Conferences |
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1914.08.04 |
First
World War: British declaration of war on Germany automatically
involved the whole Empire, but the participation of the Dominions
earned them sovereign participation in the peace process and
individual memberships in the League of Nations; the Dominions
and India contributed two and a half million men to the war
effort |
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1917.08.20 |
Montagu Declaration
promised "progressive realisation of reponsible government"
for India |
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1920.01.10 |
League of Nations established,
with Britain and its Dominions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
South Africa), as well as India, as charter members; the League
assigned conquered German and Ottoman territories as "Mandates"
(classed in Groups A, B, and C according to their relative "backwardness"
and schedule of development toward independence) administered
by members -- usually the conquering power. Britain was awarded
Palestine,
Transjordan, Iraq,
Tanganyika, parts
of Togoland and
Cameroons (partitioned with France); South Africa
was awarded South-West Africa;
Australia was awarded New Guinea
and Nauru; New Zealand
was awarded Samoa
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1920s |
the term "Commonwealth"
came into general use to describe Britain and its Dominions
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1923 |
Dominions acquired the right to
make treaties |
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1925 |
Britain formed Dominions Office
(later Commonwealth Relations Office), separate from its Colonial
Office |
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1926 |
the Balfour Report at the
Imperial Conference defined Dominions as equal in status, not
subordinate to Britain or each other in any aspect of domestic
or external affairs, freely associated, and united by common
allegiance to the Crown |
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1931.12.11 |
the British Statute of Westminster
gave the status of law to the Balfour Report of 1926, but the
constitutional status of the British Crown in the Dominions
remained unresolved; Canada,
Union
of South Africa, Newfoundland,
and Eire immediately ratified
the Statute, but Australia
did not adopt it until 1942, and New
Zealand in 1947 |
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1932.08.20 |
Ottawa Conference of Dominion
heads of government at the depth of world depression ended with
Britain adopting "Imperial Preference" at the expense
of European free trade, paving the way for Nazi domination of
Europe |
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1935 |
India became the first non-white
Dominion |
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1939.09.01 |
Second
World War: Britain declared on Germany, and the Dominions
followed suit days later of their own volition, but not without
reluctance in Canada and
a political crisis in South
Africa |
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1942 |
British defeats
in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma) had two longterm deleterious
effects on the British Empire: (a) Australia and New Zealand
looked to the United States for support, leading to American
post-war dominance of the region, and (b) the demonstration
of white man's vincibility forever undermined the moral basis
of British supremacy |
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1944.05 |
five Dominions
held the first Commonwealth Prime Ministers Meeting (CPMM),
supplanting Imperial Conferences, and signalling greater equality
of the members |
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1945 |
the end of the
war in Europe (May) and Asia (August) left Britain economically
exhausted (the world's largest debtor nation), various factors
had given the colonies a taste for independence as well as greater
autonomy for the Dominions, and Britain was now a second rate
power after the United States and Soviet Union |
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1945.10.24 |
United Nations founded,
with Britain one of five nations holding a permanent seat and
power of veto on the Security Council; remaining League of Nations
Mandates were redesignated UN Trust Territories, but
South Africa refused to participate in the trusteeship system
and for all intents and purposes annexed South-West
Africa in 1949; one new territory, Italian
Somaliland, was placed under British trusteeship as
a result of the Second World War |
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1947 |
independence and partition of India
and Pakistan
marked the beginning of the end of the second British empire
(since most of the empire were lifeline outposts defending communications
with India), with most nations remaining in the Commonwealth
of Nations upon independence, reshaping the Commonwealth into
a multi-racial community of sovereign and equal states |
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1949.04 |
London Declaration: the
idea of Commonwealth was modified to permit republican status
(India) with the British
monarch as Head of the Commonwealth, and the "British
Commonwealth" transformed into the "Commonwealth
of Nations" |
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1956.11 |
Britain's humiliation in the Suez
crisis (and condemnation by the Commonwealth) decisively
demonstrated that it had been supplanted by the United States
of America as a world class superpower, as well as the realisation
that Britain could no longer support the expense of imperial
administration and defence |
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1957 |
Ghana
became the first majority-ruled African member of the Commonwealth |
|
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1960.02 |
PM Harold Macmillan's "Winds
of Change" speech recognised inevitability of full decolonisation
of Africa and pledged Britain's cooperation |
|
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1961.03 |
Commonwealth Ministers upheld principle
of racial equality, forcing South
Africa to withdraw from Commonwealth, the first instance
of Commonwealth discipline and sanctions against a member |
|
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1962 |
Britain's application for membership
in the European Economic Community reflected the realisation
that its future lay in Europe and not the vestiges of empire |
|
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1965.06 |
Commonwealth Secretariat
established with a Secretary General and small civil service |
|
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1966.01 |
first CPMM held outside of London
(Lagos) with host government presiding |
|
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1966.08 |
British Colonial Office and Commonwealth
Relations Office merged as Commonwealth Office, underscoring
the shift from empire to commonwealth |
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1967 |
Britain announced the relinquishment
of its "East of Suez" commitments by 1971 (with
the exception of Hong Kong) since the rationale of the Indian
Empire no longer held them together and Britain was focusing
its role in Europe and NATO |
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1971.01 |
Singapore Declaration of Commonwealth
Principles codified a loose set of agreements on human rights
and free trade (and Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Meetings were
renamed Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings - CHOGMs) |
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1973.01.01 |
Britain's admission to the European
Community sealed the redirection of British focus from Commonwealth
to Europe |
|
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1983.01.01 |
British Nationality Act of 1981
redesignated the remaining colonies as "British Dependent
Territories" |
|
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1991.10 |
Harare Commonwealth Declaration
strengthened the Commonwealth's commitment to human rights,
promotion of democracy as well as economic and social development |
|
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2002.02.26 |
British Dependent Territories
renamed British Overseas Territories and British citizenship
extended to its citizens |
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