Talk:British Empire

Semi-protected edit request on 2 March 2024
I would like to expand the section on the Scottish attempts to expand to include the colonisation of Nova Scotia and the Plantation of Ulster. MiloThatch 98 (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Jamedeus (talk) 04:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Those sources are simply carelessly written personal opinion that are being misused by you as well.
 * "Our research finds that Britain’s exploitative policies were associated with approximately 100 million excess deaths during the 1881-1920 period" Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:41, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Article fails incredulously to mention the atrocities against Indians.
Hear me out. Britain, through its colonial satellites sponsored the killing of 100 million Indians within the span of 40 years. India was reduced to poverty under Britain, who strategically fostered ethnic and religious divisions through Divide and Rule. This article severely downplayed the effects of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, and does not include the casualties of it or any other massacre. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of unbiased information, not a vessel for rosy-eyed British imperialism. So I request that the information be corrected immediately with reliable sources, and/or the biased template be added. Thank you, Ayunipear (talk) 19:46, 24 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Those sources are poorly written personal opinion and are misinterpreted by you as well. They cannot be used as reliable independent secondary sources. They are an interesting magazine read while someone is sitting in the dentist's waiting room but they are not serious encyclopedia material. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 21:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Ross Dependency
What is the status of said territory? Is it part of NZ or not? There is here a NZ govt web page stating that technically the Ross Dependency is part of NZ. The New Zealand article has an infobox map showing it as part of NZ. This 1923 Order is at the heart of the claim. I initially raised the issue at the NZ article talk page but this might be a better place for a discussion seeing as it relates to Empire matters. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:30, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Not sure this does belong here. Several countries with Antarctic claims (which have nothing to do with the British Empire) have that territory marked on their main country article map. As to your question: the article on the Ross Dependency explains the abeyant status of the claim... so, like the other Antarctic claimant countries, it is no more (or less) a part of NZ than those other territories claimed by those other countries. Arguably claims shouldn't be shown, but if we were going to change it for one, we'd have to change it for all. Wiki-Ed (talk) 21:09, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it is quite the same as the other six. Chile and Argentina have their sections in their constitution as an integral part of those countries. The others are also treated in different ways by each country. The issue relates to 1923 when NZ was a dominion, before the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947 and full separation from the UK. The NZ govt statement in its online article says the Ross Dependency is constitutionally part of NZ, without further explanation, and that appears to be the basis of some people's belief that the dependency is part of NZ. The person who was the governor-general of NZ in 1923 was made the governor of the Ross Dependency, (I think making two unconnected positions) and NZ law was applied to the dependency in 1923 (does that amount to the dependency being constitutionally part of NZ? - what then about UK law applying in Pitcairn?) Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:21, 29 April 2024 (UTC)


 * New Zealand may be similar to Australia in never really having defined the concept of internal and external territories in the way the UK and the US have. This may put it closer to the Chile/Argentina position than the UK one, especially if that is the position of the NZ government. CMD (talk) 01:01, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

New article: British Empire from subjects' POV
Does anyone want to write an article on the history of the British Empire, from the perspective of its subjects? This is really lacking in Wikipedia's coverage imo. I can create a new page with that premise and page link to relevant pages, however there's going to be a lot of empty sections, and I have too much on my to do list as of now. I'd really appreciate if people could write about it Alexanderkowal (talk) 10:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Do you have any sources that discuss this as a topic? TFD (talk) 12:25, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * True, there needs to be supra sources to justify the page creation.
 * from the Canadian perspective
 * is from a world history perspective, with perspectives from local and world history
 * discusses problems in British historiography to do with the imperial perspective
 * "both the British perspective and that of the colonies is considered"
 * I think it's right that this article focuses on the imperial perspective, and I think it's very well written and fair, however it's very difficult to insert subject's perspectives when that'll mostly take the form of social history in an article about political history. In summary, I don't really want to mess with this article as it's quite the masterpiece, and I don't have any issues with it. Alexanderkowal (talk) 12:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * See for example Gold Coast (British colony), it would be an accumulation of these articles Alexanderkowal (talk) 12:52, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There is a very serious danger of doing lots of orientalism and the like though Alexanderkowal (talk) 12:55, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Obviously the page created will try to be fair and not have its sole purpose to villianise with the superficiality of some post-colonial literature Alexanderkowal (talk) 12:51, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That sort of article is lacking because it's explicitly against policy to create WP:POVFORKs. CMD (talk) 13:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay that makes sense, I just thought this article could focus on the internal composites of the British Empire whilst ignoring the wider context Alexanderkowal (talk) 15:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * During the FAR of this article it was noted there are actually many missing subarticles. There could be a good article such as Governance of the British Empire for example, and articles such as Economy of the British Empire and Demographics of the British Empire are basically stubs. This current article was effectively demoted for essentially being History of the British Empire, and thus missing out on everything else. CMD (talk) 17:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes Governance of the British Empire could be really good, could cover the governance of the different parts of the empire (with sections probably regional and in order of when they became part of the empire) and also include perspectives from the governed.
 * I think this article should have a former country infobox like the other colonial empires, and have all of this under the history section? Then have a section on governance, economy, demographics, and legacy (with summaries of their main articles) Alexanderkowal (talk) 17:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * historiography also Alexanderkowal (talk) 17:38, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * pinging main contributors to hear their thoughts Alexanderkowal (talk) 17:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The reason there aren't articles on those things is not because they're "missing", it's because they're not viable subjects or the content exists already under different headings which more accurately reflects the weighting in reliable sources. E.g. there was no 'governance of the British Empire' article because that's covered by existing articles on the Government of the United Kingdom or the government of (insert country). Asserting or suggesting - through article naming - that there were separate centralised structures and processes is misleading. Wiki-Ed (talk) 20:12, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Government of the United Kingdom is a separate topic from governance of the British Empire, there's not even a history section. Governance of the British Empire would focus on the administration of the colonial empire and the relation between the colonies and the UK/British/English government, as well as governance. Alexanderkowal (talk) 20:27, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * When I said you need a source that discusses the topic, I meant a book or article with a title like "British Empire from subjects' POV". You can't get one source about the Empire from a Canadian's perspective and similar sources from the perspectives of people living in the empire in different places and different times and create an article. TFD (talk) 21:13, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah I've ditched that idea, think having a page on the Governance of the British Empire would be better, per above.
 * : The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire
 * : The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century: C5 The Anointed, the Appointed, and the Elected: Governance of the British Empire, 1689–1784
 * : The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century: C9 Imperial Institutions and the Government of Empire
 * : Administering the Empire, 1801-1968
 * There's more on each region, idk whether this is enough to warrant a page? I think it's substantive detail per WP:Notability Alexanderkowal (talk) 21:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The subject is certainly notable, but a looong discussion on this some time back (I've looked in the archives but can't find it) argued pursuasively that since (perhaps compared to say the French), the British arrangements were somewhat ad hoc, differing very widely by place, and then by time, the article would be very bitty, and the wood hard to find for the trees. One might do a shortish summary, but getting into too much detail for individual areas would be fatal, I think. Whether the subject is adequately covered in all the individual by-territory articles, I rather doubt. Johnbod (talk) 23:12, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The wood would be covering the history behind it, the impacts, and the historiography. There are decades of people asking "Was there a British Empire?" so its a topic with direct sourcing, and it would help answer the questions we have sometimes had here as to why the opening sentence of this article is structured the way it is. The risk is as you mention that it degrades into a list, as articles are wont to do. It is definitely not covered in the individual articles well, Gold Coast (British colony) mentioned above has a similar situation of being a summary of history rather than covering anything else, so there's easy room for improvements. CMD (talk) 04:05, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Why isn't Edward I included in this article?
Wales was England's first colony, so I don't understand why this isn't included. Hogyncymru (talk) 13:47, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Because it was not a colony, any more than Burgundy is a colony of France. Slatersteven (talk) 13:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)