EMPIRE- did you know this history?

This!

thank you!

But those empires were 2000 years ago and did not treat the slaves as the black Africans were treated by the British

also villeins etc weren’t owned in the same way as the black Africans - they were still regarded as human

Regrettable!!!!

it was other Europeans but we undoubtedly had the biggest empire

Yes, I’d need to do more research, sorry it’s all quite confusing and I don’t know enough. I know the name of one side of the family but not the other if that makes sense. So one of my ancestors was white, English and went to Guyana as an indentured servant (which I’d no idea happened), but had a relationship with another indentured servant over there and seems she was from India. But i don’t know her name. At some point some of their descendants came to the U.K.

I really don’t know a lot as there’s no direct family knowledge as I found out via a dna test that my grandfather wasn’t my grandfather. I have a name for my biological grandfather and have researched his family tree, spoken to some distant relatives I’ve met online.

Does anyone get irritated when TV presenters talk about historic events in the present tense? DO does this all the time.

"He buys a house in Newcastle". No he didn't he bought the house.

@OnlyOnAFriday sorry, did I misunderstand? Did you mean cultural origin rather than ethnic? I thought most Indo-Guyanese consider themselves culturally part of the Caribbean rather than South American.

You would know his origin from his name, surely? Indentured labourers mostly came from India and a few ftom China and if you could track down the record of his indenture it would say. Its very interesting. The history of indenture really has been ignored far more than slavery.

Watching this now. Am fascinated and so pleased to see it’s talking about not only indentured workers but also Guyana. One of my ancestors was an indentured servant on a plantation in Lichfield, Guyana. When I read his “job title” when researching my family tree I’d never heard of indentured labour and read up about it at the time. I still struggle to get my head round what my ethnic origin from this sort of my family would be, South American, Indian? I know people say Indo-American but people don’t understand this and think you’re claiming to be a Native American.

that's great

I love his voice and his delivery. I'm delighted that there's going to be another series of A House Through Time looking at a house in Edinburgh. Can't wait!

When did I say I thought you were exploiting the British system? I said that I thought I knew what he was talking about. I did not say I agreed with him.
He may have been discussing the state of the UK with some DM readers for all I know.

Oh, maybe you’re right, and I misread the tone.

I don’t think any said that, just that they don’t like watching his shows because of how he speaks. I don’t translate that as “therefore nothing he says id of importance”.

Well, obviously that’s a perfectly good reason to discount anything he says.

Thank you Abitlosttoday. I'm glad i'm not the only one. He has a cadence in his speech where he goes down at the end of every sentence.

I also find him very irritating. I am a Geordie myself, but there's something about his very soft accent that gets on my tits.

I wouldn't use Philippa Gregory for accuracy either, which is why I mentioned her under fiction. It still made for an interesting story.

There was no need to be so pedantic.

Totally depends on your curriculum - we did 1500-1700, and then 1910-1950.

Nigel Biggar, whom I knew at Oxford, is not a historian, but a theologian, crank and Tory peer with a background in conservative thinktanks. His book was an output from a widely criticised project called Ethics and Empire — criticised for not engaging with contemporary scholarship, and not being rigorously peer-reviewed. Bloomsbury declined to publish the book after the MS came in and was sent to review. Harper Collins published It almost immediately.I certainly don’t think he had any massive struggle to publish. I don’t know of any historians who would regard it as a serious contribution to knowledge. It’s been described as ‘cartoonish’. A previous book was called In Defence of War. He followed his Colonialism book up with a book on why reparations are unnecessary.

The mediaeval guilds, which live on in the London livery companies, tell the story. The finest woollen cloth was woven in England, as much is still at the super-luxury level. The Industrial Revolution starts with weaving and the invention of mechanised spinning and looms.

The original wealth-creating industry in England was sheep and wool, which was exported all over Europe. We've just been to the Cotswolds for a few days and a quick look around places like Cirencester and Burford, especially their churches, is eye-opening. The wealth that underwrote such grand buildings and dedicated them to religious worship was stupendous.

When [DO] did A House Through time in Bristol, he mentioned Edward Colston, who was a slave trader then, when he saw the error of his ways, became quite the philanthropist and supported and endowed schools and other public institutions in Bristol, London and elsewhere.

I think that you'll find that Colston certainly didn't 'see the error of his ways'. In his mind, and many others at the time, he could combine profiting from slavery and philanthropy at home.

And I certainly wouldn't look at Philippa Gregory for accuracy.

It came from the colonies. I acknowledged that they were a source of raw materials.

Most of the economic value is not in the raw materials but in turning them into finished products. That's why the countries that get rich are those like China that make things rather than those that simply export raw materials.

The UK got rich by being the first country to work out how to make things at industrial scale. Colonialism contributed to our wealth but it wasn't the main factor.

Innovation has fueled greed, which has driven the exploitation of many to create wealth for a few.

I learnt nothing of the British Empire in History at school. We covered various eras in primary school, Ancient Egypt & Rome I remember. In high school it was Scottish history then for O grade the topics were Russian Revolution, Britain at war ( ww1) & the Industrial Revolution. My DC didn’t learn about the British Empire either my (age early 20s). Doesn’t seem to be part of the Scottish curriculum desite much of Glasgow being funded by slavery.