Were your ancestors involved in the British Empire?

[timidtina]

Just curious really. In my part of the country (West Wales) most people’s family have never left the region so have been based here for hundreds and hundreds of years. Obviously there are some people who have moved around, but on the whole it’s a very old fashioned area.

When I lived in Cambridge and in London, I’d often meet people whose mum and dad or grandparents, or even further back, were involved in the British Empire. That’s to say their dad was born in Kenya or granny in India etc. It seemed a much more “global” society. Obviously now there’s a large chunk of the population whose family came to the UK because of the Empire - but I’m asking more about people whose families went out to the Empire and then came back to the UK.

Only military service, Grandfather who I knew joined the Army and went to South Africa against the Boers.
He left the farm work for a few shillings of cash that was his and 3 meals a day.

An uncle fought the Japanese across Burma. The Forgotten Army.
He also fought Germans: behind the canteen on Friday nights.

Yes, my grandfather was what was known as a Calcutta Wallah. He was involved with the Jute industry which is what my hometown was built on.

My mum told me that years after he’d been home an Indian lady and her daughter knocked on my grandmas door and asked for him but left when told he wasn’t at home. I often think of the lady and her daughter even hough I’m now 66
and yes, it would fit in with what I know of him. He was a horrible man and my grandma wasn’t nice either. I was happy when I was allowed to
stop visiting them as a young child.

My adored maternal grandparents were the descendants of Irish immigrants and on both sides we grew up as a working class family.

On my mum's side no, we are basically a long line of East Anglian farm labourers and Irish farm labourers...

On my dad's side, I believe there were some in my grandparents' parents' generation (not my great grandparents but maybe their cousins etc) who spent time in Africa, there are vague stories of people entertaining royalty and designing harbours. But I know very little about it.

Nope. Rural farmers and inner city industry workers. Very little money and even less influence.

Every single person in Britain has ancestors who were slave owners, and ancestors who were slaves

Agreed but we as individuals and as a society can and should acknowledge that we have all benefitted from the spoils and wealth generated as a result of colonialism and Empire.

I would like to see this issue on the school curriculum. Education and understanding can provide a counterpoint to the sort of racist ideas underpinning the current riots

Ancestors in the traceable sense? Or ancestors in the ‘lost to the annals of time’ sense?

Yes. In British India and South Africa. Not always posh. One of the South African ones was a beer seller in Salford before he emigrated and involved himself in dubious colonial stuff. Also ancestors who emigrated to Australia (poor English and Irish) if that counts. And in what’s now the USA before that was a state. Also a planter ancestor in Barbados in the 17th century.

I would politely suggest you learn a bit more social history, if you think “everyone” benefitted from the spoils of the empire.

That's interesting. Where can I read more about that?

That is incorrect. There are lots of families who basically lived hand to mouth for generations in terms of your first point.

In terms of your second, yes, if you go back far enough.

My great great grandfather was minor aristocracy and an aide to Queen Victoria, so I suppose he was involved in the empire in different ways. His father was lord lieutenant of Ireland, so definite colonial vibes!

My other relatives were either poor Irish, or Swedish so not so much.

On one side, definitely yes, from being 18th century 'colonial traders' to later ones in Egypt when it was a protectorate.

My family is all working class but that includes my grandfather who was a soldier in the British Army in India.

Cooked a mean curry but presumably also did his bit oppressing the Indians.

Yes, am part Welsh, but also my English side is part Indian as an Indian ancestor married an English soldier and their children were sent to England for schooling. Otherwise, our ancestry has been traced back quite far as Welsh, Irish, Scottish and English.

Agreed but we as individuals and as a society can and should acknowledge that we have all benefitted from the spoils and wealth generated as a result of colonialism and Empire.

I would like to see this issue on the school curriculum. Education and understanding can provide a counterpoint to the sort of racist ideas underpinning the current riots

Yes - I agree. As a society we all continue to benefit and recognition of this fact is essential.

I don't personally feel that threads like these are particularly helpful because the people who post saying 'oh no - not me - I haven't any ancestors who did that stuff' likely feel like it's therefore nothing to do with them, and it creates a sort of us and them mindset which isn't helpful.

(For the record - I have no knowledge of any of my own ancestors being directly involved, but I absolutely acknowledge that I and my ancestors did benefit and that this is still a current issue)

Depends what you mean by traceable. Almost no ancestors are traceable by paper records. But if we did DNA tests than that would reveal much more. You can trace pure male and pure female lines from anyone. Cant trace the millions of ancestors in between though

No we don't.

If you go far enough back you do.

My English Grandfather was stationed in India, the commonwealth country my Dad is from was occupied when he was born there. English Grandfathers parents were Victorian industrialists that owned a hat factory and probably employed child workers. My Mother vaguely remembered them and being taken to their incredibly grand house in London as a small child.

DH ancestors on one side are descended from French Huguenots escaping religious persecution, they were very wealthy and there was an oil painting of one of them painted in around 1700, sadly stolen in a burglary but they have a photo of it still. On his other side they are Irish and came over not a surprise really in 1846. So DS is directly descended on three branches from people whose ancestors were prosecuted and then the one side that were massive capitalists and incredibly successful .

So what do you do with that information? Well nothing except realise that many of our ancestors had very interesting lives and all of them were very resourceful.

My family on my dad’s side is NI protestant, so originally moved over there from Scotland in the 17th century to keep the Irish under control. Very small-scale by later standards, but the intention was there.

My maternal grandmother’s family is a mix of English and Maltese, so yes again there.

My maternal grandfather’s family are ostensibly the most “English”, and in the 20th for a couple of generations they were in India with the Army. But the whole lot of them moved here from Poland or eastern Germany in the late 19th century.

absolutely yes we do It is a mathematical impossibility not to

No but they were involved in the industrial revolution in Newcastle and the north-east- coal and lead mine agents, lead and coal mine owners, mayors and merchant adventurers and high sheriffs of Newcastle numerous times from Tudor to late 19th century, owned rope works on the Tyne, built big houses in Durham and Newcastle in 16th, 17th and 19th century.
I don't think they went further South than Co Durham.
The rest are Scottish and Irish - agricultural labourers and farmers who came to Newcastle and Gateshead in the late 1800s via North Northumberland, Scotland and Ireland.
Ancestry struggles to sort out Northumberland/Durham DNA from Scotland. My DNA says 75% Scottish,18% Irish, 3% Welsh and 4% Germanic Europe- no English at all but there is English.

Actually I am a sociologist. Yes there is inequality and poverty in Britain but much down to policy decisions of Governments.Look again at our history. The industrial revolution and the raw materials that fed it largely came from Empire and colonialism. One example is cotton. Where did the cotton come from for the cotton mills to provide cheaper materials for the mass production of cheaper clothes . Who worked in the fields to produce it, indentured workers from the Empire and slaves. Raw materials such as rubber and minerals and workers came from the Empire . This in turn provided greater employment and the raising of living standards Britain became very wealthy as a result of Empire. It has funded the welfare state, healthcare, education which we all benefit from. So yes we have all benefitted, although granted some more than others.

My great grandfather was born in South Africa - his father was in the British Army. Though he enlisted as a drummer boy at the age of 14 in rural Ireland, so far from the British upper classes. I don't doubt that as a white, male member of the British Army he considered himself superior to lots of people, particularly the indigenous people of southern Africa because he will, without doubt, have been brought up to believe that. Yet he was also basically cannon fodder, with little control over his own life and of no consequence to his own masters.
I think it's very complex. Many of us will have ancestors who were "involved" in British imperialism in some way and as a nation it is undeniable that we gained a huge amount by exploiting the resources and populations of other countries. But there are lots of shades of grey and Britain exploited a lot of it's own people at the same time as it was opppressing other nations. I think as a PP said, a lot of people were simultaneously beneficiaries and victims of imperialism, it's definitely not always clear.