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.

Yes, on two grandparents' branches of the family tree, going all the way back to the early 1700s, so multiple generations, and all over the world.

YES

One of my grandfathers served in the army in East Africa and the other in the India. Both very much working class.

No but the British Empire was involved with my family!

No.

I can mostly go back to Victorian time - very working class - service/agricultural/textile workers - they did move up and down UK or within from for work Wales/Ireland to England but not abroad.

Few worked on canals then railways though again in working class jobs- railways in general apparently benefited from reparation slavery money as it was then invested in them.

30s to 60s - fair few family members- Uncles/cousins - did emigrate to Canada, Australia and N.Z - but they didn't come back and they moved for work and made lives out there.

Family is clearly fine with looking for work and moving to facilitate that - but looks like we were too low down social levels to take advantage of colonial opportunities and we seem to have stayed away from soldiering//war when we could.

I would imagine that given the part that Wales played in the industrial revolution, and the subsequent expansion of the empire, that the OPs ancestors played a big part in it indirectly. The the cotton mills, the coal mines and the steelworks all either needed materials from or exported materials to the empire. At one point, in the late 19th century, wasn't the Tawe valley the most industrialised place in the world? The empire must have been a key part of that?

I was wondering the same, the timing is interesting when we are stating to see racial tensions unseen for quite a few years.

Would be a good way to stir a but more.

Not really although my DM was born in China, in Tientsin which was a British concession.

DHs grandfather was in India in the Indian Army, and FIL and his brothers were born out there in the 1920s. We have his scrap books from his time out there which are interesting.

One of the sepoys under his command went on to be a very senior officer in the Pakistani army, and a rather controversial figure I believe.

Yes, my great aunt was born in Hong Kong in 1918 and her father was in the police force there. The story goes that before she was born her father swapped shifts with his best friend and was shot dead in a siege by armed robbers in Wan Chai. My great aunt's mother was forced to return to rural East Anglia with three children via boat and train across Canada due to WW1, to live with her father and her stepmother. After the war, the best friend married her and her two sons went back to Hong Kong (then later Singapore to serve in the police force). They ate rats to survive when they were put into a prison of war camp after Japan invaded Singapore in WW2.

My uncle was in the Merchant Navy and ended up living in South Africa after Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) gained independence - the story is he and his wife left in a massive hurry and one of the only assets they took with them was her fur coat. He lived in South Africa for the rest of his life.

Same here. Some of my great grandparents were still marking an X instead of signing. Very rural. Never even went to a big city.

We are a right hotchpotch, everything from Romanies to titles (not mine!)
I can trace back a long way on some branches, but not others.

I don’t think a servant is the same as an enslaved person. It’s the choice of a servant to work where they do. Slaves have no choice.

No, labourers and domestic servants, up until my own parents.

I do look at programmes like who do you think you are, where ancestors 100 years ago or more had 'professional' jobs and think that is a pretty long line of privilege, and that the current generation probably don't even know how much they benefitted from it, in terms of money and aspiration passing down the generations.

My grandfather was working class Welsh. . He served in WW1 and ended up on a ship to Africa where he stayed the rest of his life. My father was working class and went to Africa after he left the Army.
Looking back through the generations many of my ancestors worked for the East India Co but in what capacity is a mystery.

No. My father’s family were from Scotland originally, last 4 generations born in London’s east end.

Mother’s side was Eastern Europe, possibly Ukraine prior to the 1800’s and again 4/5 generations born in the east end of London.

My father was in the navy during WW11 and spent time in India but not an officer.

Exactly.

My great grandfather was an IRA man. So....he was "involved" in a way.

Another great grandfather was a merchant seaman so I expect he saw a lot of the empire. But his most interesting stories (at least the ones that came down to me) were about witnessing the Chinese revolution.

Two of my great aunties emigrated to Canada.

Absolutely no idea.
All I know is that my grandparents were Scottish, as am I, but no idea how far back that goes as names could also be from England. One side were farmers, not sure about the others.

No. Labourers and domestic servants mostly, on both sides. Different bits of London, none of them salubrious, such as the leather tanneries in Bermondsey. A few tenant farmers and dairymen, but no-one with any education, land, money or influence.

Lots of my, very working class, ancestors joined the army and spent a considerable time in various parts of the empire. In those days surviving a 12 year term , meant that the soldier qualified for a pension. This was in the days before the old age pension. I think lots of poor boys joined up at 14 to get their service over, the rights to a pension paid by the Chelsea hospital, and could return when young enough to start again.

Loads of Brirish working class were involved in the Empire. Especially in India.Some of the words my Indian born mum uses is similar to language used in Liverpool and Manchester slang.

Yea, including explorers. I have cousins of various degrees in many bits of the globe that were once pink, including family still farming in Africa.

Even those of us who only had working class routes, as do I on my mother's side (farm labourers and dock workers mostly,) - there could still have been convicts and indentured servants who were taken overseas. You may not know if there were no records.

I have distant family in Australia, who ended up there as a result of an ancestor on my maternal side being transported for stealing some bread.

My grandad was conscripted into the army at 18 and shipped out to Egypt in 1921 and ended up in the middle east for 4 years. I have his diaries which are fascinating.

Off topic but one of my ancestors was sentenced to transportation for having sex with a sheep. He wasn't sent to Australia, I can't work out why. Maybe too many sheep were there?

A grandfather was in the Royal Navy for 12 years from 1900 and then back again 1914 to 1916 but I have no idea where he went.