EMPIRE- did you know this history?

[Needacupofteaandcrackers]

Just watched Empire on BBC….. I didn’t realise the timelines of how long it was tolerated. I’ve been to a few trust sites and only now I’m made to connections on wealth. 🥹

What agenda?
And which historians dont? Their job is interpretation of history.

"the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Edmund Burke

Dehumanisaton was swift and brutal: 3 million transported Africans, categorised as livestock, for over 300 years.

He is interesting to watch. When he 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.

The Colston Hall has now been renamed as Bristol Beacon.

I'm not sure what to think of the hectoring tone of some of the posts on here admonishng posters for now knowing evrvrything about our involvment in empire building and the slave trade.

I have read a number of books about it - fact and fiction (Philppa Gregory's A Respectable Trade is about the slave trade in Bristol), but I still don't know everything. I really don't recall learning about our involvement in the slave trade at school in the 1970s. For O level we covered the industrial revolution, Gladstone and Disraeli and their boring ministeries, the suffragettes and both world wars. Vietnam was still ongoing when I did history O level, which I failed,

DD is a student in Liverpool and I really wanted to visit the International Slavery Museum on one of my visits, but is is closed for refurbishment until 2028. I have visited Wilberforce House in Hull though.

Whilst not as abhorrent as slavery, building staggering wealth on the backs of miners and steel workers is also something that should draw raised eyebrows.

You are right @BoudiccaRuled The mine owners owned the mines, the pubs, the houses and the shops, so any wages they paid out they got back.

I live in South Yorkshire in an area that was mainly a coal mining area.

Children of the Dark: Life and Death Underground in Victoria's England by Alan Gallop is an eye opening and stark description of what life was like for coal miners and their families. After the Huskar Pit Disaster in 1838 when 26 children died Lord Shaftesbury introduced the Mines and Collieries Act in 1842 to outlaw the employment of women and children underground in coal mines. The Clarke family who owned the mine did not treat their employees well.

Another book worth reading is Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty by Catherine Bailey. It is a fascinating account of the Fitzwilliam family and their employees at Wentworth Woodhouse. Compared to other mine owners the Fitzwilliams did treat their employees reasonably well.

Back to slavery, I can recommend Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. It is an autobiographical account of her horrific life as a slave in the Southern states.

If you are enjoying life in Britain you are enjoying the proceeds of the Empire. We didn't become one of the worlds top economies from selling apples from our green and pleasant land. I just thought everyone realised this at some point.

You're being disingenuous. Do you really expect every single person to think this?

I am a British person of South Asian heritage - born and bred here.

Ive been a hard working, professional my entire working life and given in more than I take out.

I don’t understand this comment - please clarify how you think I could possibly be exploiting the UK system- which is my country?

I think this is the point, not just cotton but vast array of raw materials, cheap labour (despite the expense of running the empire) and also markets that could be controlled. But also tje needs of empire and conflict stimulated innovation and the need for new technology.

Actively shaking off as in referendums to cut ties with Britain/commonwealth.
I certainly wish Canada would do this.

I was at school in the 90s and did history GCSEs and A-levels (home counties England). We never learnt anything about the empire at school. I'm actually pretty angry about it because it's such a vital part of understanding why so many people from round the world want to come and live here and I do think people are much less aware than you think they should be. I loved history and read widely as a child, was taken to loads of museums and national trust properties by family and I don't remember it being addressed much. I'm sure the information was there if you looked for it, but i really don't think it was widely available unless you were interested. Grateful my kids are getting a more rounded knowledge at school now.

@Glystl but they will be missing out on something else to make room for it. Whatever history is focused on, something else loses out. Lots of kids now are dropping it at 14 and know nothing at all about WWII ..including the reasons why and how Nazism gained traction.

I was part of a history project with some schoolkids recently Smart, engaged year 7s. Not one of them had heard of the Reformation or had any idea when it was. Most ideas were 20th century. Most barely knew who Henry VIII was. They had no idea we used to be Catholic and were now Protestant. They were shocked to discover Catholics were persecuted and that antisemitism was still a thing. We did talk anout slavery and they knew a bit about empire and slavery and had heard of Mary Seacole.

Most people know FA about history and the lack of knowledge about empire and slavery is not a racist conspiracy its because curriculum time is very very tight and most people learn almost no history at school. In fact these days they are more likely to have heard of Mary Seacole, who was objectively quite a minor figure than the most important religious, political, cultural event in our history that affected every single person i this country directly, and the impact of which was felt for centuries, up until today.

A book worth reading is "Colonialism' by Nigel Biggar. Apparently he had many problems getting published because he manages to see the good and the bad of the British Empire, he doesn't just highlight the bad things, which is what publishers seemed to require.
The countries being colonised weren't all sunshine and happy days before Britain took over, especially for women. Widows were burnt alive on their husband's funeral pyres in some counties and FGM in Africa was mainly brought to the attention of the world by Christian missionaries from various Western European empires.
The Industrial Revolution created so much misery for people in Britain with slave like living conditions and horrible working conditions.

I don't think this is really possible under the national curriculum, in England at least. As part of the their KS3 study they need to cover challenges for Britain, Europe and the world since 1901, and there is a requirement that the Holocaust is part of that study.

Extraordinarily difficult to do this without teaching them anything about WW2.

I'm often a fierce critic of the national curriculum and the way history is taught, but the KS3 history curriculum is actually pretty good and certainly gives a much better chronological view of how society has developed than I got at school. I'm also very lucky that my year 9 DS is at a school with a really great, imaginative history department that appears really committed to turning out critical thinkers who can debate historical questions effectively.

The KS2 history curriculum, by contrast, belongs in the bin.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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”.

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