Throughout its history, the attitudes of ordinary British people towards the Empire were vitally important to its very survival.1 Yet historians have traditionally seen few positive attitudes predating the explosion of imperialism in the late-nineteenth century.2 Bernard Porter, for example, argues that most were either ignorant of, or ambivalent towards the Empire.3 However, this argument mistakenly ignores the mass of British people who migrated to the settler colonies in the early to midnineteenth century, on the assumption that they ceased to be British when they left the UK.4 It is the attitudes of these marginalised Britons, between c.1815 and 1869, which are explored here; overall, this research seeks to explain when, how, and why a sentimental attitude towards the Empire developed in the nineteenth century settler colonies.
Mitchell, Thomas
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Year: 2015
© The Author(s) Published by Oxford Brookes University