CEX 5 - The Making of the UK Part III PDF

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The Making of the UK, English Studies...

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CEX 5: The making of the UK

A Long and Illustrious History (III)

A Long and Illustrious History ❑Early Britain ❑The Middle Ages ❑The Tudors and the Stuarts

❑A Global Power ❑The Twentieth Century ❑Britain since 1945

The Age of Reason in Britain •

‘The Enlightenment’ was an intellectual, cultural and philosophical movement in the eighteenth century that emphasized reason over superstition and science over blind faith.

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Enlightenment thinkers questioned traditional authority and supported the idea that humanity could be improved through rational change. They advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.

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The Enlightenment produced numerous writings, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals.

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In the eighteenth century, Britain became a global power and grew wealthy, partly due to the British colonial empire and its active involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.

A GLOBAL EMPIRE

The House of Hanover (1714 – 1837) •

When Queen Anne died in 1714, following the Act of Settlement of 1701, which excluded Roman Catholics from the line of succession, Parliament chose Anne’s nearest Protestant relative as the next king, George I. He belonged to a German royal dynasty, the Hanoverians.

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They remained in the throne until the death of Queen Victoria (1901), as Victoria’s son and heir, Edward VII, belonged to her husband's line, the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Due to anti-German sentiment during World War I, George V changed the name of his dynasty to Windsor in 1917.

The figure of the Prime Minister

Walpole

• During George I's reign, the powers of the monarchy diminished and Britain began a transition to the modern system of government dependent on Parliamentary support. The most important among the King’s ministers became known as the Prime Minister (PM). The first man to be called PM was Sir Robert Walpole, who was “de facto” ruler of the UK in the last years of George I. • George I distrusted the Tories, so 1714 marked the ascendancy of the Whigs who would remain in power for the next fifty years.

George I

The expansion of Empire •

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries the British established several overseas colonies. By the 1760s there were substantial colonies in North America, largely in control of their own affairs.

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When the government wanted to tax the colonies, the colonists saw this as an attack on their freedom and said there should be ‘no taxation without representation’ in the British Parliament.

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Political conflict led to the Declaration of Independence of 13 American colonies in 1776. The colonists eventually defeated the British army and in 1783 the United States was born.

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The event marked the end of the First British Empire and led the British to focus their commercial attention on South East Asia and, after the discoveries of Captain James Cook, towards the Pacific.

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In due time India would become the most important colony of the whole British Empire: the Jewel in the Crown.

The Act of Union of 1801 •

Although Ireland had had the same monarch as England and Wales since Henry VIII, it had remained a separate country.

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The 1798 United Irishmen Rebellion, an insurrection seeking to establish an Irish Republic inspired by the American and French Revolutions, led to the Act of Union. By means of this Act of Union Ireland became unified with England, Scotland and Wales. The Act created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, abolished the Irish parliament and united the Church of Ireland and Church of England.

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This act did not satisfy many people in Ireland and demands for a Home Rule led to conflict, and eventually to the Anglo-Irish War and Irish independence in 1922.

The end of the slave trade •

British commercial expansion and prosperity in the 18th century was sustained in part by a booming slave trade.

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Slaves came primarily from West Africa. Travelling on British ships in horrible conditions, they were taken to America and the Caribbean, where they were made to work on tobacco and sugar plantations.

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The first formal anti-slavery groups were set up by the Quakers in the late 1700s, and they petitioned Parliament to ban the practice.

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In 1807, it became illegal to trade slaves in British ships or from British ports, and in 1833 the Emancipation Act abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.

The Industrial Revolution •

Over the 19th century England changed from a rural, agricultural country to an urban, industrialised one.

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Technological, scientific and industrial innovations (e.g. mass production, steam engines, railways, sewing machines, gas and electric light) led to an enormous expansion of production.

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Industrialisation carried huge social costs: child labour, pollution, and the growth of cities where poverty, filth and disease flourished.

The Victorian Age (1837-1901) •

The upper classes continued to prosper, and the middle classes had the possibility to improve themselves and their fortunes.

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The British Empire was the world's first global power and largest Empire.

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The Great Exhibition of 1851 displayed the wonders of both industry and Empire.

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The Victorian period was a time of contradiction. The industrial developments, the rising wealth of upper and middle classes and the expanding power of the British Empire contrasted with the poverty, disease and deprivation faced by the lower classes.

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Many reformers fought to improve and change conditions for the working and lower classes in health and education.

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The Tories reinvented themselves as Conservatives and the Liberals emerged from the Whig Party.

Expansion of democracy

Emmeline Pankhurst marched on detention

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As the middle classes in the wealthy industrial cities gained influence, they began to demand more political power.

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A movement began to demand the vote for the working classes and other people without property. Campaigners, called the Chartists, presented petitions to Parliament.

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Universal suffrage followed in the next century: in 1918 for all men over 21 and women over 30. Women, who fought a long struggle to get equal rights under the leadership of the suffragettes, only would be granted equal voting rights in 1928.

1901: The Queen is Dead, Long Live the King

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The Edwardian era •

The period covering the reign of King Edward VII (190110), although it is often extended to 1914.

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It was a decade marked by peace and prosperity at the height of the British Empire.

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Britain saw a boom in technology, particularly in mass communication and transport.

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Edwardian Britain is sometimes romanticised as a golden age of long summer afternoons and garden parties. This perception was created much later by those who looked back after the shock of the Great War.

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There were enormous class differences between the wealthy and the poor.

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It was a time of great political change. In 1906 the Liberals returned to power and made significant reforms, such as regulation of working hours, National Insurance and the beginnings of the welfare state.

The First World War (WWI) •

The optimism brought by economic prosperity and the political and social reforms came abruptly to an end in 1914 with the outbreak of the Great War.

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The causes of the war were many and complex: a growing sense of nationalism; imperialism; the division of the major European powers into blocks.

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Britain was part of the Allied Powers and fought against the Central Powers — mainly Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

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WWI saw unprecedented levels of destruction due to new military technologies.

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The tragic experiences of the war were reflected in the work of a group of soldiers called War Poets.

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The First World War ended on 11th November 1918 with victory for Britain and its allies. That date is commemorated every year as Remembrance Day.

The inter-war period •

After an initial post-war boom in 1919-20, Britain lost overseas markets and faced growing competition, particularly from the USA and Japan.

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Falling exports and mass unemployment resulted in increased popular discontent, which culminated in the General Strike of 1926.

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This was an era of imperial discontent. The Irish war of independence ended with the creation of the Irish Free State (1922), and by the late 1920s the white 'dominions' determined their own foreign policies.

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The 1920s culminated in the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the onset of the Great Depression.

The Second World War (WWII) •

The war broke out when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. In 1940 Conservative MP Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and Britain’s war leader.

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From the fall of France in 1940 until 1941 Britain and the Empire stood almost alone against Nazi Germany.

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The Germans waged an air campaign against Britain, but the British eventually won a crucial aerial battle called ‘the Battle of Britain’, in 1940. Despite this crucial victory, the German air continued bombing British cities. This sustained bombing campaign was called the Blitz.

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The USA entered the war when the Japanese bombed its naval base at Pearl Harbour in December 1941.

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In June 1944, allied forces landed in Normandy (‘DDay’). The Allies defeated Germany in 1945.

BRITAIN SINCE 1945

Tim Berners-Lee at his desk in CERN, 1994

The war aftermath •

Although Britain achieved ultimate victory in the war, the economic costs were huge.

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In 1945 Winston Churchill was defeated and a Labour government led by Clement Attlee was elected.

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After WWII, the disintegration of Britain's empire transformed global politics. In 1947, independence was granted to India and by 1967 more than 20 British territories were independent.

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In 1952 King George VI died and was succeeded by Elizabeth II. She has reigned in the UK and some Commonwealth countries ever since.

The Welfare State •

In 1945 the British people voted Labour under promises to introduce the welfare state outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report.

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The report recommended new ways to fight the five 'giant evils' that plagued society: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. It provided the basis of the modern welfare state. In return for paying a national insurance contribution, the citizen would gain security against the major ills.

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In 1948, the National Health Service (NHS) was established, which guaranteed a minimum standard of health care for all.

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Clement Attlee’s Labour government also undertook the nationalisation of major industries like the railways, coal mines and gas, water and electricity.

Clement Attlee

Migration in post-war Britain •

Rebuilding Britain after WWII was a huge task. There were labour shortages and the government encouraged immigration from Ireland and other parts of Europe.

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During the 1950s, immigration was encouraged for economic reasons. People from the West Indies, India, Pakistan and (later) Bangladesh travelled to work and settle in Britain.

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People arriving in the UK between 1948 and 1971 from the West Indies, invited to help rebuild Britain, have been labelled the Windrush generation. They met with plenty of work, little housing and a lot of discrimination.

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As the job offer decline in the 1960s the government changed its policy and began to pass new laws to restrict immigration.

Windrush Generation. The Guardian

Social Change in the Sixties •

‘The Swinging Sixties’ was a decade of significant social change.

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It was a time of economic prosperity, marked by rising employment and demand for consumer goods.

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Social laws were liberalised, for example in relation to divorce and abortion.

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Feminism began to gain influence. The position of women in the workplace improved and the contraceptive pill became legalised.

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It was a time of technological progress. The advancements of the 1960s drastically changed how people spent their leisure time.

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There was growth in British fashion (mini-skirt), cinema and popular music. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones influenced the period’s youth and counter-culture.

The turbulent Seventies

Man About the House

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The 1970s saw the return of economic crisis. Prices began to rise sharply and unemployment increased.

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There were important strikes: the 1972 and 1974 miners’ strikes or the Winter of Discontent (1978-79).

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In 1973 the UK officially joined the European Economic Community, but dissent from the left-wing led the Prime Minister to hold a referendum in 1975.

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The 1970s were a time of unrest in Northern Ireland.

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It was also the age of the hippie anarchists of the free festival movement, the continued rise of the feminist movement and of the Gay Liberation Front.

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The Sex Pistols were formed in 1975, and reflected upon the depressed culture of the time, while writers and dramatists wrote of the decline and depression of Britain in the 1970s.

The Thatcher Years (1979-90) •

Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, led the Conservative government from 1979 to 1990.

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She was an advocate of privatising state-owned industries, reforming trade unions, lowering taxes and reducing social expenditure. She succeeded in reducing inflation, but unemployment rose dramatically.

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In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. A naval taskforce was sent from the UK and military action led to the recovery of the islands.

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She cultivated a close relationship with president Ronald Reagan, based on a common mistrust of communism, combined with free-market economic ideology.

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Thatcher won a third term in office. But controversial policies produced divisions within the Conservative Party. In 1990, she resigned and was succeeded by John Major.

The turn of the century: Back to Labour? • In 1997 Labour came back to power with Tony Blair. •

He moved the Labour Party from the left towards the centre ground of British politics

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Blair raised taxes; introduced a National Minimum Wage and new employment rights. He promoted rights for gay people; and made substantial reforms in education and health.

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He introduced constitutional reforms that devolved powers to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. In Northern Ireland the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.

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Blair led Britain to play a leading role in coalition forces involved in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Blair resigned from office in 2007 and was replaced by Gordon Brown, who had to face the 2008 recession and lost power in 2010.

Coalition government (2010 – 2015) •

In 2010 no political party won an overall majority. The Conservative leader David Cameron formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats led by Nick Clegg.

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They introduced a programme of tax increases and public spending cuts after to reduce budget deficit after the 2008 financial crisis.

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In 2014 a referendum in Scotland rejected independence and same-sex marriage became legal in England, Wales and Scotland.

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The government faced increasing controversy over Britain’s membership of the European Union, prompted in large part by the rising electoral support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).

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David Cameron promised that if the Conservatives secured a majority in 2015, they would ‘renegotiate’ Britain’s relationship with the EU.

BrExit •

Cameron’s Conservative Party won a majority in 2015.

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In the 2016 national referendum, the UK narrowly voted to leave the European Union. PM David Cameron resigned and was succeeded by Theresa May.

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May served as PM from 2016 to 2019. She led the UK government through the triggering of Article 50 and the subsequent ‘Brexit’ negotiations.

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The 2017 general election resulted in a narrow Conservative victory and a minority government supported by the Northern Irish Democratic Unionists.

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After failing to pass her Brexit deal on three occasions, May resigned in 2019.

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Boris Johnson succeeded May as leader of the Conservative Party. In 2019 he won a landslide victory.

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Parliament ratified Johnson's Brexit withdrawal agreement, and the UK left the EU in 2020....