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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in Northwestern Europe that was established by the union in 1801 of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland.[4] The establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 led to the remainder later being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1927.

This article is about the United Kingdom between 1801 and 1922. For the modern state, see United Kingdom. For the geographical region, see British Isles.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy

 

 

1 January 1801

6 December 1921

45,221,000

The United Kingdom, having financed the European coalition that defeated France during the Napoleonic Wars, developed a large Royal Navy that enabled the British Empire to become the foremost world power for the next century. For nearly a century from the final defeat of Napoleon following the Battle of Waterloo to the outbreak of World War I, Britain was almost continuously at peace with Great Powers. The most notable exception was the Crimean War with the Russian Empire, in which actual hostilities were relatively limited.[5] However, the United Kingdom did engage in extensive offensive military operations in Africa and Asia, such as the Opium Wars with the Qing dynasty, to extend its overseas territorial holdings and influence.


Beginning in earnest in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Imperial government granted increasing levels of autonomy to locally elected governments in colonies where white settlers had become demographically or politically dominant, with this process eventually resulting in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa becoming self-governing dominions. Although these dominions remained part of the British Empire, in practice dominion governments were permitted to largely manage their own internal affairs without interference from London, which was primarily responsible only for foreign policy.


Rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the state's formation continued up until the mid-19th century. The Great Irish Famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the mid-19th century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland and increased calls for Irish land reform. The 19th century was an era of rapid economic modernisation and growth of industry, trade and finance, in which Britain largely dominated the world economy. Outward migration was heavy to the principal British overseas possessions and to the United States. The British Empire was expanded into most parts of Africa and much of South Asia. The Colonial Office and India Office ruled through a small number of administrators who managed the units of the empire locally, while democratic institutions began to develop. British India, by far the most important overseas possession, saw a short-lived revolt in 1857. In overseas policy, the central policy was free trade, which enabled British financiers and merchants to operate successfully in many otherwise independent countries, as in South America.


The British remained non-aligned until the early 20th century when the growing naval power of the German Empire increasingly came to be seen as an existential threat to the British Empire. In response, London began to cooperate with Japan, France and Russia, and moved closer to the United States. Although not formally allied with any of these powers, by 1914 British policy had all but committed to declaring war on Germany if the latter attacked France. This was realized in August 1914 when Germany invaded France via Belgium, whose neutrality had been guaranteed by London. The ensuing First World War eventually pitted the Allied and Associated Powers including the British Empire, France, Russia, Italy and the U.S. against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The deadliest conflict in human history up to that point, the war ended in an Allied victory in November 1918 but inflicted a massive cost to British manpower, materiel and treasure.


Growing desire for Irish self-governance led to the Irish War of Independence almost immediately after the conclusion of World War I, which resulted in British recognition of the Irish Free State in 1922. Although the Free State was explicitly governed under dominion status and thus was not a fully independent polity, as a dominion it was no longer considered to be part of the United Kingdom and ceased to be represented in the Westminster Parliament. Six northeastern counties in Ireland, which since 1920 were being governed under a much more limited form of home rule, opted-out of joining the Free State and remained part of the Union under this limited form of self-government. In light of these changes, the British state was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on 12 April 1927 with the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act. The modern-day United Kingdom is the same state, that is to say a direct continuation of what remained after the Irish Free State's secession, as opposed to being an entirely new successor state.[6]

(1801–1820; monarch from 1760)

George III

(1820–1830)

George IV

(1830–1837)

William IV

(1837–1901)

Victoria

(1901–1910)

Edward VII

(1910–1922; title used until 1927 but remained monarch until his death in 1936)

George V

Until 1927, the monarch's royal title included the words "of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". In 1927, the words "United Kingdom" were removed from the royal title so that the monarch was instead styled as "King/Queen of Great Britain, Ireland...[and other places]". The words "United Kingdom" were restored to the monarch's title in 1953 with the reference to "Ireland" replaced with a reference to "Northern Ireland".

Historiography of the British Empire

Historiography of the United Kingdom

History of Ireland (1801–1923)

History of the United Kingdom

Terminology of the British Isles

covers social & cultural history

Victorian era

Adams, James, ed. (2004) [2003]. Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era.  978-0-7172-5860-4.

ISBN

Beckett, Ian F.W. (2006). The Home Front, 1914–1918: How Britain Survived the Great War. Bloomsbury Academic.  978-1-9033-6581-6.

ISBN

(2006). A Military History of Britain: From 1775 to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-2759-9039-8.

Black, Jeremy

(2009). The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-4078-0.

Black, Jeremy

(1995) [1st pub. 1982]. Nationalism in Ireland (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-4151-2776-9.

Boyce, David George

(1955). Victorian people; a reassessment of persons and themes, 1851–1867. University of Chicago Press.

Briggs, Asa

(1959). The Age of Improvement, 1783–1867. Longman. ISBN 978-0-5823-6960-3.

Briggs, Asa

, ed. (2002). The Oxford Companion to British History (2nd revised ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1986-0872-1.

Cannon, John

(1936). England 1870–1914.

Ensor, R.C.K.

(1996) [1983]. The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain, 1783–1870 (2nd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-0-5820-8953-2.

Evans, Eric J.

(2008). Britain Before the Reform Act: Politics and Society 1815–1832 (2nd ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-1348-1603-3.

Evans, Eric J.

(2012). The Crimean War: A History. Picador. ISBN 978-1-2500-0252-5.

Figes, Orlando

(2012). A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War. Random House Publishing. ISBN 978-0-3757-5696-2.

Foreman, Amanda

(1949–1952). History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century. E. Benn. ISBN 978-0-5102-7101-5.

Halévy, Élie

(2014). High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain. {{cite book}}: |newspaper= ignored (help)

Heffer, Simon

(2017). The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4735-0758-6.

Heffer, Simon

Hoppen, K. Theodore (2000). The Mid-Victorian Generation 1846–1886.  978-0-1982-2834-9. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

ISBN

(2003). Home Rule: An Irish History 1800—2000. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1952-2048-3.

Jackson, Alvin

Judd, Denis; Surridge, Keith Terrance (2003). Boer War. Palgrave Macmillan.  978-1-4039-6150-1.

ISBN

Kendle, John (1992). Walter Long, Ireland and the Union, 1905–1920. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP.  978-0-7735-0908-5.

ISBN

(1994). This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845–1852. Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-5709-8034-3.

Kinealy, Christine

(2015). Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization Of Victory; 1793–1815. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-1419-7702-7.

Knight, Roger

McCord, Norman; Purdue, Bill (2007). British History: 1815–1914 (2nd ed.). university textbook

(1913). England Since Waterloo.

Marriott, John

(1965). The Deluge: British Society and the First World War. Bodley Head. ISBN 978-7-0700-0496-1.

Marwick, Arthur

Martin, Howard (1996). Britain in the 19th Century.  978-0-1743-5062-0. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

ISBN

Matthew, H.C.G. (2004). Gladstone, William Ewart (1809–1898). {{}}: |work= ignored (help)

cite book

(1967). Contemporary England 1914–1964.

Medlicott, William Norton

Mori, Jennifer (2000). Britain in the Age of the French Revolution: 1785–1820.

(1955). Britain between the wars: 1918–1940. Methuen. ISBN 978-0-4162-9510-8.

Mowat, Charles Loch

Paul, Herbert (1904–1906). ., 1855–1865

History of Modern England

Porter, Andrew, ed. (1998). The Nineteenth Century, The Oxford History of the British Empire. Vol. III. Oxford University Press.  978-0-1992-4678-6.

ISBN

Purdon, Edward (2000). The Irish Famine 1845–1852.

Read, Donald (1979). England 1868–1914., survey

Roberts, Clayton; Roberts, David F.; Bisson, Douglas (2013). . Routledge. ISBN 978-1-3155-0960-0.

A History of England, Volume 2: 1688 to the Present

Rubinstein, W. D. (1998). Britain's Century: A Political and Social History, 1815–1905.

(2005). A New England?: Peace and War 1886–1918.

Searle, G. R.

Somervell, D. C. (1929). . Methuen And Company Limited.

English thought in the nineteenth century

Steinbach, Susie L. (2012). Understanding the Victorians: Politics, Culture and Society in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Routledge.  978-0-4157-7408-6.

ISBN

(1953). The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848–1918. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-1988-1270-8., diplomacy

Taylor, A. J. P.

(1965). English History 1914–1945. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-1402-1181-8., survey

Taylor, A. J. P.

Tombs, Robert (2014). . {{cite book}}: |newspaper= ignored (help)

The English and their History

Uglow, Jenny (2015). In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793–1815.

Walpole, Spencer (1878–1886). ., covers 1815–1855

A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815

Walpole, Spencer (1904–1908). ., covers 1856–1880

History of Twenty-Five Years

Wasson, Ellis (2016). A history of modern Britain: 1714 to the present (2nd ed.)., textbook

(1968). Modern England: from the eighteenth century to the present. Dodd, Mead. ISBN 978-0-0604-6975-7.

Webb, R.K.

Woodward, Ernest Llewellyn (1962) [1938]. (2nd ed.).

The Age of Reform, 1815–1870

British History Online

Act of Union 1800