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officially United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
limited monarchy, NW Europe. The kingdom includes the island of
Great Britain, consisting of England, Scotland, and Wales; and Northern
Ireland, an integral component of the kingdom, occupying part of
the island of Ireland. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands in
the English Channel are not integral parts of the United Kingdom;
they are direct dependencies of the British crown with substantial
internal self-governing powers. The United Kingdom lies entirely
within the From 1801, when Great Britain and Ireland were united, to
1922, when the Irish Free State (see Included in the following account of Great Britain are sections on the education, art, archaeology, economy, government, and history (since 1707) of the nation. Unless otherwise indicated, all figures cited include England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Relevant material that is contained elsewhere in this encyclopedia may be omitted in this article. Attention is systematically directed to the topical headings under which such material may be found. Numerous other articles containing additional and more detailed information on important aspects of Great Britain are cited at appropriate points in the text. LAND AND RESOURCES Data concerning physical characteristics, climate, natural resources, plants and animals, soils, waterpower, and other geographical aspects of the nation will be found in the articles dealing with the component parts of the kingdom. POPULATION The population of Great Britain (1991 census, prelim.) was
55,508,789; its overall population density was 241 persons per sq
km (625 per sq mi). For basic information on the kingdom's
principal political divisions and their populations, see the table
accompanying this article. For further information on population distribution,
principal cities, racial origins, religion, and culture, see the
articles dealing with the component parts of the kingdom. For the
development and present state of languages and literature in Great
Britain, see Education. Historically, British education has derived much of its prestige from the excellence of its private preparatory schools, called public schools, such as Eton College, Harrow School, and Rugby School. The students of the private schools came mostly from the aristocratic and wealthy classes. A system of voluntary schools developed during the 19th century, especially in England and Wales, to extend educational opportunities to the lower classes. After 1833 the voluntary schools, established by charitable and religious organizations, received some financial support from parliamentary grants. Not until the Elementary Education Act of 1870 was passed, however, did the development of publicly provided primary education begin. By terms of the act the country was divided into school districts, each supervised by locally elected school boards, which were authorized to establish schools in areas where no voluntary schools existed; the boards, at their own discretion, were empowered to require compulsory attendance. The resulting complexity of school administration was eased in 1899 by the creation of a national board of education. Thus, by the end of the 19th century, free elementary education was available to all. Public provision of secondary education was established in 1889 in Wales and in 1902 in England. The Education Act passed in 1902 abolished the school boards and placed the responsibility for public education in the hands of the councils of local government (counties, county boroughs, boroughs, and urban districts), which were made local education authorities, known as LEAs. The board schools became council schools, and the voluntary schools were subsidized by public funds. The voluntary schools came under criticism, however, because they also provided religious instruction. In 1944 Parliament passed an education act that became the basis of public education in England and Wales. The LEAs, of which 146 were designated, were made committees of county or county-borough councils, and the council schools became county schools. Each of the local authorities was made responsible for setting up complete facilities for education, divided into three categories: primary education, secondary education, and further education, the last-named for those persons under the age of 18 who were not receiving full-time education. After the reorganization of local government in the mid-1970s, LEAs in England and Wales numbered 105 and were the elected councils of counties and districts. The Education Act of 1980 provided for greater representation of parents and teachers on school governing bodies. Education in Scotland grew vigorously, at first independent of that in England and Wales. The Education Act (Scotland) of 1872, the counterpart of the English act of 1870, placed schools under the jurisdiction of locally elected school boards. After that date, Scotland carried out its own school reforms until, by the 20th century, every locality maintained free elementary schools; secondary schools were widespread in Scotland before they were developed throughout England and Wales. Voluntary schools were not a significant element of the system—only one-eighth the number of voluntary schools in England were established in Scotland. The Education Act (Scotland) of 1945 applied the provisions of the English act of 1944; it involved fewer innovations, however, because many of the reforms that were made in England had already been made in Scotland. Following local government reorganization in 1975, the LEAs in Scotland were the elected councils of the nine region and three island authorities. Education in Northern Ireland was placed under the Board (later Ministry) of Education by the Education Act (Northern Ireland) of 1923. Counties and county boroughs were designated as LEAs, and education was based on the English system. The Education Act (Northern Ireland) of 1947 imposed reforms that were similar to those imposed by the English act. The Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order of 1972 established five education and library boards as the LEAs. Education in Great Britain is compulsory for all children between the ages of 5 and 16. Virtually the entire adult population is literate. In the early 1990s more than 4.8 million children attended publicly funded schools, and secondary school attendance exceeded 3.5 million. Spending on education by the central government and local authorities accounted for about 13% of total annual expenditures. In the early 1990s Great Britain had 158 institutions of higher education, of which 76 had university status. Traditionally, British universities have been completely self-governing, with their academic and financial independence guaranteed by a committee that disburses funds authorized by Parliament. New universities and other higher educational institutions have been founded since World War II, and admissions policies have been broadened. The number of secondary schools has been increased at the same time. Such changes, however, have not been accepted without controversy. Certain factions within the country feel that mass education tends to lower educational standards. For information on types of schools and enrollment, see Education
sections of the articles Art. British visual art began with the interest in ornamentation,
influenced by early Scandinavian wood carvings, and after the Christianization
of England, painting appeared at first only in From the beginning of the Renaissance, English painting was influenced by foreign artists, such as the German painter Hans Holbein the Younger in the 16th century and the Flemish painter Sir Anthony van Dyck in the 17th century. Not until the 18th century, with the work of portrait painters such as William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and George Romney, did a distinctive style develop in English painting. English styles in furniture and ceramics, in the work of Thomas Chippendale and Josiah Wedgwood in particular, evolved in the 18th century. In the 19th century John Constable was notable for landscape painting and Joseph Mallord William Turner for seascape painting, and in the 20th century perhaps the best-known artists are the sculptor Henry Moore and the painters David Hockney and Francis Bacon. ECONOMY Great Britain is primarily an industrial and commercial nation. Manufacturing, mining, and public utilities provided about 26% and transportation, communications, and commerce about 22% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the early 1990s. Finance provided another 23% of the GDP; construction about 6%; agriculture, forestry, and fishing about 2%; and public administration, education, health, and other services about 21%. Major industries, such as transportation, communications, steel, petroleum, coal, gas, and electricity, which had been nationalized by Labour governments, were sold to private investors by the Conservative government in the 1980s. Britain imports foodstuffs and raw materials and exports finished and manufactured goods; it is a world leader in international trade. In the three decades after World War II, Great Britain suffered from chronic economic problems: pressure on the currency, a deficit in the balance of payments, inflation, and industrial inefficiency. During the 1974 world recession these problems became more critical: The number of people unemployed rose to more than 1 million, productivity declined, wages soared, and the currency sank to record lows. In July 1975 the government introduced stringent anti-inflation measures that were supported by both business and the trade unions and were regarded as largely successful in holding down wage increases and dampening inflation. Major improvements in the balance of payments occurred in the late 1970s because of the revenues from North Sea oil. Since 1979, government economic policies have encouraged the private sector while curbing government spending and services; inflation has been held in check, but unemployment exceeded 3 million in the mid-1980s and remained above 2 million in the early 1990s. At that time, the annual gross national product was about $17,790 per capita, and the national budget included $325.5 billion in revenue and $400.9 billion in expenditure. Labor. The total British labor force in the early 1990s numbered about 27.7 million, of whom about 7.6 million were members of 68 unions affiliated with the Trades Union Congress. Collective bargaining is generally conducted on a national and industry-wide basis. The standard workweek ranges between 35 and 40 hours, varying with each industry. In the postwar era, succeeding governments sought to implement a policy of full employment, and unemployment generally averaged 1–2% of the total work force. In the mid-1960s, however, Great Britain was forced to abandon this policy to a degree because of a persistent payments deficit and inflationary pressures. The unemployment rate exceeded 10% in the early 1990s. Agriculture. Compared with most other major countries, Great Britain devotes a relatively small part of its labor force (in the early 1990s less than 2% of the employed population) to agriculture, and the nation must import a major share of its food supply. Much land is not arable because of unproductive soil or inaccessibility, as in parts of the Scottish Highlands. In the century before World War II, Great Britain produced less than 40% of its domestic agricultural requirements. Domestic food production rose dramatically during World War II, partly because of strict rationing and intensive efforts to increase the cultivable area. In the postwar era food production has risen to about two-thirds of domestic needs, despite a population increase of more than 8 million. During much of this period the government guaranteed farm prices, and public bodies held many farms. In the early 1990s approximately 27% of the total land area of the United Kingdom was devoted to crops, and about 46% to permanent pasture and rough grazing. Agriculture in Great Britain is intensive and highly mechanized. Income from livestock and dairy products is about three times that from crops. Horticultural products are also important, especially in S England. The most important crops (with approximate annual production in the early 1990s) were wheat (14.1 million metric tons), oats (504,000), barley (7.4 million), potatoes (7.8 million), and sugar beets (8.5 million). The livestock population in the same period included about 11.8 million cattle, 44 million sheep and lambs, 7.6 million pigs, and 136.3 million poultry. The British government agreed in 1996 to the destruction over a 5-year period of up to 4.7 million cattle, after fears about the possible spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, so-called mad-cow disease, to humans led many countries to impose a temporary ban on the importation of British beef. An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in early 2001 caused further losses to the livestock industry. Forestry and Fishing. Of the approximately 2.4 million ha (approximately 5.9 million acres) in woodlands in the United Kingdom, about 48% are in Scotland, 39% in England, 10% in Wales, and 3% in Northern Ireland. The most common trees are oak, beech, ash, and elm. Pine and birch predominate in Scotland. Production of roundwood totaled about 6.4 million cu m (about 226 million cu ft) in the early 1990s. The Forestry Commission began a reforestation program in the 1950s, under which approximately 16,000 ha (about 40,000 acres) were replanted annually, mostly in Scotland. Private owners, who held more than 55% of the total forestlands, were encouraged to replant some 8000 ha (about 20,000 acres) each year. The reforestation of an additional 65,000 ha (about 160,000 acres) in Northern Ireland was also planned. Despite these efforts, Great Britain still imports about 85% of its timber. The deep-sea fishing industry has declined since the 1960s; it remains most important to the economy of Scotland and is a major source of employment in certain fishing ports. In the early 1990s about 613,700 metric tons of fish were caught annually. Mackerel, cod, haddock, whiting, plaice, herring, saithe, and shellfish are harvested. The principal freshwater fish caught are salmon, trout, and eel. Domestic fish production provides about 55% of Great Britain's needs. Notable fishing-products industries are located at Hull, Grimsby, Fleetwood, North Shields, Lowestoft, and Plymouth in England and at Aberdeen and Peterhead in Scotland. The British fishing fleet consists of more than 12,000 vessels. Mining. The strong industrial position long held by Great Britain was based principally on the abundant resources of coal and iron ore that were available for industrial development. These and other mineral resources have been a determinant in the location and the development of centers of population and in the general prosperity of Great Britain. In the pre-Christian era, Phoenician traders visited what is now England to barter for tin from the mines of Cornwall. British clays were later used for pottery. Coal production, which had been declining since the 1950s, was given a boost in the 1970s by the increase in the price of petroleum and by the discovery of extensive new reserves. In the early 1980s exploitation was begun of a vast coalfield near Selby, N England. The coal industry, nationalized on Jan. 1, 1947 (see History below), was being returned to the private sector in the mid-1990s. Petroleum was first discovered under the bed of the North Sea in 1970, and production began in 1975. By 1980, 15 fields were producing 1.6 million barrels of high-quality oil a day—virtually all of Britain's requirements—and oil was becoming an important source of export revenue as well. Production of natural gas from the North Sea fields began in 1967 and has steadily increased since that time; new fields have been located in the Irish Sea and on land in Dorset. Annual production of minerals in Great Britain in the early 1990s included about 84.9 million metric tons of coal, 656.7 million barrels of crude petroleum, and 53.9 billion cu m (1.9 trillion cu ft) of natural gas. Manufacturing. By virtue of the In recent times Great Britain has remained one of the most highly industrialized countries of the world. In the early 1990s manufacturing and mining industries and public utilities together employed nearly 20% of the work force and accounted for approximately 26% of the gross domestic product. In the same period the approximate yearly production figures included 16.2 million metric tons of crude steel, 1,291,900 passenger cars, 122,200 metric tons of worsted and woolen yarn, and 142 million m (466 million ft) of woven cotton fabrics. Scotland and Northern Ireland were noted for their production of whiskeys and linen, and England had a large brewing industry. Other major manufactures included chemicals, electrical and electronic products, aircraft, cement, clothing, and tobacco products. The leading manufacturing regions were Greater London and the metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester, West Midlands (Birmingham), and Merseyside (Liverpool). Other important industrial centers were Glasgow, the Tees estuary region, S Wales, and Belfast. Energy. Annual electrical output in the early 1990s exceeded 322 billion kwh; about 76% was generated in thermal facilities using fossil fuels. Britain was a pioneer in the development of nuclear plants for the production of electricity. The world's first commercial-scale nuclear power station at Calder Hall in Cumberland became functional in 1956. By the early 1990s nuclear power supplied about 22% of the nation's electricity. Currency and Banking. The pound sterling (£1) of 100 new pence is the national currency
(£0.60 equals U.S.$1; 1998). In 1968 Great Britain
took the first step in a 3-year conversion of its currency to the
decimal system by introducing the first two new coins, the 5-new-pence
piece (equal to 1 old shilling) and the 10-new-pence piece. In 1969,
the 50-pence coin was introduced, replacing the old 10-shilling
note. The conversion was completed in 1971. The pound was permitted
to float against the dollar and other world currencies beginning
in June 1972. Great Britain was one of the three members of the The Foreign Trade. The prominent position of British commerce in world trade
during the 18th and 19th centuries resulted largely from the geographical
isolation of the British Isles from the wars and political troubles
that afflicted the centers of trade on the European continent. The
development of the great trading companies (see In the early 1990s Britain remained one of the world's leading trading nations. Its major imports were foodstuffs, wood and paper products, machinery, chemicals, transport equipment, and other manufactured goods; exports included machinery, transport equipment, basic manufactured goods, petroleum, chemicals, precision instruments, and nonferrous metals. Imports, chiefly from Germany, the U.S., France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Japan, totaled about $211.9 billion annually in the early 1990s. In the same period exports, primarily to Germany, the U.S., France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg, and Sweden, totaled approximately $187.9 billion annually. Trade with other Commonwealth members and with the sterling area has declined and trade with Western Europe has increased in recent decades. Great Britain entered the European Community in 1973, becoming a founding member of the European Union, its successor, in 1993. Most domestic retail trade is conducted through independently owned shops, although department, chain, and cooperative stores and supermarkets are operated on an increasing scale. More than half of all wholesale trade is carried on in London. Tourism. Tourism is an essential part of overseas income. In the early 1990s some 18.5 million visitors traveled throughout Great Britain annually, spending about $13.7 billion. During the same period, British travelers annually spent about $19.8 billion overseas. Under the Development of Tourism Act of 1969, a government tourist organization was established to attract visitors and to improve tourist accommodations and travel conditions. Transportation. Both the irregular coastline of the British Isles, with its numerous indentations and bays and navigable streams, and the artificial improvements of harbors and provision of dock facilities have helped Britain grow into a maritime power. The Navigation Laws of the 17th century were instituted to give English vessels maximum advantage in the carrying of English products, and naval victories over Spain and France, chief rivals of Britain in world trade, gave the nation control of the seas and preeminence in world merchant shipping. This leadership lasted until World War II, when the destruction of British shipping by enemy action and the increased production capacity of U.S. shipyards enabled the American merchant marine to overtake and surpass the British merchant fleet. In the early 1990s the British-owned merchant fleet numbered 666 vessels totaling 13.2 million deadweight tons. Among the country's leading seaports are the extensive Port of London, Liverpool, Manchester (an inland seaport), Grimsby, Southampton, Milford Haven (a petroleum port), and Glasgow. Other major ports include the Tees R. ports and Felixstowe. In the 15th century the English government initiated a program to improve natural waterways and for the construction of canals. In the early 1990s Great Britain had about 3200 km (about 2000 mi) of canals and canalized rivers. The most important of these canals is the Manchester Ship Canal. The first important railroad line in the world was opened between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. Following almost a century of development and expansion the railroads of Great Britain were divided, in 1921, into four great systems: the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway; the London and North-Eastern Railway; the Great Western Railway; and the Southern Railway. In 1948 the four lines, together with their associated railroad and steamship lines, docks, hotels, and canals, were nationalized and were taken under the administration of the British Transport Commission, which was replaced by the British Railways Board in 1963. The Railways Act of 1993 provides for the restructuring and privatization of the country's rail system. In the early 1990s, British railroads operated about 37,850 km (about 23,520 mi) of track. London has an extensive network of subways, commuter rail lines, and light rail. The Eurotunnel, a rail tunnel under the English Channel linking Folkestone with Calais, France, was opened in 1994. British Airways was formed in 1972 by combining the two state-run airlines, British Overseas Airways Corp. and British European Airways. Privatized in 1987, British Airways operates one of the largest route networks in the world, traveling to some 170 destinations in more than 75 countries. In 1976, together with Air France, British Airways inaugurated the world's first supersonic passenger service, using Concorde aircraft. Besides the national airline, Great Britain has numerous smaller independent air transport operators. London's main airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, are among the world's busiest centers for international travel. The London City Airport was constructed (1987) as part of the Docklands development project. The road system of Great Britain in the early 1990s consisted of about 386,630 km (about 240,240 mi) of public highways. Some 20.3 million passenger cars were registered in Great Britain. Communications. The Post Office, founded in 1635, maintains about 18,000 branch offices throughout Great Britain and administers a postal savings system. The postal system was revised and penny postage established in the 1830s. The system was reorganized as a public corporation in 1969 and restructured under the Postal Services Act (2000); as of 2001, Consignia, a new public corporation wholly owned by the British government, operated the Royal Mail, Parcelforce Worldwide, and the Post Office. In 1870 the government acquired the British telegraph systems, and in 1892 it began buying the private telephone companies. Today, telecommunications services are provided by British Telecom, founded as a state corporation but privatized in the 1980s. By the late 1990s, Britain had one of the world's most advanced telecommunications networks, encompassing 32.8 million main telephone lines, 14.9 million cellular telephone subscribers, 15.5 million personal computers, 8 million Internet users, and 38 million television sets. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and the Independent Television Commission (ITC), both public bodies, are licensed to provide television and radio broadcasting services. Founded in 1922 and working under a royal charter, the BBC operates 2 television channels as well as 5 national and more than 30 local radio stations. It is financed mainly through the sale of annual licenses for television receivers. The BBC also provides foreign radio broadcasts in many languages. The ITC (known until 1972 as the Independent Television Authority and from 1972 to 1990 as the Independent Broadcasting Authority), which oversees the operation of independent television, was created by Parliament in 1954. Satellite and cable broadcasting services have also been introduced. Local radio stations are run by numerous commercial firms that are centered mostly in the larger cities. Commercial advertising on both independent radio and television pays for the services. Some 100 daily and Sunday newspapers and more than 2000 weekly newspapers are published in Great Britain. Fourteen London newspapers circulate nationwide, six of which have daily circulations of more than 1 million. Among the most respected British daily newspapers are the Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times, all published in London. Noted weeklies include the Economist, New Scientist, New Statesman, the Spectator, and the Times Literary Supplement. Great Britain also has many outstanding book publishers. GOVERNMENT Great Britain is a limited monarchy with an unwritten constitution,
consisting of historic documents, such as the Executive. The British monarch is head of state. Executive power, however, is wielded by a prime minister, who is head of the government, and a committee of ministers called the cabinet. The prime minister is usually the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. By custom, cabinet ministers are selected from among members of the two houses of Parliament. Cabinet ministers are also among the members of the Privy Council, the traditional advisory body to the Crown. Legislature. In principle, the “Crown in Parliament” is
supreme; that is, legislation passed by Parliament, which consists
of the House of Commons, elected directly by the people, and the House
of Lords, made up of hereditary peers and appointive members—archbishops,
bishops, lords of appeal, and life peers—becomes law upon
royal assent. In practice, legislation is dominated by the prime minister
and the cabinet, who initiate virtually all proposed bills and who
are politically responsible for the administration of the law and
the affairs of the nation. Fiscal legislation always, and other
legislation usually, is initiated in the House of Commons. Since
the Parliament Act of 1911, the House of Lords has been unable to
block fiscal legislation. By the terms of the Parliament Act of
1949, the Lords may not disapprove other bills if they have been
passed by two successive annual sessions of the Commons. The power
of the Crown to veto legislation has not been exercised in more
than 280 years. See also The House of Lords. The House of Lords is composed of hereditary peers, 2 Anglican archbishops, 24 bishops who serve as lords spiritual as long as they retain their sees, and life peers whose titles are not hereditary. Life peers include lords of appeal, who make up the court of last resort on matters that can be brought to the House of Lords, and an increasing number of lords created in recognition of distinguished service (often in politics). The Peerage Act of 1963 enables a lord to relinquish his title for life and thus to become eligible for election to the House of Commons and for selection as prime minister. The House of Lords Act (1999) reduced the membership of the chamber from nearly 1300 to fewer than 700 by terminating the voting privileges of hundreds of hereditary peers. Only three members are required for a quorum. The House of Commons. Members of the House of Commons are elected from geographical constituencies. The voting age for British subjects was lowered to 18 in 1969. Those not eligible for election to the Commons include members of the House of Lords, selected clergy, government contractors, sheriffs, and certain designated election officials. The basis of representation depends on the total number of seats agreed on by a process unique to the House of Commons and on the total population of the nation. In the early 2000s, the membership of the House of Commons totaled 659, of whom 529 were from England, 72 from Scotland, 40 from Wales, and 18 from Northern Ireland. Forty members are required for a quorum. By law, the life of a Parliament is five years unless dissolved earlier or extended by special statute in times of war or national emergency. Parliament is dissolved by the sovereign at the end of its 5-year term or on advice of the prime minister. All members of the House of Commons are then subject to the general election. Although, in theory, any member of Parliament may propose a bill, most legislation is initiated by the cabinet minister responsible for the department concerned. Acts passed by Parliament tend to be worded in general terms; they are implemented, with specification of detailed provisions, by Orders in Council, prepared by the minister responsible and promulgated by proclamation of the Crown. The cabinet, under the doctrine of collective responsibility, acts as a unit. The defeat of important legislation or a vote of no confidence usually brings about the resignation of the entire cabinet and a general election. The prime minister may drop individual cabinet members entirely or reassign them as preferred. This power helps to maintain the prime minister's leadership and is exercised in most governments from time to time. Ministers may resign their posts without leaving the Parliament. Because of the dominant role of the cabinet, the House of Commons did not have specialized committees, in the style of the U.S. Congress, until recently. Beginning in 1979, however, a pattern of committees specialized in function has emerged. This new lineup of select committees provides detailed debate and consideration rather than only general review and approval. Judiciary.
See Local Government. Prior to the late 1990s, the government of Great Britain was unitary in structure. Thus, the powers of local government derived from Parliamentary acts, and responsibility for the overall administration of the country rested within specified cabinet ministries. Local authorities, however, were essentially independent. This system began to change fundamentally in 1997, with the passage of a referendum in Scotland providing for the establishment of a regional parliament, and one in Wales authorizing a regional assembly with much more limited powers. In Northern Ireland, a new legislative assembly, authorized by the Good Friday peace accord, was elected in June 1998; it will eventually assume many of the powers formerly exercised from London. A major reorganization of local government became effective in England and Wales in 1974 and in Scotland in 1975. The former counties and county boroughs in these three areas were succeeded by a simplified two-tier system, consisting of 65 larger units (excluding Greater London), known as counties in England and Wales and regions and island areas in Scotland, and some 420 districts. Northern Ireland has a single-tier system, with 26 districts. In England six designated metropolitan counties covered the major urban areas other than Greater London. Substantial changes in local government continued throughout the 1980s. The Greater London Council and the six major conurbations were abolished in 1986. The present structure was essentially established by an earlier (1972) Local Government Act. Shire counties have county, district, and parish councils. Metropolitan areas have joint authorities, district councils, and parish councils. District council members are elected for staggered 4-year terms; most other councillors are elected for 3-year terms. There is no constitutional division of powers between central and local authorities in Britain, but local units are responsible for police and fire services, education, libraries, highways, traffic, housing, building regulations, and environmental health. In April 1990 a change in financing local government reduced local rates of property taxes and substituted a community charge—labeled a “poll tax.” This unpopular tax produced intense political debate and was replaced in 1993 by a modified form of local taxation, the council tax. The 1990 legislation also called for competitive bidding for local services such as garbage collection and street cleaning. Greater London is administered by the Corporation of the City of London, by the 32 metropolitan borough councils, and by other local authorities. In May 1998 London residents approved a plan providing for a directly elected mayor and assembly for the metropolitan region.
Political Parties. The political party system, dating from the 17th century,
is an essential element in the working constitution. Several parties
win seats in Commons, but Great Britain has functioned basically
as a two-party system for more than a century. The majority party
forms His or Her Majesty's Government, and the second party
is officially recognized as His or Her Majesty's Own Loyal Opposition.
The Opposition leader is paid a salary from public funds for that
role. Since the end of World War I, the The Health and Welfare. Most practicing general physicians in Great Britain are part
of the National Health Service, although some also have private
patients. Established in 1948, the service provides full, and in
most cases, free medical care to all residents. Patients, who may
opt for a particular physician, pay minimal charges for prescriptions,
adult dental treatment, eyeglasses and dentures, and some locally
administered services, such as vaccinations. Most dentists, pharmacists,
and medical specialists take part in the service. Each general practitioner
may have no more than 3500 registered patients under the plan, for
each of whom he or she receives a fee. The National Health Service
is financed through general taxation, with national insurance payments
contributing some 14% of the total cost. See also The national insurance system, put into full operation in 1948, provides benefits for industrial injuries, illness, unemployment, maternity costs, and for children in certain circumstances, as well as allowances for guardians and widows, retirement pensions, and death payments. Retirement benefits are paid to men at the age of 65 and to women at the age of 60. Family allowances are payable for all children up to the ages of 16 to 19, or when the child leaves school. The insurance system assists the needy through weekly cash benefits and special services for the handicapped. Most of these services are financed partly through compulsory weekly contributions by employers and employees and partly by the government out of general taxation. Expenditures on health and social security accounted for about 47% of all government spending in the early 1990s. At that time, life expectancy at birth in the United Kingdom averaged 79 years for women and 73 for men; the infant mortality rate was 6.6 per 1000 live births. Defense. Britain depends for its basic security on the The British army is controlled by the Defence Council through an Army Board composed of both civilian and military members. Active members of the army are volunteers who have enlisted for 22 years. Under a plan introduced in 1972, however, army personnel may choose to serve for only 3 years. In 1993 the regular army numbered 142,200 men and women. A citizen national reserve force, the Territorial Army, has an establishment of 68,500 and may be called out in time of emergency. Northern Ireland has a special reserve force of 5700, the Royal Irish Regiment, which gives part-time support to the regular army. The Royal Navy is governed by the Admiralty Board under the secretary of state for defense. Naval craft in 1993 included 2 aircraft carriers, 12 destroyers, 25 frigates, 17 (including 13 nuclear-powered) submarines, and many auxiliary vessels. Navy personnel numbered about 59,400. The Royal Flying Corps was established in 1912; in 1914 the naval wing of the corps became the Royal Naval Air Service, and in 1918 the two were amalgamated as the Royal Air Force. Since 1964 the air force has been under the unified Ministry of Defence. It is administered by the Air Force Board, headed by the secretary of state for defense. The air force is organized into home and overseas commands. In 1994, Royal Air Force personnel numbered some 70,000. In the 1990s contingents of British troops were serving in
Germany, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Belize, Brunei, the Falkland Islands,
Gibraltar, and Cyprus. International Organizations. Britain is a charter member of the HISTORY The kingdom of Great Britain was formed by the Act of Union
(1707) between England and Scotland. England (including the principality
of Wales, annexed in the 14th century) and Scotland had been separate
kingdoms since the early Middle Ages, but after 1603 the same monarch
had ruled both lands. Only in 1707, however, did London become the
capital of the entire island. Great Britain from then on had a single
Parliament and a single system of national administration, taxation,
and weights and measures. All tariff barriers within the island
were ended. England and Scotland continued, however, to have separate
traditions of law and separate established churches—the
Presbyterian in Scotland, the Anglican in England and Wales. For
the history of the two countries before 1707, see
A CENTURY OF CONFLICTS One of the chief purposes of the planners of the Act of Union had been to strengthen a land preoccupied with the War of the Spanish Succession. Under the leadership of John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, Britain and its allies had won many battles against France, then the most populous and powerful European state, but by 1710 it seemed clear that not even Marlborough could prevent Louis XIV of France from installing a Bourbon relation on the Spanish throne. Marlborough and his political allies were replaced by members of the Tory party, who in due course made peace with France. In the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Britain acknowledged the right of the Bourbon dynasty to the Spanish crown. At the same time, France ceded to Britain the North American areas of Hudson Bay, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. Spain ceded Gibraltar and the Mediterranean island of Minorca and granted to British merchants a limited right to trade with Spain's American colonies; included in that (until 1750) was the asiento—the right to import African slaves into Spanish America. Because Queen Anne had no surviving children, she was succeeded, according to the Act of Settlement (1701), by her nearest Protestant relative, the elector of Hannover, who came from Germany in 1714 and was accepted as King George I of Great Britain. A new era of British history began. Government in the 18th Century. Although the first years of George I's reign were
marked by two major crises—the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715
by followers of Queen Anne's half brother, James Stuart,
and the The Era of Robert Walpole. Although the king could appoint whomever he wished to his government, he found it convenient to select members of Parliament, who could exercise influence there. Such was the case of Robert Walpole, who was appointed first lord of the Treasury (and came to be known as prime minister) in 1721 in the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble. The Bubble was sparked by the financial collapse of the giant South Sea Co. The crash slowed down the commercial boom of the previous three decades, a time when the Bank of England had been founded, the concept of a long-term national debt formulated, and many large joint-stock companies established. In part because George I could not speak English and in part because both he and his son, King George II, were often in Hannover, Germany, which they continued to rule, Walpole was able to build up and dominate a government machine. He presided over an informal group of ministers that came to be known as the cabinet, and he controlled Parliament by his personality, his policies, and his use of patronage. His influence, however, had limits. Hoping to curb smuggling, Walpole in 1732–33 sought to replace a land tax and customs duties on imports with an excise tax on wine and tobacco collected from retailers, but parliamentary critics and popular rioters protested against the army of tax collectors that the bill would have created, and Walpole was ultimately forced to give up his plan. During his administration, Walpole kept Great Britain out of war, and even Anglo-French relations remained cordial. In the late 1730s, however, a war party emerged in Parliament. Its members sought revenge against Spain for the harassment by Spanish coast guards of British merchants who wished to trade with Spanish colonists in the Americas. In 1739, against Walpole's better judgment, Britain declared war on Spain, and two years later parliamentary pressure forced Walpole to resign. Two Decades of Conflict. Between 1739 and 1763, Great Britain was generally at war.
The war against Spain (see The War of the Austrian Succession ended with the Treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which, as far as Britain was concerned,
restored the territorial status quo. By then, a series of short-lived
ministries had given way to the relatively stable administration
(1748–54) of Henry Pelham (1696?–1754). During
the mid-1750s the British found themselves fighting an undeclared
war against France both in North America (see Population Growth, Urbanization, and Industrialization. During the first half of the 18th century, the population of Great Britain increased by less than 15 percent. Between 1751 and 1801, the year of the first official census, the number rose by two-thirds to 10.7 million. Between 1801 and 1851, the population doubled. The reasons include a decline of deaths from infectious diseases, especially smallpox; an improved diet made possible by more efficient farming practices and the large-scale use of the potato; and earlier marriages and larger families, especially in those areas where new industries were starting up. A quickening of economic change was noticeable by the 1780s, when James Watt perfected the steam engine as a new source of power. New inventions mechanized the spinning and weaving of imported cotton. Between 1760 and 1830 the production of cotton textiles increased twelvefold, making the product Britain's leading export. At the same time, other inventions comparably raised the production of iron, and the amount of coal mined increased fourfold. By 1830 this Industrial Revolution had turned Britain into the “workshop of the world.” The towns that spread across northwestern England, lowland Scotland, and southern Wales accustomed a generation of workers to factory life. The advantages were more regular hours, higher wages than those received by handicraft workers or farm laborers, and less dependence on human muscle power; many machines could be operated by women and children. The disadvantages included the devaluation of old artisan skills, a novel emphasis on discipline and punctuality, and a less personal relationship between employer and employee. For several decades also, such civic amenities as water and sewage systems did not keep pace with the growth of population. London remained Britain's largest city, a center of commerce, shipping, justice, and administration more than of industry. Its population, estimated at 600,000 in 1701, had grown to 950,000 by 1801, and to 2.5 million by 1851, making it the largest city in the world. By then, Britain had become the first large nation to have more urban than rural inhabitants. The Early Years of King George III. In 1760, the aged George II was succeeded by his 22-year-old grandson, George III. The new British-born king had a deep sense of moral duty and tried to play a direct role in governing his country; to this end he appointed men he trusted, such as his onetime Scottish tutor, Lord Bute (1713–92), who became prime minister in 1762. Bute's ministry was not a success, however, and four short-lived ministries followed until 1770, when George found, in Lord North, a leader pleasing both to him and to the majority of Parliament. During the 1760s, politicians out of office spurred a campaign
of criticism against George III's use of his patronage
powers. A sharply critical newspaper publisher, John Wilkes, was
convicted of seditious libel (1764), imprisoned, and barred from
the parliamentary seat to which he was repeatedly elected. An organization
of his followers, the Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights,
provided a model for subsequent radical reform movements. Their
program included freedom of the press, the abolition of “rotten
boroughs” (see The American Revolution. The fears expressed by Wilkes's supporters confirmed the more radical American colonial leaders in their suspicion of the British government. Long accustomed to a considerable degree of self-government and freed, after 1763, from the French danger, they resented the attempts by successive British ministries to make them pay a share of the cost of imperial defense in the form of assorted taxes and duties. They also resented British attempts to enforce mercantilistic regulations and to treat colonial legislatures as secondary to the government in London. American resistance led in due course to the calling of the First Continental Congress (1774) and the beginning of hostilities (1775). Although parliamentary critics such as Edmund Burke continued to urge conciliation, the king and Lord North felt the rebellious colonists had to be brought to their senses. British governmental authority in the 13 colonies collapsed in 1775. Although British forces were able to occupy first Boston and later New York City (1776) and Philadelphia (1777), the Americans did not give up. After the defeat of Gen. John Burgoyne at Saratoga (1777), the civil war within the British Empire became an international one. First the French (1778), then the Spanish (1779) and the Dutch (1780) joined the anti-British side, while other powers formed a League of Armed Neutrality. For the first time in more than a century, the British were diplomatically isolated. After Gen. Charles Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown (1781), opposition at home to the frustrations and high taxation brought on by the American war compelled Lord North to resign (1782) and his successors to sign a new Treaty of Paris (1783). The 13 colonies were recognized as independent states and were granted all British territory south of the Great Lakes. Florida and Minorca were ceded to Spain and some West Indian islands and African ports to France. Pitt, Reform, and Revolution. In the wake of the war, many old institutions were reexamined. The Economical Reform Act (1782) reduced the patronage powers of the king and his ministers. The Irish Parliament, controlled by Anglo-Irish Protestants, won a greater degree of independence. The India Act (1784) gave ultimate authority over British India to the government instead of the English East India Co. The India Act was sponsored by William Pitt the Younger, who was named prime minister late in 1783 at the age of 24. Pitt remained in office for most of the rest of his life (1783–1801 and 1804–06) and did much to shape the modern prime ministership. In the aftermath of the American war, he restored faith in the government's ability to pay interest on the much-increased national debt, and he set up the first consolidated annual budget. Pitt was also sympathetic to political reform, repeal of restrictions on non-Anglican Protestants, and abolition of the slave trade, but when these measures failed to win a parliamentary majority, he dropped them. Reformers, such as Charles James Fox and Thomas Paine, were inspired by the revolution that began in France in 1789, but others, such as Edmund Burke, became fearful of all radical change. Pitt was less concerned with French ideas than actions, and when the French revolutionary army invaded the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) and declared war on England in February 1793, a decade of moderate reform in Britain gave way to 22 years of all-out war. The Napoleonic Wars. In the 1790s, the wars of the French Revolution merged into the Napoleonic Wars, as Napoleon Bonaparte took over the French revolutionary government. Pitt's First Coalition (with Prussia, Austria, and Russia) against the French collapsed in 1796, and in 1797 Britain was beset by naval defeat, by naval mutiny, and by French invasion attempts. The war caused a boom in farm production and in certain industries. At the same time it caused rapid inflation: Wage rates lagged behind prices, and Poor Law expenses grew. In 1797 the Bank of England was forced to suspend the payment of gold for paper currency, and Parliament voted the first income tax. Rebellion and a French invasion threat led to the Act of Union with Ireland (1800). The Dublin legislature was abolished, and 100 Irish representatives became members of the Parliament in London; only an Irish viceroy and a London-appointed administration remained in Dublin. Despite the defeat of the French in the Battle of the Nile
(1798), the war did not go well for Britain. The Second Coalition
collapsed in 1801, and at Amiens (1802), Britain made peace with
Napoleon. War broke out again the following year, but between 1805
and 1807 the Third Coalition also collapsed. Napoleon's plans
to invade Britain were foiled by the British naval victory under
Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar (1805). Napoleon then sought to drive
Britain into bankruptcy with his A CENTURY OF PEACE At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, King George III, by then insane, had been succeeded by his eldest son, who reigned first as prince regent and then as King George IV. Although a patron of art and Regency architecture, the prince regent became unpopular because of his gluttony and his personal immorality. His attempt (1820) to divorce his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, provided much cause for scandal. Postwar Government (1815–30). Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2d earl of Liverpool (1770–1828) presided as Tory prime minister (1812–27) over a cabinet of luminaries such as Viscount Castlereagh, the foreign secretary, who represented Britain at the Congress of Vienna (1815). Former Dutch possessions such as the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) were added to the British Empire, and a balance of power was restored to continental Europe. Although eager to consult its European partners about possible territorial changes, Britain soon made it clear that it had no desire to join the Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria, and Prussia) as policeman of Europe. Rapid demobilization after the wars, economic depression, and bad harvests led to rioting in 1816. The Liverpool government sought to aid landlords with protective tariffs (the Corn Laws of 1815) and to aid other supporters by repealing the wartime income tax (1817) and restoring the gold standard (1819). The so-called Six Acts (1819) curbed the freedom of the press and the rights of assembly. A giant political protest demonstration near Manchester (1819) was broken up by the militia. The economy recovered during the early 1820s, and government policies became more moderate. George Canning, who replaced Castlereagh as foreign secretary (1822–27), welcomed the independence of Spain's South American colonies and aided the Greek rebellion against Turkish rule—a cause also hailed by romantic poets such as Lord Byron. William Huskisson (1770–1830) at the Board of Trade cut tariffs and eased international trade. Robert Peel, the home secretary, reformed the criminal law and instituted (1829) a modern police force in London. Barriers to labor union organization were also reduced (1824–25). Despite an early 19th-century religious revival, especially among Methodists and other non-Anglican Protestants, Tory ministries remained reluctant to challenge religious and political fundamentals. In 1828 Parliament agreed, however, to end political restrictions on Protestant dissenters, and one year later the government (1828–30) of Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wellington, was challenged in Ireland by a mass movement called the Catholic Association. Wellington bought peace in Ireland by granting Roman Catholics the right to become members of Parliament and to hold public office, but in so doing split the Tory party. In November 1830, after the election prompted by the death of George IV and the accession of his brother, William IV, a predominantly Whig ministry headed by the 2d Earl Grey took over. Reforms of the 1830s. The great political issue of 1831–32 was the Whig Reform Bill. After much debate in and out of the House of Commons and after a threat to swamp a reluctant House of Lords with new and sympathetic peers, the measure became law in June 1832. It provided for a redistribution of seats in favor of the growing industrial cities and a single property test that gave the vote to all middle-class men and some artisans. In England and Wales the electorate grew by 50 percent. In Ireland it more than doubled, and in Scotland it increased by 15 times. The bill set up a system of registration that encouraged political party organization, both locally and nationally. The measure weakened the influence of the monarch and the House of Lords. Other reforms followed. The Factory Act (1833) limited the working hours of women and children and provided for central inspectors, and the controversial New Poor Law (1834) also involved supervision by a central board. The Municipal Corporations Act (1835) provided for elected representative town councils. An Ecclesiastical Commission was set up in 1836 to reform the established church, and a separate statute (1836) placed the registration of births, deaths, and marriages in state rather than church hands. In 1837 the elderly William IV was succeeded as monarch by his 18-year-old niece, Victoria. She and her husband, Albert, came to symbolize many Victorian virtues: a close-knit family life, a sense of public duty, integrity, and respectability. Victorian beliefs and attitudes were also molded by the revival of evangelical religion and by utilitarian notions of efficiency and good business practice. Chartists and Corn Law Reformers. The Whig reform spirit ebbed during the ministry of Lord Melbourne (1835–41), and an economic depression in 1837 brought to public attention two powerful protest organizations. The Chartists urged the immediate adoption of the People's Charter, which would have transformed Britain into a political democracy (with universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, and secret ballot) and which was somehow expected to improve living standards as well. Millions of workers signed Charter petitions in 1839, 1842, and 1848, and some Chartist demonstrations turned into riots. Parliament repeatedly rejected the People's Charter, but it proved more receptive to the creed of the Manchester-based Anti-Corn Law League. League leaders such as Richard Cobden expected the repeal of tariffs on imported food to advance the welfare of manufacturers and workers alike, while promoting international trade and peace among nations. Sir Robert Peel's Conservative ministry (1841–46) became active in reducing Britain's tariffs but brought back the income tax to make up for lost revenue. In the winter of 1845–46, spurred by an Irish potato blight and consequent famine, Peel proposed the complete repeal of the Corn Laws. With Whig aid the measure passed, but two-thirds of Peel's fellow Conservatives condemned the action as a sellout of the party's agricultural supporters. The Conservatives divided between Peelites and protectionists, and the Whigs returned (1846) to power under Lord John Russell. During the Peel and Russell years the trend toward free trade
continued, aided by the repeal (1849) of the Mid-Victorian Prosperity. From the late 1840s until the late 1860s, Britons were less concerned with domestic conflict than with an economic boom occasionally affected by wars and threats of war on the Continent and overseas. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London symbolized Britain's industrial supremacy. The 10,600-km (6600-mi) railroad network of 1850 more than doubled during the mid-Victorian years, and the number of passengers carried each year went up by seven times. The telegraph provided instant communications. Inexpensive steel was made possible by Henry Bessemer's process (1856), and a boom in steamship building began in the 1860s. The value of British exports tripled, and overseas capital investments quadrupled. Working-class living standards improved also, and the growth of trade unionism among engineers, carpenters, and others led to the founding of the Trades Union Congress in 1868. In the aftermath of the Continental revolutions of 1848, a Britain governed by the Peelite-Liberal coalition (1852–55) of Lord Aberdeen drifted into war with an autocratic, expansionist Russia. In alliance with the France of Napoleon III, Britain entered the Crimean War in 1854. Parliamentary criticism of army mismanagement, however, caused the downfall of Aberdeen. He was replaced by Lord Palmerston, a staunch English nationalist and champion of European liberalism, who saw the war to its conclusion—a limited Anglo-French victory in 1856. In 1857–58, the Sepoy Mutiny was suppressed, and Britain abolished the East India Co., making British India a crown colony. In contrast, domestic self-government was encouraged in Britain's settlement colonies: Canada (federated under the British North America Act of 1867), Australia, New Zealand, and Cape Colony (South Africa). Britain maintained a difficult neutrality during the American Civil War (1861–65). It encouraged the unification of Italy, but witnessed with apprehension Prince Otto von Bismarck's creation of a German Empire under Prussian domination. The Gladstone-Disraeli Rivalry. During the 16 years after Palmerston's death in 1865, the rivalry of William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli dominated British politics. Both had begun as Tories, but in 1846 Gladstone had become a Peelite and had thereafter gradually moved toward liberalism. As Palmerston's chancellor of the Exchequer, he had won popular appeal by ending the paper tax (thereby making cheaper newspapers possible) and by advocating an expansion of the franchise. Disraeli had become the Conservative leader of the protectionists in the House of Commons in the late 1840s and had served in the brief minority ministries of Lord Derby (1799–1869) in the 1850s. After a political reform bill proposed by Lord Russell's second ministry (1865–66) and introduced by Gladstone went down to defeat, a Conservative cabinet headed by Lord Derby (1866–68) ultimately came up with the Reform Bill of 1867, which Disraeli successfully piloted through the House of Commons. The measure enfranchised most urban workers. It almost doubled the English and Welsh electorates and more than doubled the Scottish. It also launched the era of mass political organization and of increasingly polarized and disciplined parliamentary parties. Disraeli succeeded Derby as prime minister early in 1868, but a Liberal election victory in December of that year gave the post to Gladstone. Gladstone's first cabinet (1868–74) was responsible for numerous reforms: the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland; the creation of a national system of elementary education; the full admission of religious dissenters to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge; a merit-based civil service; the secret ballot; and judicial and army reform. During the Disraeli ministry that followed (1874–80), the Conservatives passed legislation advancing “Tory democracy”—trade union legalization, slum clearance, and public health—but Disraeli became more concerned with upholding the British Empire in Africa and Asia and scoring a diplomatic triumph at the Congress of Berlin (1878). A whistle-stop campaign by Gladstone in 1879–80 restored him to the prime ministership. His second cabinet (1880–85) curbed electoral corruption (1883) and, with the Reform Act of 1884, extended the vote to almost all males who owned or rented housing. The measure made the single-member parliamentary district the general rule. Gladstone became increasingly concerned with bringing peace and land reform to Ireland, which was represented in Parliament by Charles Stewart Parnell's militant Irish Nationalist party. When Gladstone became a convert to the cause of home rule—the creation of a semi-independent Irish legislature and cabinet—he divided the Liberal party and led his brief third ministry (1886) to defeat. A second effort to enact home rule during Gladstone's fourth ministry (1892–94) was blocked by the House of Lords. Late Victorian Economic and Social Change. The same agricultural depression that led to unrest among Irish tenant farmers in the second half of the 19th century also undermined British agriculture and the prosperity of country squires. The mid-Victorian boom gave way to an era of deflation, falling profit margins, and occasional large-scale unemployment. Both the U.S. and Germany overtook Britain in the production of steel and other manufactured goods. At the same time, Britain remained the world's prime shipbuilder, shipper, and banker, and a majority of British workers gained in purchasing power. The number of trade unionists grew, and significant attempts were made to organize the semiskilled; the London Dock Strike (1889) was the result of one such effort. Social investigators and professed socialists discovered large pockets of poverty in the slums of London and other cities, and the national government as well as voluntary agencies were called on to remedy social evils. Despite a high level of immigration to British colonies and the U.S.—more than 200,000 per year during the 1880s—the population of England and Wales doubled between 1851 and 1911 (to more than 36 million) and that of Scotland grew by more than 60 percent (to almost 5 million). Both death rates and birth rates declined somewhat, and a series of changes in the law made it possible for a minority of women to enter universities, vote in local elections, and keep control of their property while married. The Late Victorian Empire. A relative lack of interest in empire during the mid-Victorian
years gave way to increased concern during the 1880s and '90s.
The raising of tariff barriers by the U.S., Germany, and France
made colonies more valuable again, ushering in an era of rivalry
with Russia in the Middle East and along the Indian frontier and
a “scramble for Africa” that involved the carving
out of large claims by Britain, France, and Germany. Hong Kong and
Singapore served as centers of British trade and influence in China
and the South Pacific. The completion of the Suez Canal (1869) led
indirectly to a British protectorate over Egypt in 1882. Queen Victoria
became empress of India in 1876, and both Victoria's golden jubilee
(1887) and her diamond jubilee (1897) celebrated imperial unity.
The Conservative ministries of Lord Salisbury (1885, 1886–92,
and 1895–1902) were preoccupied with imperial concerns
as well. The policies of Salisbury's colonial secretary,
Joseph Chamberlain, contributed to the outbreak of the The Edwardian Age (1901–14). In the aftermath of the Boer War, Britain signed a treaty of alliance with Japan (1902) and ended several decades of overseas rivalry with France in the Entente Cordiale (1904). After Anglo-Russian disputes had also been settled, this link became the Triple Entente (1907), which faced the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy. As the reign of King Edward VII began, however, most Britons were more concerned with domestic matters. Arthur Balfour's Education Act (1902) helped meet a demand for national efficiency with the beginnings of a national system of secondary education, but the measure stirred old religious passions. In the course of Balfour's ministry (1902–5), the Conservative party was divided between tariff reformers, who wanted to restore protective duties, and free traders. The general election of 1906 gave the Liberals an overwhelming majority. Union influence led to the appearance of a small separate Labour party of 29 members as well. The Liberal government, headed first by Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–8) and then by Herbert Asquith (1908–16), gave domestic self-government to the new Union of South Africa (1910) and partial provincial self-government to British India (1909). Under the inspiration of David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, it also laid the foundations of the welfare state. Its program included old-age pensions (1908), government employment offices (1909), unemployment insurance (1911), a contributory program of national medical insurance for most workers (1911), and boards to fix minimum wages for miners and others (1909, 1912). Lloyd George's controversial “people's budget” (1909), designed to pay the costs of social welfare and naval rearmament, was blocked by the House of Lords and led in due course to the Parliament Act of 1911, which left the Lords with no more than a temporary veto. The Conservatives made a comeback, however, in the general elections of 1910, and the Liberals were thereafter dependent on the Irish Nationalists to stay in power. Although the economy seemed to be booming, wages scarcely kept up with rising prices, and the years 1911–14 were marked by major and divisive strikes by miners, dock workers, and transport workers. Suffragettes staged violent demonstrations in favor of the enfranchisement of women. When the Liberal government sought to enact home rule for Ireland, non-Catholic Irish from Ulster threatened force to prevent Britain from compelling them to become part of a semi-independent Ireland. In the midst of these domestic disputes, a crisis in the Balkans exploded into World War I. THE ERA OF WORLD WARS Although the competitive naval buildup of Britain and Germany is often cited as a cause of World War I, Anglo-German relations were actually cordial in early 1914, and Britain was Germany's best customer. It was Germany's threat to France and its invasion of neutral Belgium that prompted Britain to declare war. Britain in World War I. A British expeditionary force was immediately sent to France and helped stem the German advance at the Marne. Fighting on the Western Front soon became mired in a bloody stalemate amid muddy trenches, barbed wire, and machine-gun emplacements. Battles to push the Germans back failed repeatedly at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. Efforts to outflank the Central Powers (Germany, Austria, and Turkey) in the Balkans, as at Gallipoli (1915), failed also. At the Battle of Jutland (1916), the British prevented the German fleet from venturing into the North Sea and beyond, but German submarines threatened Britain with starvation early in 1917; merchant-ship convoys guarded by destroyers helped avert that danger. In May 1915 Asquith's Liberal ministry became a coalition of Liberals, Conservatives, and a few Labourites. Lloyd George became minister of munitions. Continued frustration with the nation's inability to win the war, however, led to the replacement of Asquith by Lloyd George, heading a predominantly Conservative coalition, in December 1916. By 1918 the annual budget was 13 times that of 1913; tax rates had risen five-fold, and the total national debt, fourteenfold. Although many Britons welcomed the end (1917) of czarist rule in Russia, they saw the Communist decision to make (1918) a separate peace with Germany as a sellout. Only the U.S. entry into the war made possible Gen. Douglas Haig's successful tank offensive in the summer of 1918 and the German surrender in November. The election called immediately thereafter gave the Lloyd George coalition an overwhelming mandate. The Labour party, now formally pledged to socialism, became the largest opposition party, while the Asquith wing of a divided Liberal party was almost wiped out. By then the Reform Act of 1918 had granted the vote to all men over the age of 21 and all women over 30. Changes Wrought by the War. Lloyd George represented Britain as one of the Big Three (together with France and the U.S.) at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The resulting treaties enlarged the British Empire as former German colonies in Africa and Turkish holdings in the Middle East became British mandates. At the same time Britain's self-governing dominions—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa—became separate treaty signatories and separate members of the new League of Nations. An intermittent civil war in Ireland ended with a treaty negotiated by Lloyd George in 1921. Most of the island became the Irish Free State, independent of British rule in all but name. The six counties of Northern Ireland continued to be represented in the British Parliament, although they also gained their own provincial parliament. The immediate postwar years were marked by economic boom, rapid demobilization, and much labor strife. By 1922, however, the boom had petered out. That year a rebellion by a group of Conservative members of Parliament ended the prime ministership of Lloyd George, and the wholly Conservative ministry of Andrew Bonar Law represented a return to “normal times.” The Interwar Era. During the early 1920s a major political shift took place in Britain. The general election of 1922 gave victory to the Conservatives, but another one, called a year later by Bonar Law's successor, Stanley Baldwin, left no party with a clear majority. As a consequence, Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour party leader, became the first professed socialist to serve as prime minister of Great Britain. His first ministry (1924), resting on Liberal acquiescence, lasted less than a year, when yet another election brought back Baldwin's Conservatives. Lloyd George's and Asquith's efforts at Liberal reunion failed to restore the party's fortunes, and it has remained a minor party in British politics. The Baldwin ministry (1924–29) restored the gold standard and enacted several social-reform measures, including the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act (1925), a national electric power network (1926), and a reform of local government (1929). In 1928 women were given voting rights that were equal to those of men. Between 1929 and 1932 the international depression more than doubled an already high rate of unemployment. In the course of three years, both the levels of industrial activity and of prices dipped by a quarter, and industries such as shipbuilding collapsed almost entirely. MacDonald's second Labour government (1929–31) found itself unable to cope with the depression, and in 1931 it gave way to a national government, headed first by MacDonald and then by Baldwin (1935–37) and made up mostly of Conservatives. The Labour party denounced MacDonald as a traitor, but the national government won an overwhelming mandate in the general election of 1931. It took Britain off the gold standard, restored protective tariffs, and subsidized the building of houses. Between 1933 and 1937, the economy recovered steadily, with the automobile, construction, and electrical industries leading the way. Unemployment remained high, however, especially in Wales, Scotland, and northern England. Interwar society was influenced by the radio (monopolized by the British Broadcasting Corp., 1927) and the cinema, but British life was little affected by the continental ideologies of communism and fascism. The empire remained a fact, even though the Statute of Westminster (1931) proclaimed the equality of Commonwealth nations such as Canada and Australia. Religious attendance declined, but King George V maintained the prestige of the monarchy. When his son, Edward VIII, insisted on marrying a twice-divorced American, abdication (1936) proved to be the only acceptable solution. Under Edward's brother, George VI, the monarchy again provided the model family of the land. Britain and World War II. Memories of World War I left Britons with an overwhelming
desire to avoid another war, and the country played a leading role
in the League of Nations and at interwar disarmament conferences
such as those in Washington (1921–22) and London (1930)
that limited naval size. Conscious that Germany might have been
unfairly treated at the 1919 peace conference, the British government
followed a policy of appeasement in dealing with Adolf Hitler's
Germany after 1933. Germany's decisions to leave the League
of Nations (1934), rearm (1935), and remilitarize the Rhineland (1936)
in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles were accepted. So was the
German annexation of Austria (1938). In his efforts to keep the
peace at all costs, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain also acquiesced
to the When Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain and
France declared war. The defeat of Poland and half a year of relative
quiet (“the phony war”) were followed in the spring
of 1940 by the German invasion of Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium,
and France. In May, Winston Churchill, a leading opponent of appeasement,
who had rejoined the cabinet in 1939, replaced Chamberlain as head
of a war cabinet (1940–45) that included all three parties.
After the surrender of France in June 1940, Britain stood alone. Under
Churchill's direction, war mobilization in Britain became
more comprehensive than that achieved by any other power. Although
a German invasion plan was foiled by British air supremacy, much
of London and other cities were destroyed and some 60,000 civilians
were killed. Beginning early in 1941, the still-neutral U.S. granted The nature of the war changed with the German invasion of the USSR (June 1941) and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 1941). Churchill then forged the “Grand Alliance” with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt against Germany, Italy, and Japan. In the immediate aftermath of the Japanese intervention, much of the British Empire in Southeast Asia was overrun, but late in 1942 the tide turned. The British contribution included the Battle of the North Atlantic against the German submarine menace and the campaign led by Gen. Bernard Montgomery against the German army in North Africa. Churchill corresponded continually and met often with Roosevelt, and British forces joined American in the invasion of Sicily and Italy (1943), the invasion of France (1944), and the ultimate defeat of the Axis powers in 1945. THE WINDS OF CHANGE The general election of 1945 gave the Labour party for the first time a majority of the popular vote and an overwhelming parliamentary majority. The result was less a rebuke of Churchill's wartime leadership than an expression of approval of Labour's role in the war and of hope that the party would bring more prosperity. Clement Attlee's Ministry (1945–51). During the years that followed, Labour, led by Clement Attlee, sought to build a socialist Britain, while surviving postwar austerity, dismantling the empire, and adjusting to a cold war with the Soviet Union. The two measures that established a welfare state in Britain, the National Insurance Act of 1946 (a consolidation of benefit laws involving maternity, unemployment, disability, old age, and death) and the National Health Service, set up in 1948, were widely popular. Both drew on the wartime reports of Sir William Beveridge, a Liberal. The nationalization of the Bank of England, the coal industry, gas and electricity, the railroads, and most airlines proved relatively noncontroversial, but the Conservatives vigorously if vainly opposed the nationalization of the trucking and the iron and steel industries. In 1948 Labour eliminated the last remnants of plural voting (that is, voting in more than one constituency) and reduced the delaying powers of the House of Lords from two years to one. These changes were instituted in the midst of a postwar era of austerity. The national debt had tripled, and for the first time since the 18th century Britain had become a debtor nation. With the end of U.S. lend-lease aid in 1945, the British import bill had risen abruptly long before military demobilization and reconversion to peacetime industry had been accomplished. Wartime regulations, therefore, had been kept; food rationing in 1946–47 was more restrictive than during the war. Postwar Germany was divided into occupation zones among the USSR, the U.S., Britain, and France, but efforts to reach agreement on a peace treaty with Germany broke down as it became clear that the Soviet Union was converting all of Eastern Europe into a Soviet sphere. Britain, assisted by the U.S.-sponsored Marshall Plan (1948–52), joined other Western powers and the U.S. in NATO in 1949 in order to counter the Soviet threat. The British government felt less able, however, to play an independent role in the Middle East, and in 1948 it gave up its Palestinian mandate, which led to the establishment of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli War. Aware of Britain's depleted coffers and sympathetic toward their nationalist causes, the Labour government granted independence to India and Pakistan in 1947 and to Burma and Ceylon in 1948. Conservative Rule (1951–64). Its program of social reform apparently accomplished, the Labour government's parliamentary majority was sharply reduced in the general election of 1950, and the election of 1951 enabled the Conservatives under Winston Churchill to slip back into power. Except for denationalizing iron and steel, the Conservatives made no attempt to reverse the legislation or the welfare-state program enacted by Labour, and the early 1950s brought steady economic recovery. As income tax rates were reduced and the framework of wartime and postwar regulation largely dismantled, housing construction boomed and international trade flourished. With a veteran world statesman heading Britain's government, the accession of the young queen drew the attention (and the still-novel television cameras) of the world to London for the coronation of Elizabeth II in June 1953. During these years Britain perfected its own atomic and hydrogen bombs and pioneered in the generation of electricity by nuclear power. Churchill's hopes for another diplomatic summit meeting were disappointed, but Stalin's death in 1953 led to an easing of the cold war. Eden and Macmillan. Churchill's successor, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden (1955–57), led his party to a second election victory in the spring of 1955. In the same year he helped negotiate an Austrian peace treaty and participated in a summit conference at Geneva. Eden's tenure as prime minister, however, was cut short by the crisis that followed Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956. British forces had been withdrawn from the canal only a year earlier, and an Anglo-French reoccupation in 1956 was halted by Soviet-U.S. pressure. The episode led both to the loss of much of Britain's remaining influence in the Middle East and to Eden's resignation. His successor, Harold Macmillan (1957–63), presided over a period of renewed consumer affluence. In 1959 he led his party to its third successive election victory—the fourth time in a row that the party gained parliamentary seats. Decolonization. In Africa, Macmillan's government followed a deliberate policy of decolonization. The Sudan had already become independent in 1956, and during the next seven years Ghana, Nigeria, Somalia, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Kenya followed suit. Most of these states remained members of a highly decentralized multiracial Commonwealth, but the Union of South Africa, dominated by a white minority of Boer descent, left the Commonwealth in 1961 and declared itself a republic. Independence was also given to Malaysia, Cyprus, and Jamaica during Macmillan's tenure. Even as imperial ties loosened, tens of thousands of immigrants—especially from the West Indies and Pakistan—poured into Britain. Their arrival caused intermittent social strife and led to efforts to limit further immigration sharply, while ensuring legal equality for the immigrants and their descendants. As Britons turned their attention away from overseas empire,
they became increasingly aware that their economy, although prospering,
was growing less rapidly than those of their Continental neighbors.
In 1961 Macmillan applied for British membership in the European
Community (EC), or Common Market. Many Britons felt unprepared to
cast their lot with continental Europe, but for the moment their
feelings proved immaterial, because the application was vetoed by
President The Permissive Society. During the 1960s, Britain experienced a widespread mood of rebellion against the conventions of the past—in dress, in music, in popular entertainment, and in social behavior. The phenomenon had its positive consequences in helping to make “swinging” London a world capital of popular music, theater, and, for a time, fashion. Among the negative side effects, however, were a rising crime rate and a spreading drug culture. Harold Wilson's Labour government (1964–70) sympathized with some of these trends. It sought both to expand higher education opportunities and to end a high school system that separated the academically inclined from other students. During the later 1960s, laws on divorce were eased, abortion was legalized, curbs on homosexual practices were ended, capital punishment was abolished, equal pay for equal work was prescribed for women, and the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. In economic life the Labour government became more rigorous.
A persistent trend toward inflation, unfavorable balance of trade,
and unbalanced government budgets led to a wage-and-price freeze
in 1966 and attempts to secure “severe restraint.” These
actions eased certain economic problems but alienated many of Labour's
union supporters, and in 1970 the Conservatives returned to power
under Battle Against Inflation. A major theme of British history since the mid-1960s has been
the battle to eliminate double-digit inflation. Heath's
policy of deliberate economic expansion did not accomplish that
goal, however, and the attempt to curb the legal powers of labor
unions (1971) evoked a mood of civil disobedience among union leaders.
More working days were lost because of strikes in 1972 than in any
year since the general strike of 1926. Heath hoped to solve economic
problems by “floating the pound,” that is, by
freeing Britain's currency from earlier fixed rates of
exchange with other currencies, and by again seeking British admission
to the EC. Britain did join in 1973, and two years later the first
national referendum in British history approved the step by a 2–1
margin. An attempt by Heath in 1972–73 first to freeze
and then sharply to restrain wage and price increases was defied
by the miners. When Heath appealed to the public in the general
election of February 1974, the results were indecisive. A revival
in the popular vote of the Liberal party, however, enabled Harold
Wilson to form a minority Labour government that under his leadership
and that of Irish and Scottish Problems. During the 1970s, successive British governments also faced
difficulties in Ireland and Scotland. A civil rights movement supporting
social equality for the Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland
clashed violently with Protestant extremists. In 1969 the British government
sent troops to keep order, and in 1972 it abolished Northern Ireland's
autonomous parliament. A campaign of Economic Woes Under Labour. The Labour government of 1974–79 began by ending all legal restrictions on wage and price rises, but after the annual inflation rate topped 25 percent in 1975, the government did succeed in obtaining some trade union restraints on wage claims in return for an end to legal restraints on union power and more government subsidies for housing and other social services. By the late 1970s, British politics seemed to be polarizing between left-wing Labourites, who sought an ever larger role for the state in order to impose social equality, and Conservatives, who hoped to restore a greater role to private enterprise and individual achievement. By the beginning of 1979, Callaghan's government was dependent on two minor parties. A winter of labor unrest undercut his claims to be able to deal successfully with the unions, and a vote of “no confidence” in March 1979 went against him. The Thatcher Decade. In the elections of April 1979, the Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher emerged with a substantial majority of parliamentary seats and with the first woman prime minister in British or European history. She was to remain in office for the next 111/2 years, making hers the longest continuous prime ministership since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Thatcher's first years were difficult. She sought to halt inflation by a policy of high interest rates and government budget cuts, rather than of wage and price freezes. By 1981–82 those policies were showing some success, but only at the cost of the highest unemployment rates since the 1930s. The government was jolted in April 1982 when Argentina forcibly occupied the Falkland Islands, a British-held archipelago in the South Atlantic that Argentina had long claimed. When U.S. mediation efforts failed, Thatcher sent a British counterinvasion fleet, and in June that force succeeded in recapturing the islands. The decisive Conservative victories in the elections of June 1983 and June 1987 were the consequence not only of widespread popular support for the government's Falklands policy, but also of a sharp division in the ranks of the political opposition. In 1980 a group of Labour party members headed by Roy Jenkins (1920– ) and David Owen (1938– ) broke away and in 1981 formed the Social Democratic Party. The new party joined with the Liberals and at first won relatively few parliamentary seats but did garner 25 percent of the total popular vote in 1983 and 23 percent in 1987 (compared to 28 and 31 percent for Labour and 42 percent in both elections for the Conservatives). The years between 1982 and 1988 were economic boom years in Britain. The living standard rose and the rate of unemployment ebbed. Industries became more efficient, and London maintained its role as one of the world's top three centers of finance. The economic role of government declined as Thatcher promoted privatization of such government monopolies as British Airways, the telephone service, and the distribution of gas and water. Public housing tenants were encouraged to buy the houses they rented. In the meantime, the legal and economic power of labor unions declined. From Major to Blair. Although Thatcher had not abolished the welfare state, in the eyes of her critics “the Iron Lady” had shortchanged social services like education and the National Health Service. Her resignation in November 1990 was the result of an intra-Conservative party revolt. Thatcher's downfall, however, was primarily attributed to a revival of double-digit inflation, the enactment of an unpopular “poll tax,” and the alienation of some members of her cabinet over her reluctance to move toward a closer cooperation with her Western European colleagues. Thatcher was succeeded as party leader and prime minister
by John Major, who continued her policy of keeping close ties with
the U.S. British troops fought as part of a multinational coalition
in the Blair landslide. While Blair continued to reshape and revitalize Labour, Major was unable to forge a Conservative consensus over policy toward the EU, to which Britain had acceded in 1993. The deep divisions in his own party, coupled with a series of embarrassing scandals involving Tory members of Parliament, contributed to a rising tide of pro-Labour sentiment. The balloting in May 1997 produced a disaster for the Conservatives and a landslide for Labour. Blair became prime minister, and William Hague (1961– ) succeeded Major as leader of the Opposition. In two September referendums, Scottish voters approved the establishment of a parliament with significant authority over domestic matters, and Welsh voters established a regional assembly with much weaker powers. During his first three years in office, Blair also pushed ahead on programs to reorganize local government in London; reform the welfare system, national defense, and the House of Lords; and overhaul the National Health Service. Problems of the monarchy. The 1990s brought a decline in the prestige of the monarchy.
The aloofness of Queen Northern Ireland peace talks. The announcement by the IRA of an unconditional cease-fire at the end of August 1994 marked progress toward settlement of the conflict in Northern Ireland. After peace talks stalled, however, the IRA resumed its terror campaign in February 1996. Following elections that brought changes of government in both Britain and Ireland, the IRA declared another cease-fire in July 1997, paving the way for a resumption of multiparty peace talks in September. Agreement on a peace plan was reached in Belfast on Good Friday, April 10, 1998, and approved by voters in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic on May 22; a new legislative assembly for Northern Ireland was elected in June. A power-sharing cabinet began exercising home rule authority in early December 1999. Subsequently, the British government suspended home rule on several occasions, intervening to prevent the collapse of the Good Friday accord. Foreign affairs. In October 1998 the British government permitted the arrest and
detention of former Chilean dictator British foreign policy in the late 1990s remained closely
tied to that of the U.S., and Blair was a strong political ally
of U.S. President Election of 2001. A key issue for Britain as the decade ended was the extent to
which the nation should embrace the aim of European political and
economic integration. One particularly contentious question was
whether Britain would allow the Support for the U.S. Some 200 British citizens were missing and presumed dead as
a result of the collapse of the Putting aside divisions within his own party and cabinet, Blair committed British troops to the successful U.S-led invasion of Iraq and to the occupation that followed. From mid-March 2003, when hostilities began, through March 2005, more than 85 British soldiers lost their lives. The failure of U.S. investigators to find evidence that Iraq actually possessed weapons of mass destruction proved an embarrassment to Blair, whose standing in the polls continued to drop. Blair's decline did not translate into a Tory victory, in part because with Labour's guidance the British economy continued to show steady growth. In November 2003 the Conservatives ousted Iain Duncan Smith (1954– ) as party leader and replaced him with Michael Howard (1941– ), who under Smith had been the Tory spokesman on financial policy. 2005 Elections and the London terror attacks. Directed by Howard, the Conservatives improved their showing in the general election of May 2005, but the Tory comeback and a surge by the Liberal Democrats were not enough to prevent Labour from holding onto a parliamentary majority. The election made Blair the first Labour leader ever to win three consecutive terms as prime minister. On July 7, 2005, four bomb blasts hit the London transit system
during the morning rush hour—three on subway trains, one
on a double-decker bus. Fifty-six people died, including the four
suspected suicide bombers, and hundreds were injured. Exactly two
weeks later, on July 21, four more bombs were discovered on the
transit system—again three on subway trains and one on
a double-decker bus. This time only the detonators exploded, while
the explosives themselves did not fully detonate, and there was
no loss of life. By the end of the month, the four men suspected
of planting the July 21 bombs and more than 20 people under suspicion
of being connected with the second attack had been arrested, most
of them in Britain. A group saying it was associated with In December 2005, David Cameron (1966– )
succeeded Howard as Tory leader. For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography,
sections
An article from Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2006 World Almanac Education Group. A WRC Media Company. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by
written agreement, uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws are prohibited.
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