1) Great Britain and Ireland in 1901

- 22 January 1901 death of Queen Victoria (born 1819, queen since 1837) succeeded
by her son, Edward VII (1901-1910)
Population in the 1901 Census (over three times bigger than in 1801):
England and Wales: 32.5 million (8.9 million in 1801; 56.1 million in 2011)
Scotland: 4.5 million (1,6 million in 1801; 5.3 million in 2011)
Ireland: 4.5 million (6.8 million in 1821; 6.4 million in 2011: 4.6 m. in the Republic
of Ireland + 1.8 m. in Northern Ireland)
- The first industrial country (but now falling behind Germany in technology)
- The dominant country in world trade:
- importing food and raw materials
- exporting textiles (cotton), iron and steel goods, coal
- Free trade, free movement (no customs, no passports)
- the Pound Sterling - a powerful currency, based on the gold standard, used for
international transactions (fixed exchange rate: 1 = $4.86) the City of London
was the greatest financial centre in the world
- centre of a world-wide empire about 1 in 4 of the worlds population were subjects of
Queen Victoria (who also had the title Empress of India) included new selfgoverning countries (Dominions): first Canada (1867), then the Commonwealth of
Australia (1901)
- greatest naval power in the world, but with a small land army compared with other
European countries (about 250,000 in the regular army in 1914) no compulsory
military service
Political system
- constitutional monarchy (but no written constitution)
- Parliament two chambers:
- House of Lords (nobility, judges, bishops)
- House of Commons (elected Members of Parliament MPs)
- Prime Minister the Marquess of Salisbury (the last time a lord was Prime Minister
since 1902 the Prime Minister has always been an MP)
- male householders could vote for members of the House of Commons (6.7 million men
could vote, but no women)
- political parties
Government (1895-1905): Conservative + Liberal Unionist
Opposition: Liberal, Labour Representation Committee, Irish Nationalist

Education:
- elementary education free and compulsory for all aged 513 since the 1870s;
- grammar schools urban secondary schools available to a minority tended to imitate
public schools;
- public schools elite fee-paying secondary boarding schools aimed at training the
upper classes to be Christian gentlemen curriculum focused on classics and team
sports (football, rugby, cricket) loyalty, fairness (playing the game),
responsibility for others, patriotism, physical courage, stiff upper lip military
training as cadets in Officers Training Corps from 1908.
2) 1901- 1914
- the Boer War (1899-1902) British forces finally defeated the Boers (with great
difficulty), but the conduct of the war (including concentration of Boer women and
children in camps) was controversial at home. The Boer republics came under British
imperial rule, but the Boers were able to dominate the Union of South Africa that was
established as a self-governing dominion in 1910.
- arms race with Germany maintaining British naval supremacy by building more upto-date battleships (Dreadnoughts), and more of them popular slogan: We want eight
and we wont wait!
- Entente Cordiale with France (1904) and Anglo-Russian Convention (1907) stabilized
relations with Britains main imperial rivals, and created the Triple Entente of Britain,
France, and Russia but no similar agreement with Germany
- Liberal government (1906-15) old-age pensions introduced, other social welfare
provision planned increased taxes on the rich to raise money for social reform and
military and naval expenditure constitutional crisis when House of Lords voted against
the budget restrictions on the power of the House of Lords A leading promoter of
reform was the Chancellor of the Exchequer (= Finance Minister), David Lloyd George
- Campaign for womens right to vote including violent protest by Suffragettes (the
Womens Social and Political Union) in 1913-14 (attacks on property, hunger strikes in
prison) violent reaction by men opposed to womens rights
- Home Rule (= autonomy) for Ireland
- Legislation to set up a Home-Rule parliament for Ireland was finally passed in 1914. In
the meantime, Protestants in the north (where they were locally in the majority) had
organized an illegal armed force to oppose Home Rule (the Ulster Volunteer Force)
Conservatives in Britain were sympathetic towards them and many British army officers
declared they would resign rather than take action against them nationalists (mainly
Catholic) in the south formed the Irish Volunteers in response danger of civil war

J. Brown - British Civilization 2015-2016