Lord Beaverbrook’s Young Crusaders
Inspired by the fashion for Boy Scout groups, Lord Beaverbrook started his own patriotic youth movement in support of the Empire Free Trade Crusade.
Empire
Darien: Scotland’s Ill-Fated Central American Colony
Scotland’s short-lived, catastrophic Central American colony exposed its precarious relationship with England. Was closer union an inevitable result?
Fall of Africa’s Greatest Empire
The Battle of Tondibi, which resulted in the defeat of the Songhay army, took place on 13 March 1591.
The East India Company Before Empire
In its earliest days, the East India Company was seen not as a threat to Asia’s elites, but as a means of strengthening their powers.
Making a Massacre on Ambon Island
A Dutch conspiracy trial at Amboyna in the Indonesian archipelago gave birth to a sadly enduring English word: massacre.
Captain Cook’s Contested Claim to Australia
Terra nullius has long been at the heart of why the British did not treat with Aboriginal people following James Cook’s arrival in Australia. But should it be?
Shampoo Empire
Shampooing was brought to Britain by a Bengali immigrant who knew his craft – and how to sell it.
Britain’s Forgotten Caribbean Citizens
What did it mean to be black and British in the Caribbean in the years before Windrush?
A Portrait of Empire
Three lives from Britain’s 18th-century global empire speak of collaboration, resistance and ambivalence.
Empire and Celebrity
In the 18th century, celebrity culture helped make the British Empire seem both a part of everyday life and a place of fantasy.