A global power

Constitutional monarchy and party politics

After 1689 the monarch needed ministers who could command majorities in both Houses of Parliament. Two groups emerged, the Whigs and the Tories — the start of party politics (Conservatives are still called Tories). From 1695 newspapers no longer needed a government licence. The laws after the Glorious Revolution are the beginning of constitutional monarchy: the monarch still mattered but could not insist on policies Parliament rejected.

It was not yet democracy. Only men owning property of a certain value could vote and no women could. Some seats were 'pocket boroughs' controlled by one rich family; others were 'rotten boroughs' with hardly any voters.

A growing population

Many people left for colonies in America, but others arrived. Jews settled in London in 1656 — the first since the Middle Ages — and between 1680 and 1720 Protestant refugees called Huguenots fled persecution in France. Many were educated and skilled, working in science, banking and weaving.

Union with Scotland and the first Prime Minister

Queen Anne had no surviving children, so to settle the succession the Act of Union (the Treaty of Union in Scotland) created the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. Scotland kept its own legal and education systems and Presbyterian Church. When Anne died in 1714, Parliament chose George I, a German and her nearest Protestant relative. He spoke little English and relied on his ministers; the leading minister became known as Prime Minister, the first being Sir Robert Walpole (1721–42).

The Jacobite rebellion and the Highland Clearances

In 1745 Charles Edward Stuart — Bonnie Prince Charlie, grandson of James II — landed in Scotland, raised an army of Highland clansmen and tried to take the throne from George II. He was defeated at Culloden in 1746 and escaped to Europe. The clans lost much of their power: chieftains became landlords and clansmen became tenants. In the 'Highland Clearances' landlords destroyed small farms (crofts) to make way for sheep and cattle; evictions were common in the early 19th century and many Scots left for North America.

The Enlightenment

The 18th-century Enlightenment brought new ideas in politics, philosophy and science, many from Scottish thinkers: Adam Smith on economics, David Hume on human nature, and James Watt's work on steam power. A core idea — that people may hold their own political and religious beliefs without the state dictating them — is still central in the UK.

The Industrial Revolution

Before the 18th century most people worked in farming or cottage industries. In the 18th and 19th centuries machinery and steam power transformed Britain, the first country to industrialise on a large scale. People moved to mines and factories. The Bessemer process for mass-producing steel boosted shipbuilding and railways. Richard Arkwright, once a barber, improved the carding machine, built efficient spinning mills and later used steam engines. Canals were built to link factories with towns and ports, especially in the Midlands and the north of England. Working conditions were harsh, with no legal protection, and children worked like adults.

Colonies grew too: Captain James Cook mapped Australia's coast, Britain gained Canada, and the East India Company took control of much of India. Britain imported sugar and tobacco from North America and the West Indies, and textiles, tea and spices from India and Indonesia — bringing conflict with France. Sake Dean Mahomet, from Bengal, opened Britain's first curry house in London in 1810.

The slave trade and its abolition

Slavery was illegal inside Britain, but by the 18th century the overseas slave trade was a major industry dominated by Britain and the American colonies. Enslaved people, mainly from West Africa, were shipped in terrible conditions to work on plantations in America and the Caribbean. The Quakers formed the first anti-slavery groups in the late 1700s, and William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian MP, helped turn opinion. In 1807 slave trading on British ships or from British ports was banned, and in 1833 the Emancipation Act abolished slavery across the Empire. The Royal Navy then stopped other countries' slave ships. Afterwards about 2 million Indian and Chinese workers were brought in to replace freed slaves.

America and France

Wealthy, self-governing American colonies objected to British taxes — 'no taxation without representation'. In 1776, 13 colonies declared independence; Britain recognised it in 1783. After the French Revolution of 1789, Britain fought France and later Napoleon. Admiral Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 but was killed; Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square honours him and his ship HMS Victory is in Portsmouth. In 1815 the Duke of Wellington, the 'Iron Duke' and a future Prime Minister, defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

The Union Flag

Ireland had shared a monarch with England since Henry VIII but stayed a separate country until 1801, when the Act of Union of 1800 created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Union Flag (Union Jack) combines three crosses. Wales has its own dragon flag, which is not on the Union Flag because Wales was already united with England when the first Union Flag was made in 1606.

• St George (England): a red cross on a white background
• St Andrew (Scotland): a diagonal white cross on a blue background
• St Patrick (Ireland): a diagonal red cross on a white background

The Victorian age and the Empire

Victoria became queen in 1837 aged 18 and reigned until 1901 — almost 64 years. The Empire grew to include India, Australia and much of Africa: the largest empire ever, with over 400 million people. Between 1853 and 1913 up to 13 million Britons emigrated, while about 120,000 Russian and Polish Jews arrived between 1870 and 1914, settling in London's East End, Manchester and Leeds.

Britain promoted free trade: the Corn Laws, which blocked cheap grain imports, were repealed in 1846. In 1847 women's and children's working day was limited to 10 hours. George and Robert Stephenson pioneered the railway engine, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the Great Western Railway as well as bridges, tunnels and ships. Britain made over half the world's iron, coal and cotton cloth, and showed off its products at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park.

The Crimean War and Florence Nightingale

From 1853 to 1856 Britain, Turkey and France fought Russia in the Crimean War — the first war widely reported with news stories and photographs. Queen Victoria created the Victoria Cross for bravery. Florence Nightingale, born in Italy to English parents, nursed soldiers in Turkey and cut death rates; in 1860 she founded the Nightingale Training School at St Thomas' Hospital, London, and is regarded as the founder of modern nursing.

Ireland in the 19th century

Most Irish people farmed small plots and relied on potatoes. When the potato crop failed in the mid-century famine, a million died and a million and a half emigrated; by 1861 Liverpool, London, Manchester and Glasgow had large Irish communities. Irish nationalism grew: the Fenians wanted full independence, while Charles Stuart Parnell argued for Home Rule — Ireland in the UK but with its own parliament.

The right to vote

The Reform Act of 1832 greatly increased the number of voters, abolished pocket and rotten boroughs and gave seats to the growing towns. Voting still depended on property, so the working class remained excluded. The Chartists petitioned for wider voting rights, and the 1867 Reform Act lowered the property requirement — yet most men and all women still could not vote. Parties began organising to win ordinary voters; universal suffrage came in the next century.

Until 1870 a married woman's earnings and property belonged to her husband; Acts in 1870 and 1882 changed that. Women campaigning for the vote became known as suffragettes. Emmeline Pankhurst, born in Manchester in 1858, helped found the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903; its members used civil disobedience, including hunger strikes. In 1918 women over 30 gained the vote and the right to stand for Parliament, and in 1928 — the year Emmeline died — women could vote at 21, like men.

The future of the Empire

The Empire kept growing until the 1920s, but some argued it was over-stretched. The Boer War (1899–1902) against Dutch-descended settlers in South Africa made the debate urgent. Over time colonies gained more freedom, and in the second half of the 20th century there was a largely orderly transition from Empire to Commonwealth. Rudyard Kipling, born in India, celebrated the Empire in his writing and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907.

Exam tip: two Acts of Union — 1707 joins Scotland (Kingdom of Great Britain); 1800 Act, in force 1801, joins Ireland (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland). Slavery: 1807 = trade banned; 1833 = slavery abolished. Women's vote: 1918 = over 30; 1928 = 21.