The British Empire
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Gep
Posts: 60
Joined: Aug 2007
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28-10-2011 09:19 AM
It has come to a pretty pass when we are asking the council to give us guidance on crossing the road. The British empire wasn't built by this attitude.
That's maybe why it no longer exists
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Cellar Door
Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
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28-10-2011 12:58 PM
That's maybe why it no longer exists
Right. Now. What’s going on here? Young Gep - thank you very much for the lead into one of my passions…
The Old British Empire!
Which was beautifully morphed into the Commonwealth of Nations.
Interesting that this pops up today. Of all days. CHOGM is meeting today in my old home state of Western Australia.
Look at how The Commonwealth is shaping this country. Right now, as I type, this is breaking news on the BBC about UK Royal succession laws changing.
I’m very passionate about The Commonwealth. Can you tell?
I was involved for many years with the Australian Government Foreign Aid programme in Tertiary Education with many Commonwealth Nations.
The Old British Empire still has 2.1 billion people represented by The Commonwealth. What a terrific legacy, amongst many.
Did you know that when Her Majesty The Queen dies, or if she abdicates, then the next one in the queue doesn’t get to be the next Head of the Commonwealth? It has to go to the vote of CHOGM.
The Queen has done such a good job that they’ve kept her busy in the role for nearly 60 years. Phew! That’s a long time to be doing the same job.
I believe that one of The Queen’s defining attributes is her dedicated work to shine light on The Commonwealth.
I feel all puffed up and proud to be a Commonwealth Citizen right now. I'm standing tall, my chin quivering slightly, misty eyed as I salute towards the sun that is shining brightly on the Old British Empire. Makes you feel proud to be British, Young Gep!
(Hi Admin, please cut here…at this post...and paste into somewhere more appropriate. The end of the internet might be a good place for poppycock like this.)
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brian
Posts: 2,002
Joined: Apr 2005
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28-10-2011 03:48 PM
Not sure what the relevance of TBE is to crossing the road.
The Empire infact included a number of countries which are not in The Commonwealth so it had an even larger footprint
Israel ( Palestine ) , Egypt , Sudan , Yemen ( south anyway ) Jordan , Iraq , Kuwait, Eire, United States, Burma ( Myanmar ) , Nepal , Bhutan . Hong Kong.
Apologies for those left out.
Of course bad things happened in The Empire but also many good things as well , although not sure about crossing the road.
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Cellar Door
Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
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28-10-2011 04:44 PM
Not sure what the relevance of TBE is to crossing the road.
Greetings Brian,
This is a thread that Admin has kindly produced because I went off on a tangent from this thread –
Pedestrian crossing by Forest Hill Station (Perry Vale side).
Admin helpfully picked up Deano’s Post #22 from the thread above and co-joined it onto Gep’s great response and then my tangent took off and landed here. And caught Gep's response in the process. (Sorry Gep to hijack your pithy response to Deano from the other thread.)
I hope I have made sense on how this all came about?
Oh, Bhutan that you mentioned above...now that’s a country that keeps itself to itself. All I know about it is that it is very hard to get a visa to go there. You rarely hear about Bhutan.
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Deano
Posts: 179
Joined: Oct 2011
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28-10-2011 06:06 PM
Sorry Brian. I was just making a point that our proud nation once spanned a third of the globe and Britain was a byword for leadership, confidence and civilisation. Now we have threads on the extent to which the local authority Should/should not assist us in seeking to cross a road. We seem to have lost our ability to do anything for ourselves. Most disappointing.
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brian
Posts: 2,002
Joined: Apr 2005
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31-10-2011 01:52 PM
Thanks Deano and Cellar Door.
Yes children seem to know so little about it and anything they do know would be negative.
Shame on out history teachers.
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roz
Posts: 1,796
Joined: Mar 2005
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31-10-2011 11:10 PM
Shame indeed Brian and Deano for instilling such inaccuracies into you at a tender age. The British Empire was founded to enhance commercial interests supported by the mighty weight of an efficient and competent and well equipped military force. It beat and bullied its way around most of the world to achieve it goald. Its often hard to be critical of this now as it just joins other similar episodes in the depths of history ie the Romans, the Vikings, the Conquistadors and most of us continue to reap the financial benefits of same, but critical we must be. like the Crusades, it wasn't a gloriou episode for this country but a shameful one. Hopefully history teachers these day teach critical thought and analysis albeit under threat by the new primary curriculum.
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Cellar Door
Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
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01-11-2011 11:31 AM
The British Empire was founded to enhance commercial interests…
Hi Roz,
Are you talking about Queen Elizabeth I sending poor old Humphrey Gilbert out to set up shop in the Americas in the late 16th Century?
Because I didn’t go to Primary or Secondary School in the UK, I missed out on all of this part of human history. I’m doing my best to catch up.
One other thing, when you went to school did they differentiate between the two British Empires? Most people only talk about there being one. Which generally is our first hint about the depth of their study.
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brian
Posts: 2,002
Joined: Apr 2005
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01-11-2011 11:36 AM
Roz
With regret history teachers probably do teach your version, if any version at all.
History as taught today is very strange.
Speaking to young relations they usually learn about The Tudors , then right through to WW1.
What do they think happened between these events, or indeed before. Although they are interesting why are we so besotted with The Tudors as opposed to other era's
Of course The British Empire not 100% perfect but compared with the Belgium , Russian German , Portugeese and Spanish it stands up well.
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robin orton
Posts: 716
Joined: Feb 2009
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01-11-2011 05:40 PM
One other thing, when you went to school did they differentiate between the two British Empires?
Not explicitly, in my case. My impression is - I stand open to correction - that it is only comparatively recently that the concept of there having been two separate empires has filtered down from academic historians (I don't know when they first started talking about it) into the consciousness of the wider public. Complicated of course by the fact that some bits of the first empire (Ireland, Canada, Jamaica, Gibraltar etc. - and where does India come in?) survived into the second.
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Sherwood
Posts: 1,414
Joined: Mar 2005
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02-11-2011 09:56 AM
It is curious how education changes. When I went to school we had five continents. Now we have seven!
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brian
Posts: 2,002
Joined: Apr 2005
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02-11-2011 11:50 AM
The Two Empires referred to are usually up to 1780's and afterwards. The 13 colonies lost being the end of the first empire.
There was an ealier English Empire which owned various parts of France from
William I to Mary I.
It is very important to emphasise British , rather than English , for the Empire past 1700 odd , because pro rata the Scots were by far the biggest contributor to the Empire ( both in explorers , adminstrators , Military and settlers )
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Cellar Door
Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
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02-11-2011 05:55 PM
...pro rata the Scots were by far the biggest contributor to the Empire ( both in explorers , adminstrators , Military and settlers )
Cheers Brian for that reminder about Scotland's contribution.
Scotland is one of those small countries, in population size, that always seems to punch well above its weight in the world.
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andrewr
Posts: 296
Joined: May 2006
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02-11-2011 07:34 PM
Are you sure that Scotland isn't just a place that everyone wants to get out of?
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brian
Posts: 2,002
Joined: Apr 2005
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03-11-2011 11:53 AM
What would Mr Tuna say to that.
It is a paradise for those on benefits.
I do support their plan for min price for alcohol. UK Government should be ashamed they do not follow.................
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