Territorial evolution of the British Empire

Colonies were territories that were intended to be places of permanent settlement, providing land for their settlers. The Crown claimed absolute sovereignty over them, although they were not formally part of the United Kingdom itself. Generally, their law was the common law of England together with whatever British Acts of Parliament were also applied to them. Over time, a number of colonies were granted "responsible government", making them largely self-governing.

A Crown colony: a type of colonial administration of the English and later the British Empire, whose legislature and administration was controlled by the Crown.[3][4]

Lord Ranfurly reads the Cook Islands annexation proclamation to Queen Makea on 7 October 1900.

Crown colonies were ruled by a governor appointed by the monarch. By the middle of the 19th century, the sovereign appointed royal governors on the advice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. This became the main method of creating and governing colonies.[5] Most Crown colonies, especially the white settler colonies had a bicameral legislature, consisting of an upper house usually called the Legislative council, which members were appointed and served a similar purpose as the British House of Lords. There also existed lower houses which were usually named the Legislative Assembly or House of Assembly. The lower house was usually elected, but suffrage was restricted to free white men only, usually with property ownership restrictions. Since land ownership was widespread, most white men could vote.[6] The governor also often had an Executive Council which had a similar function to the Cabinet in England but was not responsible to the colonial lower house. They held a consultative position, however, and did not serve in administrative offices as cabinet ministers do. Members of the Executive Council were not necessarily members of the lower house but were usually members of the upper house.[7] Later as the white colonies gained more internal responsible government, the lower house began to supersede the (usually unelected) upper house as the colonial legislature, and the position of Premier emerged.[8]

The British Empire in 1897, marked in traditional pink.

Charter colony is one of the three classes of colonial government established in the 17th-century English colonies in North America. In a charter colony, the King granted a royal charter to the colonial government establishing the rules under which the colony was to be governed and charter colonies elected their own governors based on rules spelled out in the charter or other colonial legislation.[9]

A number of colonies in the 16th and 17th centuries were granted to a particular individual; these were known as proprietary colonies. Proprietary colonies in America were governed by a Lord Proprietor, who, holding authority by virtue of a royal charter, usually exercised that authority almost as an independent sovereign. Eventually these were converted to Crown colonies.[10][11]

A chartered company is an association formed by investors or shareholders for the purpose of trade, exploration and colonization. Chartered companies were usually formed, incorporated and legitimized under a royal charter. This document set out the terms under which the company could trade, defined its boundaries of influence, and described its rights and responsibilities. Groups of investors formed companies to underwrite and profit from the exploration of Africa, India, Asia, the Caribbean and North America, under the patronage of the state. Some companies like the East India Company (the most famous), the Hudson's Bay Company, and the Royal African Company ruled large colonial possessions (especially in India), but the Hudson's Bay Company took control of the Hudson Bay drainage basin in Canada as Rupert's Land, and the Royal African Company started to ship slaves from West Africa to the Americas in the Atlantic slave trade.[12][13]

Following the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War in 1896, the British proclaimed a protectorate over the Ashanti Kingdom.

A protectorate is a territory which is not formally annexed but in which, by treaty, grant or other lawful means, the Crown has power and jurisdiction. A protectorate differs from a "protected state". A protected state is a territory under a foreign ruler which enjoys British protection, over whose foreign affairs she exercises control, but in respect of whose internal affairs she does not exercise jurisdiction.[2]

Dominions were semi-independent polities that were nominally under the Crown, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the later part of the 19th century.[14][15] The dominions had been previously Crown colonies, and some of the colonies had been united to form dominions such as Union of South Africa and Commonwealth of Australia. The Balfour Declaration of 1926 clarified the status of the dominions, recognizing them as "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." The Statute of Westminster 1931 converted this status into legal reality, making them essentially independent members of what was then called the British Commonwealth. Initially, the Dominions conducted their own trade policy, some limited foreign relations, and had autonomous armed forces, although the British government claimed and exercised the exclusive power to declare wars. However, after the passage of the Statute of Westminster, the language of dependency on the Crown of the United Kingdom ceased, and the Crown itself was no longer referred to as the Crown of any place in particular but simply as "the Crown". Arthur Berriedale Keith, in Speeches and Documents on the British Dominions 1918–1931, stated that "the Dominions are sovereign international States in the sense that the King in respect of each of His Dominions (Newfoundland excepted) is such a State in the eyes of international law". After then, those countries that were previously referred to as "Dominions" became Commonwealth realms where the sovereign reigns no longer as the British monarch, but as monarch of each nation in its own right, and are considered equal to the United Kingdom and one another. [16]

Mandates were forms of territory created after the end of the First World War. A number of German colonies and protectorates and Ottoman provinces were held as mandates by the United Kingdom (Tanganyika, British Cameroons, Togoland, Palestine and Mesopotamia); and its dominions of Australia (New Guinea, Nauru), New Zealand (Western Samoa), and South Africa (South West Africa). These territories were governed on behalf of the League of Nations for the benefit of their inhabitants. Most converted to United Nations Trust Territories in 1946.[17]

The Indian Empire was the imperial political structure in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947, comprising British India (a Crown colony: presidencies and provinces directly governed by the British Crown through the Viceroy and Governor-General of India) and Princely States, governed by Indian princes, under the suzerainty of the British Crown exercised through the Viceroy and Governor-General of India.[18]

(Territories south of 60° S)

Name of territory	Dates	Status	Comments
British Antarctic Territory	1962–1982	Colony
	1983–2002	Dependent territory
2002–present	British Overseas Territory
Enderby Land	1930–1933	Claimed
	1933	Transferred to Australia	Now part of the Australian Antarctic Territory
Graham Land	1832	Annexed
	1908–1962	Dependency of Falkland Islands
	1962–present	Part of the British Antarctic Territory
South Orkney	1821–1908	Claimed
	1908–1962	Dependency of the Falkland Islands
	1962–present	Part of the British Antarctic Territory
South Shetland	1819–1908	Claimed
	1908–1962	Dependency of the Falkland Islands
	1962–present	Part of the British Antarctic Territory
Victoria Land	1841–1933	Claimed
	1933	Transferred to Australia	Now part of the Australian Antarctic Territory

(Islands in the Atlantic Ocean)

Name of territory	Dates	Status	Comments
Ascension Island	1815–1922	Possession
	1922–2009	Dependency of St Helena
	2009–present	Part of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
Bermuda	1612–1684	Colony
	1684–1968	Crown colony
	1968–1982	Self-governing colony
	1983–2002	Dependent territory
	2002–present	British Overseas Territory
Falkland Islands	1766	West Falkland settled
	1774	Settlement withdrawn
	1774–1833	Claimed
	1833	Settlement re-established
	1841–1892	Crown colony
	1892–1908	Colony
	1908–1962	Colony
	1962	The Falkland Islands Dependencies of South Shetland, South Orkney, and Graham Land are established as the separate colony of British Antarctic Territory
	1962–1982	Colony
	1983–2002	Dependent territory
	2002–present	British Overseas Territory
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (formerly known as "St. Helena and its Dependencies")	1588–1673	St Helena claimed
	1673–1815	Possession of the East India Company
	1815–1821	Crown colony
	1821–1834	Possession of British East India Company
	1834–1982	Crown colony
	1983–2002	Dependent territory
	2002–present	British Overseas Territory
South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands	1775–1908	Claimed
	1908–1985	Dependency of the Falkland Islands
	1985–2002	Dependent territory
	2002–present	British Overseas Territory
Tristan da Cunha	(1816–1938)	Dependency of the Cape Colony
	1938–2009	Dependency of St. Helena
	2009–present	Part of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha

(Islands in the Indian Ocean)

Name of territory	Dates	Status	Comments
Andaman and Nicobar Islands	1789	British take possession of the Andaman Islands
	1848	British take possession of the Nicobar Islands
	1942–1945	Japanese occupation
	1947	Became part of India upon its independence	Now a union territory of India
Ashmore Island	1878	Annexed
	1931	Transferred to Australia	Now administered as part of the Ashmore and Cartier Islands
Cartier Island	1909–1931	Annexed
	1931	Transferred to Australia	Now administered as part of the Ashmore and Cartier Islands
British Indian Ocean Territory	1810–1814	Occupied
	1814	Ceded to the United Kingdom by the Treaty of Paris
	1814–1903	Part of the colony of Seychelles
	1903–1965	Part of colony of Mauritius
	1965–1982	Colony
	1976	The Aldabra Group, the Des Roches islands, and the Farquhar Group/Des Roches are restored to the Seychelles
	1983–2002	Dependent territory
	2002–present	British Overseas Territory
Christmas Island	1888	Annexed
	1889–90	Leased
	1900–1942	Dependency of the colony of Straits Settlement
	1942–1945	Japanese occupation
	1945–46	Military administration
	1946–1958	Dependency of the colony of Singapore
	1958	Crown colony
	1958	Transferred to Australia
Cocos Islands	1825; 1826–1831	Settlement
	1831–1857	Fiefdom
	1857–1878	Crown colony
	1878–1886	Part of Ceylon
	1886–1942	Part of the colony of the Straits Settlements
	1942–1946	Part of Ceylon
	1946–1955	Dependency of the Colony of Singapore
	1955	transferred to Australia	Now the Australian territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Heard Island and McDonald Islands	1833–1947	Claimed
	1947	Transferred to Australia	Now the Australian territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Maldives	1796–1953	Protectorate
	1953–54	Republic
	1954–1965	Protectorate	See also the United Suvadive Republic (1959–1963)
	1965	Independence
Mauritius	1809	Occupation of Rodrigues
	1810–1968	Colony
	1814	Formal cession by the Treaty of Paris
	1965	The Chagos Archipelago is transferred to the British Indian Ocean Territory
	1968	Independence
Seychelles	1794–1810	Occupied
	1810–1814	Colony subordinated to Mauritius
	1814	Formal cession by the Treaty of Paris
	1814–1903	Colony
	1903–1970	Crown colony
	1970–1975	Self-governing colony
	1975–76	Self-rule
	1976	Independence