By W. David McIntyre
The rapid dissolution of the European colonial empires in the middle decades of the 20th century were key formative events in the background to the contemporary global scene. As the British Empire was the greatest of the imperial structures to go, it is worth considering who signed the death warrant. I suggest there are five candidates.
The first is the Earl of Balfour, Prime Minister 1902-1905, who later penned the exquisite ‘status formula’ of 1926 to describe the relations of Britain and its self-governing white settler colonies, then known as Dominions. They were ‘equal in status’ though ‘freely co-operating’ under a single Crown. The implications were that they were as independent as they wanted to be and this was marked in the preamble to the Statute of Westminster five years later. Some visionaries at this time suggested that places like India or Nigeria might be Dominions, too, suggesting that here was an agreed exist route from empire.
India, indeed, took the route in 1947 when Clement Attlee, the second candidate, announced that the Raj would end. The jewel in the imperial crown was removed when the Raj was partitioned into the Dominions of India and Pakistan. They were followed into independence a year later by Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Burma (Myanmar). With the ending of the Raj it was evident that empire’s days were numbered.
Harold Macmillan
, our third candidate, extended independence more widely to Africa. His celebrated ‘
Wind of Change’ speech to the South African Parliament in 1960 marked a firm foot on the decolonization accelerator pedal. Macmillan’s conservative governments, 1957-1963, granted independence to fourteen colonies (eleven in Africa).
It looked as if the process would be completed by the fourth candidate, Harold Wilson, whose ‘Withdrawal from East of Suez’ and abolition of the Colonial Office ran in parallel to Britain’s preparations to enter the European Communities. Although the conservative government of Edward Heath, 1970-1974, delayed the withdrawal for a few years, Heath announced to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Singapore in 1971 that the empire was ‘past history’. And, as part of his application of the baleful disciplines of business management to government, he ordered a ‘Programme Analysis and Review’ of all the remaining dependent territories. This process, conducted over 1973-74, concluded that the dependencies were liabilities rather than assets and that a policy of ‘accelerated decolonization; should be adopted in many small island countries in the Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Caribbean previously deemed too small and incapable of being sovereign states.
Although the Heath government never managed to approve this policy before it was ejected from office after the miner’s strike in 1974, the second Wilson government went ahead. It was Jim Callaghan, as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs who signed the death warrant on 13 June 1975 in the form of a despatch to administrators suggesting that the dependencies had been ‘acquired for historical reasons that were no longer valid’. To avoid the charge of colonialism being made by the anti-imperialist majority in the United Nations, Britain adopted ‘accelerated decolonization’ in the Pacific Islands. During the late 1970s and the 1980s most of the remaining dependent territories moved rapidly to independence. An empire acquired over half-a-millennium was dissolved in less than half-a-century.
W. David McIntyre was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, the University of Washington, Seattle, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. After teaching for the Universities of Maryland, British Columbia, and Nottingham, he became Professor of History at the University of Canterbury New Zealand between 1966 and 1997. As Honorary Special Correspondent of The New Zealand International Review he reported on Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings from 1987 to 2011. His latest book is Winding up the British Empire in the Pacific Islands.
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Image credit: Harold Macmillan. By Vivienne (Florence Mellish Entwistle) [Open Government Licence], via Wikimedia Commons
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By Anna Wright and Emily Ardizzone
Vivienne Westwood Autumn/Winter 1993/94, photograph by Niall McInerney, Bloomsbury Fashion Photography Archive
Fashion weeks showcase the latest trends, which often blend dazzling technical innovation with traditional craftsmanship, and from a design point of view present a heady mix of the classic and surprising, of newness and renewal. The first Fashion Week of 2013 has been no exception, with surprises including John Galliano’s controversial return to the fashion world working in collaboration with Oscar de la Renta — which may suggest the beginnings of the designer’s own reinvention — watch this space!
The fascinating new collections currently on show reveal the often cyclical nature of fashion, drawing on classic designs and reinventing them for a new age. Burberry’s new metallic/fluorescent take on the traditional trench coat, for example, is the perfect fusion of traditional design with a modern twist.
Moschino’s use of tartan for their 2013 A/W collection is a particularly interesting example of this, drawing on traditional Scottish heritage fabric and design. Tartan has featured throughout many designer collections over the years, and is favoured by designers such as Vivienne Westwood, whose A/W collection shown at the fashion week of Feb 1993 included tartan garments modelled by Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss (pictured).
Whether taking inspiration from the past or present, fashion weeks always bring with them a buzz of excitement. If you are keen to read more about the history of fashion weeks, read an exclusive free article from Berg Fashion Library.
Informed by prestigious academic and library advisors, and anchored by the 10-volume Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, the Berg Fashion Library is the first online resource to provide access to interdisciplinary and integrated text, image, and journal content on world dress and fashion. The Berg Fashion Library offers users cross-searchable access to an expanding range of essential resources in this discipline of growing importance and relevance and will be of use to anyone working in, researching, or studying fashion, anthropology, art history, history, museum studies, and cultural studies.
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By Emily Ardizzone
2012 will be a momentous year for the UK capital, and the new collections presented in London in this week will no doubt add to the growing feeling of excitement in the run up to the Olympic Games.
London’s Fashion Royalty will all be present, from established design houses such as Aquascutum and Paul Smith, to new and emerging talent in the form of the Central St Martins’ Graduate show. Highlights of this year’s Fashion Week will include the first ever catwalk show for the late Alexander McQueen’s diffusion line, McQ, and of course, Dame Vivienne Westwood’s Red Label collection.
Looking back to last year’s amazing display of ‘Alice through the looking glass’ inspired designs, Westwood’s Autumn/Winter 2012/2013 Red Label catwalk show will no doubt be a fantastically theatrical event that should not be missed.
Westwood, who celebrated her 70th birthday last year, showed her first ever collection (inspired by pirates) in London in 1981 and 31 years later, the Vivienne Westwood label is still going strong. Photographer Niall McInerney has witnessed the Westwood label grow and develop over the years first hand as a top catwalk photographer. You can see one of his iconic photographs from Westwood’s autumn/winter 93-94 collection featuring a young Kate Moss.
If you are fascinated with Westwood and want to learn more, you can now see a free sample article from the Berg Fashion Library here – available for a limited time only! Emily Ardizzone is the Editorial Assistant at Berg Publishers, an Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, with responsibility for the Berg Fashion Library and other fashion projects including the recently acquired Fashion Photography Archive.
