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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fuller, Barbara.
'
Great Britain / by Barbara Fuller and Debbie Nevins.
p. cm. — (Cultures of the world)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-50260-334-0 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-50260-335-7 (ebook)
1. Great Britain — Juvenile literature. I. Fuller, Barbara, 1961-. II. Title.
DA27.5 F85 2016
941—d23

Writers, Barbara Fuller; Debbie Nevins, third edition

Editorial Director, third edition: David McNamara
Editor, third edition: Debbie Nevins
Art Director, third edition: Jeffrey Talbot
Designer, third edition: Jessica Nevins
Production Manager, third edition Jennifer Ryder-Talbot
Production Editor: Renni Johnson
Cover Picture Researcher: Stephanie Fletcha
Picture Researcher, third edition: Jessica Nevins

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PRECEDING PAGE
The clock tower Big Ben is a symbol of London.

Printed in the United States of America

 CONTENTS
GREAT BRITAIN TODAY

1. GEOGRAPHY
England • Scotland • Wales • Capital cities • Rivers • Climate •
Flora and fauna

2. HISTORY
Prehistory • Medieval Britain • Reformation, restoration, revolution
• Superpower • Twenty-first century

3. GOVERNMENT
National government • Regional government • Political parties •
Regional politics • The legal system

4. ECONOMY
Manufacturing • The services sector • Finance and banking •
Agriculture
5. ENVIRONMENT
Air pollution • Water pollution • Energy and the environment •
Climate change • Wildlife conservation

6. THE BRITISH
The earliest settlers • Immigrants • Racial discrimination and
integration • Class divisions

7. LIFESTYLE
Marriage and family life • Childhood • Education • Health care

8. RELIGION
Christianity • Other religions

9. LANGUAGE
The development of the English language • Old English • Middle
English • Modern English • The Welsh language (Cymraeg) •
Gaelic and Scots • English dialects and accents

10. ARTS
Classical music • Popular music • Literature • Film and television •
Art and architecture

11. LEISURE
Sports • Other outdoor pursuits

12. FESTIVALS
Religious festivals • Country festivals
13. FOOD
Traditional British food • The pub

MAP OF GREAT BRITAIN

ABOUT THE ECONOMY

ABOUT THE CULTURE

TIMELINE

GLOSSARY

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX
 GREAT BRITAIN TODAY

A FTER DOMINATING THE WORLD DURING THE

NINETEENTH AND twentieth centuries, what will Great Britain
do for an encore? Many centuries in the making, the British Empire by
1914 was the largest dominion in history, stretching around the globe and
spreading English culture, language, and government to about one-fifth of
the world’s population. In terms of power and influence, Great Britain was
great indeed. Not bad for a so-called “small island.” But also, in the end,
not entirely so good either.
Imperial Britain has been accused of causing many of the problems that
are still festering in the world today: the domination of people of color and
the subsequent harm to native cultures; the partitioning of the Ottoman
Empire and the destabilizing of Arab lands in the Middle East—the clashes
between India and Pakistan, and Israel and the Palestinians—the list goes
on.
While the days of the Empire are mostly over, they cast long shadows a
century later. Two world wars devastated the British nation, seriously
diminishing its power. And one by one, British holdings declared, fought
for, and won independence. The most recent example of this trend hit
particularly close to home—in fact, right there at home—when in 2014
Scotland sought independence from the United Kingdom (UK). Scotland
was not merely a colony or other far-flung territory. Scotland, one of the
three countries that make up Great Britain, was—and still is—an integral
part of the UK itself.

UK daily newspapers announcing the result of the Scottish independence

referendum are displayed for sale in Glasgow, Sept. 19, 2014.
 The official response from the United Kingdom was telling. Prime
Minister David Cameron made clear that the UK was not neutral on the
question; it wanted Scotland to remain. However—and this is the point that
proves how times have changed—the government said it would abide by
the Scots’ decision, as determined by popular vote. In the end, Scotland
chose to remain a part of the UK, but the government’s willingness to arrive
at a peaceful solution respecting the will of the Scottish people indicated a
very new kind of Great Britain; a new vision of its greatness.
Another telling moment in the re-creation of Great Britain came in 2012
when London hosted the Summer Olympic Games. Already reeling from
the 2008 worldwide economic recession, England was trudging through
imposed austerity measures in an effort to reinvigorate its flailing economy.
And yet at the same time, it needed to produce a grand global celebration
with a stratospheric price tag, a commitment it had made prior to the
economic meltdown. The previous Summer Olympics, in Beijing in 2008,
were widely heralded as impossible to top. So what was the world’s former
head of the Empire but now diminished world power to do?
London is the only city in the United Kingdom to have ever hosted the
Olympics, and it has done so on three occasions: in 1908, 1948, and 2012.
For this latest one, it built a new sports complex, the Olympic Park, on a
former industrial site in Stratford in East London. (After the Games were
over, the park was somewhat repurposed and renamed Queen Elizabeth II
Olympic Park.) Some of the highlights of the London 2012 Olympics
included these:
 The Olympic flame burns in the cauldron during the Opening Ceremony of the
London 2012 Olympic Games.

• Women’s boxing was included for the first time as an Olympic

event, and thirty-six women competed;
• Jamaica’s track and field phenom Usain Bolt won a clean sweep of
the gold medals in his races; and
• US swimmer Michael Phelps, competing in his third Olympics, won
four gold and two silver medals, bringing his total Olympic medal
tally to twenty. He set a new record as the most medaled Olympic
athlete in history.
For many observers, however, the most memorable and distinctively
British highlight of the Games was the Opening Ceremony. Host countries
typically express pride in their country’s history and culture through the
Opening Ceremony. London embraced what is great about Britain and used
it to present a quirky, affectionate, self-deprecating, but loving showcase of
the best of the British people. And it was marvelous.
The four-hour production, “Isles of Wonder,” was directed by Danny
Boyle, a British film director, producer, and screenwriter. The spectacle told
the story of Great Britain from ancient times to the present day through
song, dance, and dazzling special effects. William Shakespeare, Harry
Potter, Mary Poppins, The Beatles, James Bond, Peter Pan, Pink Floyd, and
even Queen Elizabeth herself were just a few of the British cultural icons
that made appearances throughout the show. The world’s response to the
production, which one critic deemed “a love song to Britain,” was
overwhelmingly positive.
The twenty-first century presents the British people with the challenge
of deciding what the new Great Britain is going to be. What are its values?
What is its place in the world? To be sure, the United Kingdom is still an
economic and military power with considerable clout. It is one of the G8
nations, a group of the world’s eight leading industrialized countries that
meet regularly to discuss global issues.
For one thing, the “new” Great Britain is a far more diverse place than it
used to be. The British people are increasingly made up of many races,
ethnicities, and religions. The government has done much to accommodate
this new reality, with a magnanimous spirit of tolerance and equality for all.
This is partly the legacy of Empire, but also of increased immigration—
Britain is a leading destination for immigrants because of its freedoms,
relative prosperity, and safety.

British Prime Minister David Cameron (center), meets with Russian President
Vladimir Putin (left) and US president Barack Obama at the 2013 G8 summit in
Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

As a result, Great Britain today is struggling with profound difficulties

relating to multiculturalism and national identity. How can the country
preserve its commitment to individual rights, a cornerstone of British
values, with the influx of very different social, political, and religious
values that have arrived with the multitude of immigrants? Terrorism—a
menace the British lived with during the years of the Catholic versus
Protestant “Troubles” in Northern Ireland in the second half of the twentieth
century—has again raised its head in the form of Islamist radicalism. How
does free speech jibe with certain Muslim clerics preaching hate and
violence? A massive suicide bomb attack on London’s transport network in
2005 signaled the depth of the threat and the critical nature of the problem.

British Prime Minister David Cameron gives a speech in 2014.

But time and again, Great Britain has proved its mettle. In 2013, after a
spokesman for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin publicly belittled Britain
as being a “small island that no one listens to,” UK Prime Minister David
Cameron mounted a spirited defense.
“Let me be clear,” Cameron said. “Britain may be a small island, but I
would challenge anyone to find a country with a prouder history, a bigger
heart, or greater resilience.
 “Britain is an island that has helped to clear the European continent of
fascism and was resolute in doing that throughout the Second World War.
Britain is an island that helped to abolish slavery, that has invented most of
the things worth inventing, including every sport currently played around
the world, that still today is responsible for art, literature, and music that
delights the entire world.
“We are very proud of everything we do as a small island—a small
island that has the sixth-largest economy, the fourth best-funded military,
some of the most effective diplomats, the proudest history, one of the best
records for art and literature and contribution to philosophy and world
civilization.”
Welcome to Great Britain today!
The lighthouse on the island of Bressay in Scotland’s Shetland Islands is an
impressive sight. The island is home to about 350 people.
 1 GEOGRAPHY
The land that makes up Britain was once part of continental Europe. About
eight thousand years ago, as the Ice Age ended, temperatures rose and the
glacial ice cap melted. The waters flooded the vast continental plain of what
are now the North Sea and the English Channel, creating the British Isles.

T HE EARLIEST KNOWN NAME FOR the

island of Great Britain was Albion. We don’t
know what the people living there called it,
because those earliest people left no written
language. Albion derives from the Latin word albus,
meaning “white,” and dates to the writings of the
Greek explorer Pytheas, who journeyed to
northwestern Europe around 325 BCE. The name
might refer to the impressive white cliffs on the
island’s south coast, the first view of the land for
sailors approaching from continental Europe. Today
the name Albion is still occasionally used in poetic or
historical references.
When the Romans began their conquest of the region in 43 CE, they used the
name Britannia, (derived from a similar name already in use there) to
describe the southern part of the island. The northern part of the island
(roughly today’s Scotland) was Caledonia. The Celtic people living in
Britannia were called Britons. (The Romans never fully conquered
Caledonia.) Even after the Romans withdrew from Britain in the fifth
century, when the Roman Empire collapsed, the name stuck. By then
Britannia had taken on a symbolic female personification in the form of a
Roman goddess also named Britannia. This goddess figure remains a
symbol of British national identity to this day.

A statue of Britannia looks out over the city of Liverpool.

Britain took on the classification of “Great” Britain when, in the fifth

and sixth centuries, large numbers of Celtic Britons migrated across the
English Channel to northwestern France, bringing their language and
culture with them. That area also came to be called Britannia, and the term
Britannia major (“Greater Britain”) distinguished the main island from
Britannia minor, or “lesser Britain,” (meaning, essentially, “farther-away
Britain”). Today this region of France is called Bretagne, which is
“Brittany” in English.
 Great Britain is an island of three countries: England, Scotland, and
Wales. It is located between 50° and 60° north latitude, and at 0° longitude.
It is 600 miles (967 km) at its longest point from the north of Scotland to
the southern coast of England, and 300 miles (483 km) at its widest point
from the west of Wales to England’s eastern coast. England is 50,350 square
miles (130,410 square km) in area; Scotland is 30,420 square miles (78,790
square km); and Wales is 8,020 square miles (20,760 square km). Britain’s
total population is approximately 60.8 million, mostly concentrated in the
southeast, particularly in the Greater London area.
Although Great Britain is separated from the European mainland, it
remains connected geologically. That is, the main geological structures of
Europe can be found in Britain: the great plain of northern Europe
reappears as the windswept lowlands of eastern England, and north of these
lowlands are remnants of Scandinavian mountains split by rift valleys. The
fjords of Norway are repeated in the indented western Scottish coasts; ria
(REE-ah) coasts (coastal inlets) like those of Spain and Brittany are found
in South Wales; the German and Dutch estuaries and shores are echoed in
eastern England, with submerged river mouths and wide shallow bays; and
the white cliffs of Dover in Kent mirror those of Picardy in France, only 20
miles (32 km) away across the English Channel. Britain’s highlands lie in
the north and west, with a central belt of lowlands farther east.

THE MANY NAMES OF BRITAIN

Great Britain, Britain, England, United Kingdom—what’s the
difference? Do all these names describe the same place? The answer
is yes and no. Although there is a quite a bit of overlap between them,
there are differences based on the geographical and political
definitions.

GREAT BRITAIN is an island in the North Atlantic, the largest of

the British Isles. It is also called Britain. It’s the largest island in
Europe and the ninth-largest island in the world. Britain is made up of
the countries of England, Scotland, and Wales, and is surrounded by
more than one thousand smaller islands. Politically, the term Great
Britain refers to the combined countries of England, Scotland, and
Wales, along with a number (but not all) of the surrounding islands.
The term Great Britain does not include Northern Ireland, which is
part of the United Kingdom, or the Republic of Ireland, which is an
independent nation. Both Northern Ireland and the Republic of
Ireland are located on the island of Ireland, which lies to the west of
Great Britain.

BRITAIN is used interchangeably with the term Great Britain, and is

sometimes used casually to refer to the United Kingdom as a whole.
Others say it means only England and Wales.

ENGLAND is the largest and politically the most dominant country

of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. The term England never
refers to the whole of Britain; it is only one of its countries. On the
other hand, the terms Britain or British are often used in reference to
England or the English.

UNITED KINGDOM, also called the UK, is a political entity, not a

geographical one. It is the union of the countries of England,
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Buttermere Lake lies in England’s Lake District.
ENGLAND
England has a variety of geographical regions:

NORTH WEST This region extends from Scotland to the north to Wales in
the southwest. It lies on the coast of the Irish Sea to the west, and reaches
east to the hilly Peak District, and south to the Midlands. It also includes
England’s famous Lake District.

THE PEAK DISTRICT This upland region in the north central part of the
country became Britain’s first national park in 1951. A horseshoe ring of
sandstone ridge surrounds a limestone plateau with rivers flowing
southeast, is bordered by Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Greater Manchester,
and Sheffield. Its wild moorlands and craggy rocks are popular with
climbers and walkers. The Pennine Way footpath, which is 268 miles (431
km) long, starts here.
Northwest of the Peak District lies Lancashire; to its east over the
Pennine Hills is Yorkshire. An ageold rivalry between the two counties,
based on two families’ claims to the English throne, dates from the fifteenth
century.

THE LAKE DISTRICT In northwestern England, north of Lancashire,

lies a mountainous area of radial hills interspersed with glaciated lake-filled
troughs. Called the Lake District, or The Lakes, the 885-square-mile (2,292
sq km) region attracts tourists year-round. The country’s highest mountains
and deepest and longest lakes are found there, and all the land above 3,000
feet (914.4 m) in elevation is included in the National Park of England.
Lake Windermere, England’s largest lake at 11.23 miles (18.08 km)
long, is popular for pleasure cruises and boating activities. England’s
highest mountain, Scafell Pike, elevation 3,210 feet (978 m), attracts
climbers; indeed, hiking is a favorite activity throughout this picturesque
region.
 Durham Cathedral in England, a fine example of Norman architecture, is a major
tourist destination.

NORTH EAST Bordering Scotland to the north, this northernmost region

includes Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and North
Yorkshire. Its coastline is on the North Sea. County Durham lies on a
coalfield, with steel and other heavy industries in Consett. It is also
traversed by the rugged moorlands of the Pennine Hills.
Within the county, the city of Durham is a medieval university town,
surrounding a cathedral on a steep hill encircled by a river. Dating from
1093 CE, Durham Cathedral is a designated United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. (The
cathedral was featured in the Harry Potter films as the Hogwarts School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry.)

The white chalk cliffs of Dover

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, once an important shipbuilding port, is now a

vibrant cultural city, epitomized by its Gateshead Millennium Bridge. To
the north of Newcastle lies Northumbria, where Hadrian’s Wall, completed
in 128 CE, stretches for 73 miles (117 km) across England from Wallsend,
Tyne and Wear, to Bowness-on-Solway. Sheep farming and forestry are the
main forms of agriculture in the region.

EAST ANGLIA Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Essex make up

Britain’s eastern bulge, known as East Anglia. Rarely rising above 300 feet
(91 m), this region is characterized by the flatness of the land. The drained
fens and broken-down glacial deposits make fertile arable land. This region
has the lowest annual rainfall in the country. Norwich and Cambridge are
historic cities in the region.
SOUTH EAST The chalk ridges of Kent’s North Downs and Sussex’s
South Downs run parallel in an east-west direction and are broken by north-
or south-flowing streams. They face inward over the Weald, a concentric
series of clay valleys and sandstone ridges. The Hampshire Basin is ringed
by chalk hills. Coastal resort towns include Bognor Regis and Brighton.
Canterbury in Kent is the location of Canterbury Cathedral, England’s main
Anglican church. Southeast of Canterbury is Dover, also in Kent, which
faces France across the narrowest portion of the English Channel. It is a
major port for ferry service to France. Dover is also the home of the famous
White Cliffs of Dover, striking chalk cliffs that can be seen, on a clear day,
from Calais, France.

GREATER LONDON The counties surrounding London in the

southeastern part of the country are informally called the Home Counties.
They include Berkshire, Buckingham, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey,
and Sussex. London’s suburban sprawl stretches out toward more
picturesque villages in this region. The Chiltern Hills rise to over 800 feet
(244 m) and have colorful beech woods. The valley of the River Thames
extends from the river’s source in Gloucestershire through Henley-on-
Thames to the royal castle at Windsor and beyond to London.

The Eden Project in Cornwall is series of connected greenhouses.

SOUTH WEST The south-western part of England is informally called the
West Country. It reaches west to a point called Land’s End in Cornwall, on
the coast of the Atlantic. This land mass separates the Celtic Sea from the
English Channel.
The monoliths of Stonehenge are a popular tourist attraction on the
chalk downs of Salisbury Plain. Dorset’s moody countryside of pastures and
barren heaths is described in the novels of Thomas Hardy, while the
limestone and fossils of Lulworth Cove on the coast are a geologist’s
dream. Devon’s pretty coastal towns contrast with the classic granite
moorlands of Exmoor and Dartmoor, which have rocky tors (pinnacles) and
upland plateaus. The Cornish coast is more rugged than Devon’s and is a
popular tourist area. The Eden Project in Bodelva, a chain of
interconnecting greenhouses containing plants from around the world, is a
major tourist attraction in Cornwall.
On the northern edge of the Somerset Plain are the Mendip Hills, where
Cheddar Gorge—famous for caving, rock climbing, and cheese production
—is located. Gold-colored oolite stone makes for picturesque towns and
villages in the Cotswolds, such as Burford and Oxford. Bath is an
eighteenth-century spa town; its thermal baths date from Roman times.

THE MIDLANDS Divided into the regions of West Midlands and East
Midlands, the low plateau in the center of the country was the site of much
of Britain’s industrial development. The areas near the Nottingham and
Leicester coalfields are known as the Black Country. The industrial heritage
of the area has become an important tourist and educational attraction.
Coventry was a center of the auto industry. Near Telford, the Ironbridge
Gorge Museums have an interesting collection of industrial inventions.
 Warwick Castle, a medieval castle built in the eleventh century, is a major
touristic attraction.

Warwick Castle, dating from the fourteenth century, is one of England’s

most important and impressive medieval castles. Stratford-upon-Avon,
Shakespeare’s birthplace, boasts Tudor-style black-and-white buildings, as
well as the renowned Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre.

SCOTLAND
Scotland’s Southern Uplands encompass the border area and the southern
region with undulating pastoral farming land. Farther north, the large cities
of Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth on the eastern coast and Glasgow on the
west are sited 45 miles (72 km) apart at Scotland’s narrowest neck. These
cities are in the Central Lowlands that reach up to the Sidlaw Hills and the
Ochil Hills of Strathmore.
The Grampian Mountains form the division between the Lowlands and
the Highlands in Scotland. Aberdeen is an important oil-processing town
for the North Sea oil and gas fields. The islands of Jura and Islay, to the
north of the Firth of Clyde, are renowned whiskey-producing areas; thick
woollen knitwear comes from the nearby Isle of Arran. Cut into the
Highland Plateau, large glens—bleak and almost barren valleys—often
have cold lakes called lochs (LOKS). Loch Ness, stretching in a southwest
direction through Glen More from near Inverness on the eastern coast
toward Fort Augustus, is reputed to harbor a prehistoric monster. Britain’s
highest mountain, the 4,406-foot (1,343-m) Ben Nevis, is near the lake.
To the north of Glen More lie the North West Highlands, where the
population density drops to six persons per square mile (2.5 per square km).
In the uplands many people are tenant farmers. On small farms of five to
ten acres (two to four hectares), they grow oats and potatoes and keep
chickens. Besides farming, knitwear and tweed manufacturing are the local
industries, while salmon and trout fishing, grouse shooting, and deer
hunting are lucrative tourist attractions as well as popular pastimes for
residents.
Scotland has more than 790 offshore islands, of which approximately
eighty-nine are permanently inhabited (though some by only one or two
people!). Most of Scotland’s islands are part of four main groupings: the
Shetland Islands; the Orkney Islands; and the Inner and Outer Hebrides
(HEB-reh-deez).
 The old city of Lerwick, in Shetland, Scotland, with its characteristic granite
houses, dates back four hundred years.

WALES
The principality of Wales is 135 miles (217 km) long and 35 miles (56 km)
wide. The Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons are rugged
mountainous regions of South Wales, the latter rising to about 2,660 feet
(811 m). The coast of Pembrokeshire is a national park, home to numerous
seabirds. Cardiff and Swansea are major cities of South Wales.
Most of the uplands of Central Wales are drained by the River Wye. To
the east, the Welsh plateau breaks up into the Welsh border hills, cut
through by the Severn Valley.
North Wales is more agricultural than the south. Sheep farming is the
most effective use of this area characterized by high and glaciated uplands.
Mount Snowdon is 3,560 feet (1,085 m) high, accessible by mountain
railway as well as by walking trails. Welsh knitwear and woven fabrics
from the upland regions are renowned for their quality.
 A steam train climbs Mount Snowdon in North Wales.

CAPITAL CITIES
Britain’s cities act as regional and cultural centers, important places for
business and tourism. There are sixty-four cities in Great Britain; fifty-one
are in England, seven in Scotland, and six in Wales. Each of the three
countries in Great Britain has its own capital.

LONDON England’s capital city is a center of international trade and

finance, tourism, retailing, media, and government services. The area
known as the City of London is the financial center. Located within its
square mile are the Bank of England, the Stock Exchange, Lloyd’s of
London (insurance underwriters), and the headquarters of major banks. To
the east of this area lies the Tower of London; farther east is the East End,
formerly a center of the textile industry. The financial area has now been
expanded eastward into the Canary Wharf development in the Docklands, a
highly sought-after office and residential location.
 In contrast, the West End is the entertainment district. Many theaters are
located near Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury Avenue; Leicester Square
has numerous movie theaters; Oxford Street and nearby streets are shopping
areas; and Covent Garden has a prestigious opera house and a flourishing
handicrafts market.
The Houses of Parliament overlook the Thames in Westminster. A large
clock tower commonly referred to as Big Ben (which is actually the name
of the bell in the tower) rises on the north side of the building. Westminster
Abbey, located across the street, was founded by King Edward the
Confessor in 1065. Government offices and ministries are found in
Whitehall, with the residences of the prime minister and the chancellor of
the Exchequer on Downing Street. The Mall leads from Trafalgar Square to
Buckingham Palace. The British Museum and University College London
are in the Bloomsbury area between the West End and the City.

The Edinburgh skyline is graced by the castle,

EDINBURGH Edinburgh Castle dominates the Scottish capital. It

overlooks the Royal Mile, a street of beautiful sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century townhouses that runs from the castle to the Palace of
Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s official Scottish residence. Edinburgh has
three universities and a growing computer industry. Other industries include
engineering, food processing, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, printing, and
electrical goods. It is also a center for medicine, banking, insurance,
tourism, and law, and acts as a marketplace for Scottish beef and salmon.

CARDIFF The capital city of Wales, known as Caerdydd in Welsh, used to

be a major port for exporting coal and steel. While these heavy industries
have declined, Cardiff is now a service center for financial, insurance, and
banking institutions, home to the Welsh Assembly, and a center for food
processing and light engineering. The Millennium Stadium is a British
national arena that seats seventy-five thousand people for rugby and soccer
competitions.

Tourists (bottom left) enjoy the view from a capsule of the London Eye, Europe's
tallest Ferris wheel, on the South Bank of the River Thames.

RIVERS
THE THAMES The River Thames (TEMZ) is the longest river in England
and the second largest in the United Kingdom. It rises in the Cotswolds in
Gloucestershire and flows to the North Sea at Tilbury 215 miles (346 km)
to the east. It winds through picturesque scenery until it reaches London.
The Thames is used for a variety of boating activities. Rowing competitions
are regularly held on the river at Henley, Oxford, and Eton, while the annual
Boat Race on the Thames in London between teams from Oxford and
Cambridge universities is a major highlight.
London’s position on the river makes it ideally suited as a port; the
Thames below Tower Bridge is an extremely important waterway. Large
container ships dock farther downriver at Tilbury since they cannot pass the
Thames Flood Barrier, which was opened in 1984 to prevent the flooding of
London by an unusually high tide. The Dartford Tunnel that runs beneath
the Thames and the parallel overhead bridge complete London’s orbital
motorway called the M25.

The Severn Bridge connects England to Wales across the river.

THE SEVERN The River Severn is the longest in the United Kingdom,
flowing about 220 miles (354 km). It rises in North Wales and runs through
the border country with Wales before reaching the Bristol Channel estuary.
Its tidal range can be as much as 40 feet (12 m) during spring tides. The
Severn Bridge over the river just north of Bristol is a major road link
between England and Wales as well as an engineering triumph. Built in the
1960s, the bridge is 16,955 feet (5,168 m) long and spans 1,496 feet (456
m).

CLIMATE
Britain enjoys a cool to mild temperate climate with few extremes of
temperature. The greatest variation in weather is in the southeast, but
throughout Britain, temperatures rarely exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32
degrees Celsius) in summer or fall below 14°F (-10°C) in winter.
The Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current that crosses the Atlantic Ocean,
produces warmer winters in the west of the country so that in January
northwestern Scotland can be considerably warmer than southeastern
England. Warm and wet westerly winds prevail, and since most upland
areas are in the northern and western parts of the country, it is these regions
that have the heaviest rainfall: over 60 inches (152 cm) annually, mainly in
the fall and winter, compared with a national average of 40 inches (102 cm).
Mild winters and high rainfall in the west make the region well suited for
livestock farming. By contrast, the sunny summers and flatter land in the
east are more suited for arable farming. Throughout Britain the weather is
always unpredictable, and therefore always a subject for conversation.
 Wild ponies graze in the New Forest in Hampshire, England.

FLORA AND FAUNA

Britain has a diverse range of flora and fauna, despite increasing
urbanization. Ten national parks in England and Wales conserve different
types of rural environments. The uplands boast heather-strewn grouse
moors, brackens, and a spiny evergreen shrub known as gorse. Wild roses
and hawthorns flourish in southern England, wild daffodils herald spring in
Yorkshire and the Lake District, and bluebell woods flourish in the Home
Counties. There are 150 different types of grass in the British Isles. The
English oak is abundant in forests such as Savernake Forest in Wiltshire and
Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, beech woods are found in the
Chilterns, and pine forests abound in Scotland.
Wild deer and ponies are found in Hampshire’s New Forest; deer are
found in some other woods, including areas of the West County and in the
Scottish Highlands. Foxes, otters, bats, badgers, and field mice have
adapted to the urban environment and are found throughout Britain. The red
robin is a popular and territorial garden bird. Coastal areas and plowed
arable land attract seagulls and hawks, while the larger birds of prey soar
over highlands and even freeways in search of food. The peregrine falcon
and the ptarmigan are found in the Scottish Highlands. Gray seals are
common in underpopulated coastal areas. Brown trout and grayling are
often found in rivers, while salmon and eel spend most of their lives at sea
but return to spawn in rivers.

INTERNET LINKS
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
“The Difference Between the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and
England Explained” is a tongue-in-cheek but very informative video
explaining the intricate interconnections between Britain and other
British places around the world.

www.englandforever.org
Information about England relevant to this chapter can be found in this
site’s following sections: “Regions,” “Cities,” “Attractions,” and
Geography.”

www.lakedistrict.gov.uk
This website of the Lake District National Park has photos, videos,
web cams, a timeline, and a wealth of information.

www.visitscotland.com/en-us/about/nature-geography
Visit Scotland is the site of Scotland’s National Tourism Organisation;
the section “Scotland’s nature and geography” offers many photos and
in-depth information.

www.wales.com/en/content/cms/English/About_Wales/Landscapes/
Landscapes.aspx
Wales Cymru, “the official gateway to Wales,” has many informative
sections including this one about its geographical features.
The Bryn Celli Ddu is a Neolithic era burial chamber on the Isle of Anglesey in
North Wales.
 2 HISTORY
The name Great Britain (then spelled “Great Brittaine”) was first used by King
James I in 1604, who proclaimed that from then on, he and his successors
would be kings of Great Britain, not just kings of England and Scotland.
However, the name was not applied to the state as a unit; both England and
Scotland continued to be governed independently.

T HE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN IS rich

with countless stories. There are far too many
events to relate here, and even the few that are
mentioned are more complex and fascinating than
can be relayed in such a quick overview. The
kaleidoscope of years, places, and people—the
details of their daily lives, their fears and passions,
blood and battles, their ambitions and creations—
have combined to make this unique place a mighty
nation on a not-so-small island.

PREHISTORY
The history of people in Britain stretches back for more than nine thousand
years. Archaeological evidence shows that Stone Age hunters and
fishermen lived along the coast of western Scotland and on the islands of
the Hebrides around 7000 BCE. Remnants of Britain’s earliest Neolithic
people, who arrived from the Iberian Peninsula and other parts of Western
Europe around 3000 BCE, are seen in the barrows—the communal burial
grounds on the chalk uplands of southern England. The Beaker People (so
called because of their pottery skills) built hill forts, cultivated barley, and
were buried in individual graves from around 2400 BCE.

STONEHENGE
By far the most famous of the mysterious ancient monuments found
throughout Britain is Stonehenge. Located in Wiltshire, England, it is
a circle of bluestones—huge stone monoliths—each weighing between
two and four tons (1.8 and 3.6 metric tons). Some scholars believe the
site might have once had eighty such stones, but only forty-three
remain. The stones most likely came from Wales, some 250 miles
away, raising the question of how they were transported such a
distance in those days before the wheel.
The site might have been used as an astronomical observatory, a
sort of primitive computer for calculating the dates of celestial events;
or for spiritual rituals; or for ancestor worship—there are many
burial sites nearby—or possibly as a place of healing. Perhaps
Stonehenge had many functions over the millennia.
Britons in times past were just as mystified by Stonehenge as we
are today. In fact, the strange monument appears in the King Arthur
stories, dating from the early twelfth century CE. Today, Stonehenge is
an iconic symbol of Britain, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a
top tourist attraction.
 Ritual landscapes called henges, some with standing stones and stone
circles, can be found across all of Britain. Henges are earth-worked
landscapes, usually circular, banked enclosures with a ditch. No one is
certain what the purpose of these prehistoric landscapes was, but it’s
curious that they are found throughout Britain but nowhere else. Among the
most impressive are the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, Scotland; the Callanish
Stone Circle on the Isle of Lewis, in Scotland; and the Great Circle at
Stanton Drew in England, all built sometime between 3000 and 2000 BCE.
Around 700 BCE, different tribes of Celts arrived from Central Europe,
bringing with them the knowledge of ironworking that revolutionized
agriculture. They established hill forts and trade outlets on the River
Thames and Firth of Forth. Their society was stratified and included a caste
of Druid priests and a ruling warrior class.

CLASSICAL ERA The Romans invaded Britain in 43 CE and occupied the

south of Britain from the Humber to the Severn rivers. They established
garrison towns and brought Christianity to Britain. The Romans failed to
conquer Caledonia (now Scotland), so the Roman Emperor Hadrian
(reigned 117–138 CE) built a wall from coast to coast in the north of
England to prevent incursions of Picts and Scots across the border.
Hadrian’s Wall, begun in 122 CE, was 73 miles (117.5 m) long, and from 10
to 20 feet (3 to 6 m) high. A large portion of still exists today; it is a World
Heritage site and a popular tourist destination. Britain was part of the huge
Roman Empire until its collapse, and the last Roman troops left the island
around 410 CE.

A section of Hadrian’s Wall still remains after two thousand years.

MEDIEVAL BRITAIN
THE ANGLO-SAXONS Three Germanic tribes from regions that are now
in Germany and Denmark invaded soon after the Romans left. The Angles
settled in the east, the Saxons farther west and in the northern Midlands,
and the Jutes in Kent and the South Coast. This drove the Celts farther north
and west. The Anglo-Saxons founded the different kingdoms of Essex,
Sussex, Wessex, Middlesex, East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia. Anglo-
Saxon kings included King Offa of Mercia (reign 757–796), who built a
long dike on the Welsh borders to keep the Celts at bay, and King Alfred of
Wessex (Alfred the Great, 871–899), who enlisted educated churchmen to
draw up laws. It was also in Alfred’s reign that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
an extensive record of Britain’s early history, was first written. Monks from
the Scottish island of Iona and the Northumbrian island of Lindisfarne
continued to spread the Christian religion. In the late sixth century, the
monk Augustine became Britain’s first Archbishop of Canterbury.
 TIMELINE OF HISTORICAL ERAS
English history is usually classified according to the following
categories:

Anglo Saxon c. 500–1066

Norman 1066–1154
Plantagenet 1154–1485
Tudor 1485–1603
Elizabethan 1558–1603
Stuart 1603–1714
Jacobean 1603–1625
Caroline 1625–1649
Interregnum (“between kings”) 649–1660
Restoration 1660–1688
Georgian 1714–1837
Victorian 1837–1901
Edwardian 1901–1914
World War I 1914–1918
Interbellum (“between the wars”) 1918–1939
World War II 1939–1945
Postwar 1945–present

Meanwhile, in 843 the Highland tribes of Picts and Scots were united
into one kingdom under King Kenneth MacAlpin. The Lowlands of
Scotland were inhabited by Britons and Angles from Northumbria. Wales
was mostly settled by Celts by the eighth century, when family groupings
became small kingdoms.
The Anglo-Saxons developed communal strip farming using large
plows. A council of wise men—the Witan—issued laws and chose kings. In
865, Vikings from Norway and Denmark conquered and then settled in
most of England.

THE NORMAN INVASION The last great Saxon king, King Edward the
Confessor, who reigned from 1042 to 1066, allegedly promised the English
throne to Duke William of Normandy. Normandy was a duchy (territory of
a duke or duchess) in northern France that had been settled in earlier
centuries by invading Vikings (the Norse, or “Northmen”). These Norsemen
intermarried with the local people and came to be known as Normans. But
when Edward died, Harold Godwinson of Wessex became king instead. In
1066 Duke William invaded the south of Britain and defeated and killed
Harold in the Battle of Hastings and claimed the English throne.
King William I, known as William the Conqueror, saw England as his
personal property. He deprived most Saxon lords of their lands and gave
half to Norman nobles, one quarter to the Church, and kept most of what
remained for himself. The Domesday Book of 1086 records landholdings
and agricultural practices after William’s land redistribution, and is today
housed in the National Archives in London.
The history of Britain from this point forward is marked by the names
of the succeeding royal houses, or dynasties: the Normans, the Plantagenets,
the Tudors, and others.

In 1485, King Richard III of England died quite horribly in battle at the hands
of a Welshman. He was buried without fanfare in Greyfriars Church in
Leicester, England. Over time, the church was demolished and the king’s
grave lost to legend. In 2012, however, archaeologists discovered the long-
lost king’s remains under a modern-day parking lot.

THE PLANTAGENETS William’s death in 1087 was followed by

disputes over the throne. The infamous murder of the archbishop Thomas
Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 was the result of a church-state
dispute during the reign of Henry II (1154–1189), the first king of England
from the House of Plantagenet. The Plantagenets were a family originally
from the French province of Anjou. This house, or dynasty, would produce
a line of fourteen English kings.
Of these, Richard I (1189–1199), known as Richard the Lionheart, went
on several crusades to the Holy Land. His brother, King John, ruled so
badly that the nobles forced him to sign the Magna Carta (“Great Charter”)
in 1215. The document guaranteed many political rights and personal
liberties in Britain. During the reign of Henry III (1216–1272), nobles led
by Simon de Montfort formed a council that became the Parliament.
Edward I (1272–1307) conquered Wales, killing the Welsh leader Llewelyn
in 1282 and installing his own son, Edward II, as Prince of Wales in
Caernarvon Castle in 1284. He also installed his own nominee on the throne
of Scotland, but Edward II was defeated by the Scots at the Battle of
Bannockburn in 1314 and Scotland remained independent.
 This is an example of the type of helmet a medieval knight might wear in battle.

Further royal disputes occurred in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth
centuries. Edward II (1307–1327) was deposed and murdered. Under
Edward III (1327–1377), England fought the Hundred Years’ War with
France, which lasted from 1337 to 1453 and resulted in England losing
almost all of its French lands. This period was also marked by the Black
Death, a form of plague that killed between 30 and 40 percent of Britain’s
entire population in just two years, from 1348 and 1350.
Under Henry VI (1422–1461), the nobles divided themselves into the
houses of Lancaster and York in the Wars of the Roses. When Edward IV
(1461–1483) died, Richard of Gloucester imprisoned Edward’s sons in the
Tower of London, where they were murdered, and then declared himself
Richard III (1483–1485). The end of Richard III’s reign in 1485 typically
marks the end of the Medieval Era, or Middle Ages, and the start of the
Early Modern period in England.

REFORMATION, RESTORATION,
REVOLUTION
The sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries saw many major events
in British history. These include the English Reformation, the Scottish
Reformation, the English Civil War, the Restoration of Charles II, the
Glorious Revolution, the Treaty of Union, the Scottish Enlightenment, and
the first British Empire.

THE TUDORS Struggles for the throne continued as various royal houses
competed. Henry Tudor of Wales defeated Richard III in 1485 to become
Henry VII (1485–1509). Although he was of the House of Lancaster, he
married Elizabeth of York to end the feud. He pacified the powerful Welsh
nobles and brought them under his control, and he tried to make the English
crown financially independent.
PILGRIMAGES AND THE CRUSADES
During the Middle Ages, Christians throughout Europe went on
religious pilgrimages. Groups of faithful would travel to a shrine or
church to pray, seek divine forgiveness, and refresh their souls. The
top destination churches, including the British cathedrals at
Glastonbury, Canterbury, and Winchester, housed sacred relics—such
as the purported bone of a saint, for example—as objects of
veneration. These holy objects were thought to sanctify their
surroundings and function as intermediaries for those seeking the
protection and help of that particular dead saint.
Another sort of pilgrimage was militaristic in nature. Thousands
of faithful warriors would march off from various places in Europe to
the Middle East to fight those they viewed as enemies of Christianity:
Muslims, Jews, or even the Eastern Catholic Church. Sanctioned by
the pope in Rome, the intent of these missions was to “take back” the
Holy Lands and to bring them and other Mediterranean lands under
the control of the Roman Catholic Church. From 1095 to 1291, a
series of these Crusades took place, with the British taking part in
some but not all of them. The romantic ideal of courageous knights in
armor carrying the cross to defeat “the infidels” stems from this
period. Participating in a Crusade was thought to be a way to achieve
glory and certain admittance to Heaven. But in truth, the Crusades
were bloody, vicious battles that were ultimately disastrous.
 Canterbury Cathedral

THE BLACK DEATH

Between 1346 and 1350, a plague killed 20 million people throughout
Europe—about one-third of Europe’s population. People called it the
Black Death for the painful black swellings it produced on the skin,
but they did not know what caused it. Terrified, they blamed
everything from the wrath of God to astrology to swamp vapors. Many
thought it signaled the biblical Apocalypse, or the end of time.
The plague reached Britain in the summer of 1348. The disease
spread with lightning speed, sometimes wiping out entire villages,
creating ghost towns with crops rotting in the fields and livestock
 starving. The plague had a devastating effect on the economy, society,
and the entire culture.
Today, most scientists believe the disease was bubonic plague,
spread by fleas that had bitten rats, though there are other theories.
Over the next few centuries, the Black Death reappeared several times
in Britain, in somewhat smaller outbreaks, and didn’t fully subside
until the late seventeenth century.

His son, Henry VIII (r. 1509–1547), presided over a particularly

scandalous reign, and became one of the most famous king’s in Britain’s
history. The story of Henry VIII continues to fascinate people to this day. In
his effort to produce a male heir to the throne, Henry married six times,
executing two of his wives along the way. He tried to annul, or undo, his
marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon (who had become too old to
bear children), so he could marry the young and reputedly beautiful Anne
Boleyn. This attempt brought Henry into direct opposition with the papal
authority in Rome, who refused to grant the king an annulment. In 1533
Henry split away from the Roman Catholic Church, establishing the
Anglican Church with himself as its Supreme Head.
That prompted the English Reformation, or conversion to Protestantism.
No longer needing the pope’s permission, Henry married the now pregnant
Anne. Like Catherine before her, Anne bore him a daughter but no sons,
and eventually Henry wanted to get rid of her, too. He had her arrested on
trumped-up charges; she was tried and ultimately beheaded, and Henry
moved on to his next wife, Jane Seymour. Seymour did bear a son, but she
herself died days later. None of Henry’s remaining wives produced an heir.
 This portrait of King Henry VIII, dated 1540, is a famous painting by Hans Holbein
“the Younger.”

On the political front, Henry brought Wales into legal union with
England, and also declared himself King of Ireland.
As it turned out, all three of Henry’s children would succeed him on the
throne, his son Edward VI (r. 1547–1553); then his estranged daughter by
his first wife, Mary I (r. 1553–58), who brought the crown (and therefore
the country) back to Roman Catholicism; and finally his daughter by Anne
Boleyn, Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603), who reverted the throne to
Protestantism once again and the Anglican Church has remained the official
church of England ever since.
During Elizabeth’s reign, considered one of Britain’s most glorious, the
Spanish Armada was defeated, English colonies were established in
America, and education and the arts flourished. Elizabeth I, the last Tudor
monarch, never married so the throne passed to her Scottish cousin James
of the Stuart dynasty. He became James I of England (r. 1603–1625). His
accession cemented the two countries together, although this was only
finalized a century later with the Act of Union of 1707. Under James, the
Authorized Version of the Bible was published in 1611, and the Mayflower
set off from Plymouth, England in 1620 to found a new Puritan colony in
America.
 This painting depicts the Battle of Naseby, a turning point in the English Civil
War.

CIVIL WAR AND THE RESTORATION Conflicts between the Stuart

kings—James I and his son Charles I (r. 1625–1649)—and Parliament
would color the next several decades. In 1642, these conflicts led to a civil
war between Royalists and Parliamentarians that lasted until 1645, when the
Royalists were defeated at the Battle of Naseby. In 1649, Charles I and his
wife were executed, and England became a Commonwealth under Oliver
Cromwell until his death in 1658. Sporadic fighting continued against the
Royalists.
By 1660, with no clear sign of a new leader, Charles II (r. 1660–1685),
son of the executed monarch, was asked to return from exile to the throne.
This period is called the Restoration. The Test Act of 1673 precluded any
Catholic from holding public office. Charles II was careful to be
accommodating in his reign, but his brother James II (r. 1685–1688) tried to
overturn anti-Catholic legislation, married a Catholic, and was believed by
many to be a Catholic himself.
 A portrait of Queen Mary II, who ruled in tandem with her Dutch husband King
William

THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION Fearing that Catholicism had seized

control of the monarchy, Parliament invited the Dutch king William, who
was married to Charles II’s daughter Mary, to invade in the name of
Protestantism. He did this in 1688 in what became known as the Glorious
Revolution. James II fled to France. William (r. 1688–1702) and Mary (r.
1688–1694) were offered the crown jointly by Parliament. From that time
on, Parliament was stronger than the crown in Britain. In 1689 it passed a
Bill of Rights which guaranteed individual liberties including the freedom
of religion. In 1701 an Act of Settlement was adopted that allowed only a
Protestant to inherit the crown, a law still in force today.
 In 1707, the Act of Union united the kingdoms of England and Scotland
and transferred the seat of the government to London. With it went many of
Edinburgh’s prosperous ruling class, leaving the Scottish capital in
economic stagnation and aggravating other problems that would create
social instability for years.
By 1714 Britain was the leading international power. It had colonies on
the eastern coast of America, sugar-producing islands in the West Indies, a
flourishing slave trade between Africa and America, and expanding trading
interests in India, the Far East, and the Pacific. Economic life expanded.
New canals and waterways improved the distribution of goods, and weekly
markets were replaced by regularly stocked shops. And then the Industrial
Revolution began in Great Britain and spread to Western Europe and the
United States, creating new manufacturing and production processes and
technologies—and the Modern Era began.

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON

One Saturday night in September 1666, a fire started at the house of
King Charles II’s baker, Thomas Farynor, who lived on Pudding Lane.
Fires were not unusual in the crowded city, with most buildings being
framed with timber. But it had been a hot, dry summer, and water
reserves were low. As the fire spread, the news was reported to the
mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, but he remained unconcerned.
By the next day, with the fire growing still larger, the king was
notified and he ordered the mayor to take action. Citizens rushed to
destroy houses in an attempt to create firebreaks, but the response was
too little, too late. The fire raged and spread and Londoners panicked.
Thousands tried to evacuate the city, creating traffic jams in the
narrow streets, while others looted the empty shops and houses.
The fire burned for more than four days, and in the end destroyed
373 acres (151 hectares) of the city. About 13,200 houses and eighty-
four churches were lost, including St. Paul’s Cathedral. The official
death toll was a mere four people, but the true number was
undoubtedly much higher. Some one hundred thousand people were
left homeless.
 As if the fire itself were not a sufficient tragedy, the aftermath saw
a frenzy of accusations aimed particularly at foreigners and
Catholics. Eventually, the blame was pinned on a mentally unstable
man who was hanged for the alleged crime. But for the next 150
years, Londoners were all too willing to lay the real blame at the feet
of the “Papists,” or Catholics.

This painting (artist unknown) of the Great Fire of London is on display in

the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, CT.

SUPERPOWER
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Britain enjoyed significant
victories in major wars. It was victorious in its war with France (1756–
1763), and as a result, France lost all its territories in North America.
Although Britain lost in its colonies in the American Revolution (1776–
1783), Britain’s victory over France in the Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815)
earned it twenty new colonies. By 1820 Britain had colonized a quarter of
the world’s population, cementing its power and reputation.

This portrait of Queen Victoria with the Princess Royal Victoria in 1844 is the
earliest known photo of the queen.

VICTORIAN AGE Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901) presided over a golden

age of British expansion, imperialism, and world domination. The two-
party system in Parliament evolved in the 1860s, as Benjamin Disraeli and
William Gladstone alternated as prime ministers and heads of the
Conservative and Liberal governments respectively.
 Overseas trade led to many foreign entanglements: in 1839, the start of
the Opium Wars with China; in 1854, the Crimean War against the
Russians; and in 1857, the Indian Mutiny, which briefly cast doubts on the
colonial philosophy. Suez in Egypt was invaded in 1882 to protect Britain’s
shipping route to India. The Boer War (1899–1902) took place in South
Africa amidst growing competition with other European powers for African
colonies.

WORLD WAR I The reign of King Edward VII (r. 1902–1910) was
overshadowed by a growing European military buildup and the onset of
World War I in 1914. When Germany invaded Belgium, the British cabinet
agreed that Britain must fight such aggression. British soldiers marched off
to war with enthusiasm, but ended up enduring unspeakably horrible
conditions while living in the trenches that bordered the battlefields. More
than one million British soldiers died during the four years of “The Great
War,” but Germany was defeated. Britain, the United States, and France
crafted the Treaty of Versailles, a peace settlement that imposed harsh
conditions on Germany.
 Winston Churchill flashes the “V for Victory!” sign, a rallying cry for World War II
Allies.

During the war, with the men away fighting, women worked in
armaments factories and agriculture. At the end of the war in 1918, British
women over the age of thirty gained the right to vote for the first time.
During the 1920s, Britain experienced a severe economic depression and
high unemployment. The world economic crisis hit Britain hard during the
1930s, with the industrial heartlands of South Wales, the Midlands, and the
north of England particularly affected. From 1937 onward, the armaments
industry revived as Britain prepared for yet another war.

WORLD WAR II The terms of the WWI peace treaty proved humiliating
and economically disastrous to Germany, and by 1939, another global war
heated up. Once again, Germany was the aggressor and this time it
conquered most of Western Europe in less than two months. But under
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Great Britain resisted. WWII was
devastating to Britain, as it was to many nations. In the summer and fall of
1940 the German Air Force waged an air campaign against Britain’s Royal
Air Force that came to be called the Battle of Britain. Beginning on
September 7, the Germans bombed London for fifty-seven consecutive
nights. Other cities across the United Kingdom were also hit. In the end,
Britain prevailed, but at great cost in military and civilian lives, property
destruction, and economic hardship.

POSTWAR In the 1940s and 1950s, there were food shortages and
rationing in Britain, as well as large-scale reconstruction. Social measures
passed during these years form the basis of the existing welfare system. In
1952, King George VI died and his daughter Elizabeth began her reign as
Queen Elizabeth II.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Britain began acquiring overseas possessions between the sixteenth
and eighteenth centuries. At its height in the twentieth century, the
British Empire was the largest empire in history—affecting one-fifth
of the world’s population. The British dominions, colonies,
protectorates, mandates, and territories made up “the empire on
which the sun never sets.” The phrase meant the sun was always
shining on one of Britain’s holdings. However, it also implied that the
sun would never set on the Empire itself; it would last forever. That
would not be the case. During the second half of the twentieth century,
many of Britain’s colonies gained their independence.
Today, the era of Britain imperialism is essentially over. The
United Kingdom retains sovereignty over fourteen small territories
beyond the British Isles. Many of its former colonies and
protectorates are among the fifty-three member states of the
Commonwealth of Nations, an equality-based, non-political,
voluntary association of countries. Sixteen Commonwealth nations
share the British monarch as their nominal head of state.
The Empire’s legacy includes the widespread use of the English
language around the world. British culture, sports, and the
parliamentary system of government have taken root in many of the
former colonies. However, British imperialism is also blamed for
causing disruption to the native cultures and social systems of those
nations, causing the migrations of millions of people, and sowing the
seeds of conflicts that continue today.
 The United Kingdom joined the European Union (EU) in 1973.

In 1973 the United Kingdom joined the European Community, which is

now called the European Union (EU). It is a community of twenty-eight
nations bound together by common policies in trade, environment,
agriculture, and education. These policies are created by EU governing
institutions. As part of the community, Britain has had to adopt EU laws
and regulations on many areas of British society, including labor laws,
human rights, racial discrimination, and the environment.

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
After the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States, in which
sixty-seven British citizens died, the British government turned its attention
to the problem of global terrorism. Prime Minister Tony Blair worked
closely with the United States and sent troops into Afghanistan to fight al
Qaeda, the organization responsible for the attacks. British troops also went
to Iraq the following year, despite significant opposition from British
officials and citizens, to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
On July 7, 2005, Britain suffered a major terrorist attack of its own. A
series of coordinated suicide bombings in central London killed fifty-two
people and injured 700 others. The perpetrators were four British Muslim
men—militant extremists—who died in the attack. The purported reason for
the attacks was anger at Britain’s foreign policies pertaining to the Muslim
world. Following these attacks and other attempts, the British government
has had to focus on developing new strategies for national defense and
security as terrorism looms as a major threat in the twenty-first century.
In uncertain times, Great Britain’s sense of identity has nevertheless
remained solid and secure. In 2013, the widely beloved Queen Elizabeth
celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, her sixtieth anniversary on the throne. That
same year, the queen welcomed the birth of her first great-grandchild,
Prince George of Cambridge, England’s future king if all goes according to
plan. And in 2014, Scotland voted to remain part of the United Kingdom
and not declare independence, a decision that leaves the UK intact for now.
Explosions around London on July 7, 2005, brought a heightened awareness of
terrorism to Great Britain.

INTERNET LINKS
www.historylearningsite.co.uk/england_medieval.htm
This British history site has a wide selection of topics relating to life in
medieval England.

www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/explore
The site English Heritage presents an excellent interactive history
section.

www.royal.gov.uk/hmthequeen/hmthequeen.aspx
The official website of the British monarchy presents a section devoted
to Her Majesty the Queen.
 image

Queen Elizabeth II has been Head of State of the UK since 1952. She
became Queen at the age of twenty-five.
3 GOVERNMENT
Queen Elizabeth II is the fortieth monarch since William the Conqueror to
wear the crown of England, now the crown of the United Kingdom.

THE GOVERNMENT OF GREAT Britain is the government of the United

Kingdom, which includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
It is a constitutional monarchy. The monarch is the head of state, and has a
predominantly ceremonial role, with duties that include the formal
appointment of the prime minister, accepting the resignations of prime
ministers before elections, and opening Parliament each year. The monarch
also meets the prime minister weekly to discuss current issues and receives
and entertains foreign heads of state.

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

The UK government is a parliamentary democracy; elections are held at

least every five years, and all citizens over the age of eighteen can vote.
Generally, the political party that wins the most seats in Parliament leads
the government.

PRIME MINISTER The prime minister is the head of government in the

United Kingdom. He or she appoints a cabinet of up to twenty-one
ministers and together they conduct the business of the nation. The cabinet
includes the chancellor of the exchequer—the minister who presents the
annual budget on the country’s finances—and ministers representing the
government departments in charge of home affairs, foreign affairs,
education, and health, among others.

The prime minister is typically the leader of the political party that holds
the largest number of seats in the House of Commons. Those seats are held
by elected officials, and elections must be held no more than five years
apart. In 2010, David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, became
prime minister through 2015, when elections would next be held.
PARLIAMENT The United Kingdom has a bicameral, or two-house,
parliamentary system made up of the House of Lords and the House of
Commons.

The House of Commons, or lower house, has 650 elected Members of

Parliament (MPs) representing constituencies—533 in England, forty in
Wales, fifty-nine in Scotland, and eighteen in Northern Ireland. Each
constituency has approximately 50,000 to 80,000 voters. The members
debate and pass bills before sending the legislation to the House of Lords.

Proceedings in the House of Commons are chaired by the Speaker, who

recognizes MPs in turn and keeps order in the sometimes unruly debates.
The prime minister has to face Parliament each week to face questions on
the running of the country. Parliamentary debates are televised, reported on
the radio, and recorded verbatim. Parliamentary committees are formed to
investigate policies, with members of different political parties taking part.
The Public Accounts Committee, for example, questions the government’s
spending policies.

The House of Lords, or the upper house, debates those bills that have
passed the House of Commons, and its role is generally to give assent to
their passage. Debate is more leisurely and gentlemanly than in the House
of Commons. The number of members, or peers, is not fixed; in October
2014 the House of Lords had 789. The House of Lords has not historically
been a representative body and consists of the Lords Spiritual (the two
archbishops and other bishops of the Anglican Church), the Law Lords
(those at the head of the legal system), and the Lords Temporal (those
appointed based on outstanding deeds, especially in public life, and with a
noble or aristocratic background). Once bills have passed through both the
House of Commons and the House of Lords, the monarch gives Royal
Assent to them before they become law.

image

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announces her plan for

government to the Scottish Parliament in 2014 in Edinburgh.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
In 1999 a significant amount of governing power was transferred from the
central government in Westminster to the different regions of the United
Kingdom. Called devolution, this decentralization of government was
implemented by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government to placate
increasing nationalist sentiments, especially in Scotland, and to enable each
region to deal with specific needs and circumstances. However, the UK
government retains control over foreign policy, defense, and economic and
monetary systems, among others.

Scotland now has its own parliament of 129 members, called members of
the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), in Edinburgh. It can pass laws on
education, health, agriculture, transportation, and justice matters, as well as
on income tax. Its policies include free long-term personal care for the
elderly and no tuition fees for students in higher education.

Wales has its own National Assembly in Cardiff with sixty elected
members. Prior to 2006, the Welsh assembly did not have the law-making
or taxing powers that the Scottish Parliament had. The Government of
Wales Act 2006 sought to remedy that, conferring to the Assembly certain
legislative powers. Further empowerment was granted following a
referendum in 2011, and the process appears to be ongoing. Some
initiatives that differ from Westminster include free bus travel for senior
citizens, extended support for the homeless, and free medical prescriptions
for those under twenty-five years of age.

POLITICAL PARTIES

While there have always been several political parties represented in

Parliament, since World War II the government of Britain has been split
between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. The Conservative
Party is committed to encouraging business through lower direct taxes,
controlling inflation by limiting government spending, and bringing private
enterprise to state-run utilities and infrastructure. By contrast, the Labour
Party has historically held more socialist values, championing workers’
rights, investing to generate employment, and investing heavily in public
services.
The Liberal Democratic Party, the third main political party, occupies the
central political ground between the Conservative and Labour parties. The
Green Party, formerly the Ecology Party, enjoys small but growing support
for its environmental policies.

image

United Kingdom Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage (R), leads

demonstrators outside the House of Commons in London in a 2014 lobby
against EU arrest warrant policies.

REGIONAL POLITICS

WALES Plaid Cymru (PLY-d KUM-ee), the Welsh nationalist party, was
founded in 1925 and became active in the 1970s. It has helped Wales to
gain its own television and radio channels, to reintroduce the Welsh
language into schools in the 1970s, to post bilingual Welsh and English
road signs and government publications, and to demand devolution and the
creation of the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff.

SCOTLAND The Scottish National Party also championed Scottish

devolution from England and was the official opposition in the first
Scottish parliament in Edinburgh. The Scottish National Party and Plaid
Cymru want their countries to become independent national members of
the European Union.

THE LEGAL SYSTEM

Britain has an uncodified constitution—there is no single document. It

relies on a large body of precedent cases, or “common law,” that has been
built up since the eleventh century. In addition, there is legislation passed
by Parliament, known as equity law, and law passed by the European
Community, which in many cases takes precedence over British domestic
law. There are three divisions to the legal system in the United Kingdom:
that of England and Wales, that of Scotland, and that of Northern Ireland.
In England and Wales, less serious criminal cases are tried first in
magistrates’ or local courts. Some large cities also have paid full-time
stipendiary magistrates, who sit alone and decide cases. More serious cases
are referred to the crown courts. There are ninety-three of these in England
and Wales, each presided over by a judge with a jury of twelve citizens to
assess guilt and pass sentences. The Central Criminal Court in London is
the ultimate criminal court, while the Royal Courts of Justice is the ultimate
civil court. Legal aid, paid for by public funds, is available for victims of
crimes and for criminal defendants but is not available for civil cases. The
Home Secretary has overall responsibility for the criminal justice system.
Northern Ireland’s court system is similar to that of England and Wales.

image

A British police officer stands watch outside the House of Parliament in

London.

In Scotland, most minor criminal cases are tried informally in police courts
in the towns and in magistrates’ courts in the countryside. More serious
criminal cases are tried in the sheriff courts, where the sheriff sits alone for
minor cases and with a jury for more serious cases.

SCOTLAND CONSIDERS INDEPENDENCE

Should Scotland be an independent country? More than four million Scots

answered that question when they voted in the 2014 Scottish Independence
Referendum. The Kingdom of Scotland was an independent country many
centuries ago, but has been joined with Great Britain in one way or
another, on and off, since 1603, and without a break since 1707.

Nevertheless, in the twentieth century, many Scots wondered if the time had
come again for Scotland to be its own nation, politically free of any bonds
to England and its United Kingdom. After all, Ireland had left the United
Kingdom in 1922 and by 1948 had established itself fully as the
independent country it is today. (Ireland’s northern counties, called
Northern Ireland, remain part of the UK) If Ireland could go it alone, why
not Scotland?
In 2007, the Scottish National Party, headed by Scottish First Minister Alex
Salmond, opened a “National Conversation” on the topic of independence
that eventually led to the referendum on September 18, 2014. The British
government announced it would abide by whatever the Scottish people
decided, but hoped that Scotland would remain as part of the United
Kingdom. People on both sides of the issue formed campaign groups—“Yes
Scotland” (supporters pictured here) was for independence, and “Better
Together” was opposed. As in any important democratic election, this one
spawned billboards, television commercials, and heated debates in the
months leading up to the vote.

image

Although the question asked of voters was a simple one, requiring only a
“yes” or “no” answer, it was a deeply emotional and complex issue. A win
for the affirmative would create many complicated problems in the
disentangling of Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom—especially
in terms of defense and the economy. Such a move would require profound
changes in how an independent Scotland would provide for its citizens and
how it would interact with the rest of the world. Nevertheless, voters who
favored independence did so out of a sense of patriotism and the conviction
that only the Scots themselves should determine their country’s policies and
future. Those who opposed independence believed they were better off as
part of a larger, stronger political entity.

In the end, Scotland voted to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Out of
an electorate of 4,283,392 Scottish voters, 44.7 percent voted yes and 55.3
percent voted no, with an impressive 84.6 percent turning out to have their
say.

Whether there will ever be another such vote remains to be seen, but most
observers agree that it’s unlikely anytime soon. However, in accordance
with the Scotland Act 2012, from which the referendum resulted, certain
powers were to be passed, or devolved, from the British government to the
Scottish Parliament. In other words, Scotland came out of this process with
more political power in the UK.
INTERNET LINKS

www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/scottish-independence-
referendum

This page on the official UK government website explains the Scottish

independence referendum and its results.

www.parliament.uk

The official website of the UK Parliament has government news and

information as well as an excellent “Education” section.

www.scottish.parliament.uk

The site of the Scottish Parliament explains how the government works, but
has much more as well.

wales.gov.uk

The site of the Welsh government covers a wide range of topics.

A busy Amazon warehouse in England is evidence of an economy on the rise.
 4 ECONOMY
With its mountainous landscape and many sandy beaches, Wales attracts a
large number of tourists. Cardiff is the most popular destination for visitors to
Wales, with 14.6 million visitors in 2009. Scotland is also a popular tourist
destination, not only for its scenic beauty and historic sites, but also for golf—
the country has 550 golf courses!

T HE ECONOMY OF GREAT BRITAIN is

usually discussed in terms of the entire United
Kingdom. Although each of the four countries
has its own economic situation, the UK is considered
one economy—the sixth-largest national economy in
the world and the third-largest in Europe, as
measured by gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is
a statistic that economists use to measure a country’s
economic well-being. Typically, the higher a
country’s GDP number, the better off that nation and
its people tend to be.
 This Aston Martin is displayed as part of the company’s 100th anniversary
celebration in 2013 in Gaydon, England.

As the economy recovers, shoppers return to the stores, like these women in
London.

As a member of the EU, the UK benefits from a large market for

manufactured and agricultural goods. Together with the United States,
Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and Russia, the UK is one of the
world’s eight leading industrial nations (G8).
The UK entered the twenty-first century in strong economic condition,
following a long period of sustained economic growth, low inflation, low
interest rates, and high employment. Then the global economic crisis hit in
2008, and the economy went into a nosedive, or to be more precise, a
recession. A recession is defined as “a period of reduced economic
activity,” which sounds mild, but in reality the 2008–2009 recession caused
tremendous hardship for many people. During that time, the UK economy
shrank by 7.2 percent. Investors lost money and many people lost jobs. In
one year, unemployment rose from 5.2 percent in 2008 to 7.6 percent in
2009.
Since then, British leaders have instituted measures to improve the
situation, but recovery has been slow. In 2013, the unemployment rate was
7.2 percent, but the economy grew by 1.99 percent, its strongest rate since
2007, and growth continued through 2014.

MANUFACTURING
HEAVY INDUSTRY Britain’s heavy manufacturing industry originally
developed close to sources of power. For example, heavy engineering, steel
production, manufacturing for the oil industry, shipbuilding, and ship repair
facilities developed near the Northumberland and Durham coalfields. In
nearby Teeside, a chemical industry developed to turn coal by-products,
chemicals from the Tees salt field, and oil refinery by-products into paints,
fertilizers, explosives, plastics, and textiles. Steel production boomed in
South Wales and Sheffield, areas with adjacent coalfields.
However, the UK’s industry sector has been shrinking as the services
sector grows. In 1948, British industry (including manufacturing, oil and
gas extraction, and utilities) accounted for 41 percent of the British
economy. By 2013, it was just 14 percent. About 2.6 million people are
directly employed in manufacturing, with many more in related supply
chains, services, and transportation industries.

image
 Aston Martin employees check nearly finished cars in the factory.

AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY Automobiles are a large source of

manufactured exports. The UK is best known for premium and sports car
brands including Aston Martin, Bentley, Daimler, Jaguar, Lagonda, Land
Rover, Lotus, McLaren, MG, Mini, Morgan—and Rolls-Royce, which is
also the world’s second-largest aircraft engine maker.

OTHER SECTORS Britain’s aerospace sector is one of the world’s

largest, employing around 113,000 people and many more indirectly. The
construction sector employed about 2.2 million in 2009, and supported
194,000 construction firms. The island’s largest construction project is
Crossrail, a 73-mile (118-km) railway, with 26 miles (42 km) of new
tunnels, running east to west through London and into the surrounding
countryside, with a branch to Heathrow Airport. It is due to open in 2018.
Pharmaceuticals are another large industry, with the British companies
GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca at the helm. Creative industries, such as
the arts, design, publishing, advertising, software, toys and games, are other
important sectors. Britain’s fashion industry, for example, contributed £26
billion ($40.85 billion) to the UK economy in 2014.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Britain was the world’s first industrialized country, the place where
the Industrial Revolution first began. As the population grew, its
demand for clothes, goods, and houses increased as well. New
scientific discoveries and inventions led to a radical change in
manufacturing methods that is now called the Industrial Revolution.
Instead of doing handwork at home, workers at machines in factories
produced large numbers of goods, and Britain became “the workshop
of the world.”
The revolution started in the textile industry. James Hargreaves’
spinning jenny of the 1760s spun thread on multiple spinning wheels;
Richard Arkwright’s water frame further refined spinning and
 harnessed water power successfully while Samuel Crompton’s mule-
jenny combined the two. Edmund Cartwright invented a power loom
in 1785 that used animal power at first and steam power later.

image

“Coalbookdale by Night” by Philip James de Loutherbourg, 1801, shows

industrial activity.

Abraham Darby’s invention of the coke-smelting process in

Coalbrookdale in 1709 enabled Britain to use its large natural
deposits of iron, while Henry Cort invented a “puddling” process for
making wrought or malleable iron, as opposed to cast iron. He also
invented a rolling mill. Darby’s grandson built the first iron bridge
across the Severn at Ironbridge, which opened in 1779. In the 1780s,
the first iron ship was built, as were cast-iron pipes for city water
systems.
The coal industry also benefited from scientific inventions. In the
early 1700s, a steam pump helped to drain pits. This was refined by
James Watt into the steam engine in 1769. Steam power was used for
draining and hauling in the coal industry, and further improvements
in propping, lighting, and ventilation developed during the nineteenth
century. The steam engine was adopted by other manufacturing
industries and formed the basis of Stephenson’s Rocket, the first steam
locomotive, in 1829 that triggered the mid-nineteenth-century railway
boom. Engineering and machine tool industries also developed.
The growth of new industrial towns such as Manchester, with their
own merchant classes, led to major social change and growing
political demands. Working conditions in factories and coal pits were
dangerous and highly exploitative but gradually improved during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

THE SERVICES SECTOR

In 2014, 77.8 percent of Britain’s labor force worked in the services sector.
This category includes education, health, and social services; financial and
business services; tourism, hotels, and restaurants; transport, storage, and
communications; and the wholesale and retail trades.
The National Health Service, the main provider of health care in Britain,
is publicly funded, and is the largest employer in Europe, with a workforce
of around 1.7 million. The NHS operates independently in each of the four
countries of the UK, with the NHS in England being the largest of the four
parts. Its budget in 2013/14 was £110 billion ($173.7 billion).
Medical systems and pharmaceuticals are other important businesses in
this sector. Britain supplies a quarter of the world market’s single-use
disposable products. In addition, business services, insurance, marketing
and advertising, market research, conference and exhibition organization,
and management consultancy are all growth areas.

FINANCE AND BANKING

Great Britain is a leading international financial services center, employing
two million people and hosting some five hundred foreign banks. The
London Stock Exchange is a major trading center—Eurobonds, stocks, and
funds are traded in London and Manchester. The Bank of England is the
government’s banker and prints bank notes.

CURRENCY Although the UK is a part of the European Union, it is not a

member of the Eurozone, the economic and monetary union of the EU.
That’s because the UK chose not to adopt the euro as its national currency,
and instead continues to use the pound sterling, its traditional currency. The
euro was introduced as a new single currency system for Europe in 2002,
replacing the individual currencies used by most European countries, such
as the French franc.

image

The London Stock Exchange is an important player in global economy.

AGRICULTURE
Seventy-one percent of Britain’s land area is used for agriculture, with 12
percent woodlands. British agriculture provides about 60 percent of the
public’s food needs, but contributes a mere 0.7 percent to the UK’s GDP,
and is therefore not a major economic sector. About two thirds of
production is devoted to livestock, and one-third to crops. Only 1.4 percent
of the workforce is employed in farming.
Wheat is the most widely grown crop; other important crops include
barley, with its by-product malt that is used in the production of beer and
whiskey, and oilseed rape, used for making vegetable oil. Other crops
include sugar beets and potatoes.
Britain has 2.3 million dairy cows, which produce about 4 billion
gallons (14 billion liters) of milk per year. Half of this milk is processed
into cheese and other products. Pigs and sheep are widely farmed; the
United Kingdom is the one of the largest wool producers in the world.
Since the 1990s there has been a growing trend toward organic farming,
which uses less intensive methods and no artificial fertilizers or pesticides.

image

Sheep graze on a farm in the Peak District.

INTERNET LINKS
www.economywatch.com/world_economy/united-kingdom
Economy Watch, “The Economy of the UK, GB, British Isles (or
Whatever You Want to Call It!),” is a relatively easy-to-understand
overview of the UK economy with a large graphic for easy illustration.

www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2014/apr/24/uk-
economy-seven-things-need-to-know-ons-g7
The Guardian article, “Seven things you need to know about the UK
economy,” is a short and direct overview of the subject.
www.ukagriculture.com
UKAgriculture is the top agriculture, food, and farming resource.
London is notorious for its traffic, which adds to the city’s air pollution problem.
 5 ENVIRONMENT
Great Britain was once covered in woodland, but farming and the need for
timber almost wiped out the island’s forests. Today about 12 percent of
Britain’s land is wooded, and the area is increasing. In 1919, only 5 percent of
the land was wooded, and a century later the recovery is still in progress.
Other European countries average from 25 to 37 percent of their area as
woodland.

B EING A MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN

Union, the United Kingdom is expected to
meet the environmental standards that the EU
sets for all its member states. Britain’s environmental
concerns are similar to those faced by most
industrialized countries, and the government is
actively involved in cleaning up problem areas and
promoting a healthier, cleaner land. The main
agencies responsible for environmental protection in
Great Britain are the Department for the
Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the
Environment Agency, and the Scottish
Environmental Protection Agency, which all work
closely together.
AIR POLLUTION
Air pollution causes cancer and leads to some twenty-nine thousand
premature deaths in the UK each year. It is the number one environmental
killer not only in Britain but throughout the EU. Air quality in Wales and
Scotland, while not perfect, tends to be better than in England.

To reduce both traffic and air pollution, children often travel to school via walking
bus, in which they wear reflective vests and stay behind their “driver.”

Motor vehicles are the greatest source of nitrogen dioxide (NO2)

emissions in Britain. In 2014, the European Commission, the executive
body of the European Union, launched legal proceedings against the UK for
failing to reduce excessive levels of NO2 air pollution from traffic. This
sort of air pollution causes major respiratory problems and is a particular
problem in the Greater London area, as well as in other sections of England.
London has the highest levels of NO2 of any European capital city. In 1999,
London set a target clean air standard, but now says it won’t be able to
reach that standard until 2025 at the earliest.
 Other sources of pollution include power stations, which produce 70
percent of Britain’s sulphur dioxide emissions—responsible for acid rain—
and large landfills, which contribute methane. In 2008, the UK was the
world’s ninth greatest producer of human-made carbon emissions,
generated from fossil fuels; it produced around 1.8 percent of the total
worldwide. Carbon emissions contribute to global warming.

WATER POLLUTION
As with air quality, the EU issues directives on member states’ water
quality. Britain has made great progress in cleaning up its inland and coastal
waterways to meet those standards. Rivers and lakes, groundwater, and
beaches can be polluted by agricultural and urban sources, discharges of
sewage effluent, storm water overflows, and river-borne microorganisms—
all of which can have a significant impact on human health.

THE LONDON CONGESTION CHARGE

In February 2003 the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, introduced
a congestion charge of £5 ($9) a day on all vehicles entering an area
of central London between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on weekdays. The
intention of the Congestion Zone was to reduce the number of motor
vehicles in the area and relieve traffic congestion. A secondary effect,
officials hoped, would be a reduction in air pollution.
By 2014, the congestion charge had risen to £11.50 ($18) a day. It
has been difficult to assess the law’s results, because it’s impossible to
tease apart the different direct causes and their effects. In 2013, a ten-
year study of the impact of the Congestion Charge concluded that, in
general, the policy had resulted in fewer cars, less pollution, and a
positive impact on health.
 The island’s drinking water is of the highest quality, with England,
Wales, and Scotland all reporting close to 100 percent compliance with the
strict UK and EU standards in 2013–2014. While the region’s beaches are
in generally good condition, the UK government reports that only 27
percent of England’s water bodies are classified as being of “good status”
and is working to meet the objectives of the EU’s Water Framework
Directive.

ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Britain’s energy is derived predominantly from fossil fuels. Coal, oil, and
natural gas are all used in power stations to produce electricity. Rigorous
emissions standards and regulations are enforced, in compliance with
national and EU laws and international guidelines.
Britain’s nuclear power industry supplies around 20 percent of the
country’s electricity, but its existing nuclear power plants are reaching the
ends of their productive lives. In October 2014, EU authorities approved a
plan for a new nuclear power station in southwest England, Britain’s first
new plant since the mid-1990s. To meet climate change goals, the UK
government is encouraging the construction of nuclear power stations as
well as renewable energy installations such as giant offshore wind farms
and projects using tidal power. Renewable energy provided 11.3 percent of
Britain’s energy output in 2012.

London is transforming its traditional telephone booths into solar-powered

charging stations.

CLIMATE CHANGE
Britain is a major supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement among
industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and is
implementing measures to reduce further damage to the ozone layer and
thus slow down global warming. The country is also a key member of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific organization under
the auspices of the United Nations.
Weather scientists predict that global warming will cause an increase of
extreme weather events in Great Britain. They also expect the island to have
wetter, milder winters, on average, and hotter, drier summers.
Already, Britain has recently seen highly variable weather, with a
drought in early 2012 and the wettest winter for England and Wales in 250
years between 2013 and 2014, which led to widespread flooding. Up to 10
percent of Britain’s total land area, inhabited by six million people, is a
flood plain, and flooding has become more frequent. At the current rate of
climate change, London’s flood defenses will need to be redesigned or
replaced by 2030. In addition, coastal erosion threatens significant parts of
the eastern coasts.

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION
A system of national parks, conservation areas, places of outstanding
natural beauty, and green belts near cities ensure a balance between the
immediate needs of Britain’s people and the protection of wildlife and
natural habitats. Changing agricultural practices have reduced the number
of hedgerows in some areas, while nitrate fertilizers increase crop yield at
the expense of birds and small mammals. Lowland heaths, traditional
grasslands, and salt marshes are all declining.
There is a mixed picture of decline and recovery for Britain’s wildlife.
Among the top ten endangered animals in the British Isles are the Scottish
wildcat—Britain’s last large mammal predator—the cuckoo, the turtledove
and the beloved and very British red squirrel and hedgehog.
Between 10 and 20 percent of indigenous species of freshwater fish,
nonmarine reptiles and amphibians, and seed plants are endangered.
Approximately 220 different species of birds nest in Britain, of which 139
species are in decline.
In parts of Great Britain, hedgehogs are in such great danger from motor
vehicles that special tunnels are created to help them cross the road safely.

A TALE OF TWO ROBINS (AND A FRUIT)

England’s beloved red robin, also called robin redbreast, is a small
gray-brown bird with a bright orange breast. Though it is often called
an English robin, it’s actually a European robin, or Erithacus
rubecula. Orinthologists, or bird experts, classify this robin as a
member of the bird family called Old World flycatcher.
 European Robin

Interestingly, the bird acquired the name “redbreast” despite its

orange coloring because the word orange did not come into use until
the sixteenth century. That’s when the fruit was first introduced to
Europe from Asia. The color was named after the fruit and the first
known recorded use of the English word orange as a color dates to
1512. By that time, however, the name of the redbreast bird was long
established. The redbreast picked up the additional name robin in the
fifteenth century; Robin was already a human name at the time.
The American robin is a completely different bird. The Turdus
migratorius is a migratory songbird of the thrush family. It is one of
the most common of North American birds.
When British people settled in America, they found that the
English robin did not exist on the continent. However, a slightly larger
thrush with a reddish breast was common, and they called it a robin
instead. The term robin for the American species has been recorded
since at least 1703. The American robin is not found outside of North
America, and is therefore not seen in England.
 American Robin

Over 70 percent of Britain’s fish stocks are either fully or over-

exploited. A 2010 study found that in England and Wales, the amount of
fish being caught in the nineteenth century was four times greater than
current levels. Since 1889, stocks of halibut, turbot, haddock, and plaice
have been depleted by 94 percent; cod has fallen by 87 per cent. Fish stocks
are regulated by internationally agreed fishing quotas, and bad fishing
practices such as the use of drift nets, which catch dolphins and other sea
mammals unintentionally, have been stopped. Britain is a leading member
of the International Whaling Commission and is strongly opposed to any
kind of whaling.
While the anti-whaling laws in Great Britain are secure, this protestor outside of
the Norwegian embassy in London, is trying to ensure the whales’ safety
elsewhere.

INTERNET LINKS
www.forestry.gov.uk
The Forestry Commissions of England, Scotland, and Wales have
helpful websites.

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/environment-agency
This government site covers a broad range of environmental topics.

www.doncaster.gov.uk/airq/focus_on/acid_rain.asp
Fresh Air addresses a variety of air pollution topics relevant to Great
Britain.

www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-water-quality
This government page explains how the UK is addressing water
pollution issues.
www.sepa.org.uk
The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency works to protect and
improve Scotland’s air, land, and water.
Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, and her husband Prince Charles, the Prince of
Wales, wave to the public on a visit to Cornwall.
 6 THE BRITISH
Just as there is a census of the British people, England holds an annual
census of its swans. By tradition, the Queen owns all of the mute swans on the
River Thames. Each year, the swans are counted in a “swan upping,” an event
which dates to the twelfth century. They are then examined and banded by the
royal swan warden.

I N THE UNITED KINGDOM’S 2011 census, a

population survey taken every ten years, there was
no listing for people to check for Cornish as their
national identity. (Cornwall is a peninsula in the
southwesternmost part of England, the traditional
homeland of the Cornish people, and one of the
“Celtic nations”—a territory where a distinct Celtic
cultural identity remains.) This was despite the fact
that thousands of the people living in Cornwall had
manually written “Cornish” on the 2001 census form,
rather than check the boxes for “British” or
“English.”
In advance of the new census, Cornish activists worked to inform residents
that they could identify themselves as Cornish by writing it in the national
identity, ethnicity, and main language sections. Additionally, people could
record “Cornwall” as their country of birth. In 2014, the UK government
announced that it would recognize Cornish as a national minority.
This story illustrates how people in Britain generally consider
themselves Welsh, Scottish, Irish, English, West Indian, or Bangladeshi
rather than British. Local or regional loyalties often supersede national
ones. The population is diverse, especially in the urban areas of Greater
London and the West Midlands. Some 8 million people in Britain, or
roughly 13 percent of the country’s population, belong to a minority ethnic
group.

THE EARLIEST SETTLERS

Britain, like the United States, has a long and proud history of immigration.
Some of the people living in Cornwall, Wales, and western Scotland can
trace their ancestry back to the Celtic tribes that populated these areas more
than ten centuries ago.
Angles, Saxons, and Vikings all left their mark in a Celto-Roman gene
pool, augmented by the invading Normans in 1066. Migrations throughout
the European continent over the centuries also added to the British mixture.
The migrants included weavers from Flanders, Huguenots (Protestants) who
were expelled from France by Louis XIV, refugees fleeing from continental
wars during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and French nobles
fleeing the extremes of the French Revolution in the eighteenth century.
 A tiny citizen runs up a hill in the English countryside.

IMMIGRANTS
In the 2011 census, 7.5 million people, or 11.9 percent of the total
population, reported being foreign born. The largest number came from
India, a former British colony, followed by Poland, making Poles the third-
largest foreign-born community after the Irish and Indian.
Britain’s Jewish community dates to the eleventh century. Many major
merchant banks and stockbrokerage houses were founded by Jewish
families. Jews came from Central Europe, Hungary, Poland, and Russia in
the nineteenth century, and from Nazi Germany in the twentieth century.
After World War II, Britain enticed laborers from its colonies to help in
the postwar reconstruction at home. The S.S. Empire Windrush carried the
first skilled and semiskilled West Indian workers in 1948. Immigration from
the Caribbean colonies increased from 11,000 in 1954 to 34,000 in 1962,
after the United States introduced immigration controls in the early 1950s.
The majority of Britain’s West Indian population settled in Greater
London. Thousands of South Asian immigrants from India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh arrived in the 1950s, settling in Greater London and in
manufacturing towns with acute labor shortages. Ugandan president Idi
Amin’s expulsion of Asians in 1972 drove 27,000 highly trained and
talented people of Pakistani descent to Britain.
Approximately 430,000 Chinese, mainly from Hong Kong, have also
set up small businesses and entered professions in Britain. London has a
Chinatown, and most towns throughout England now have Chinese takeout
restaurants. Vietnamese people fleeing their Communist government were
initially accepted in the early 1980s, but immigration controls have since
tightened. Immigration increased in the 1990s from Eastern Europe and the
Balkans, especially during the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. Wherever
there is conflict in the world, many of those who are able to leave choose to
go to Britain.

A police officer walks past a flag-draped barrier at the Port of Dover in Dover,
England, in 2014. Demonstrators there called for greater security to protect truck
drivers from migrants trying to enter Britain illegally from France,
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND
INTEGRATION
There are strict laws regarding employment and civil equality in Britain. It
is illegal to advertise job vacancies on the basis of color, creed, or sex, and
the Commission for Racial Equality can take employers to court for
discriminatory practices. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act of 2000
requires that major public organizations promote racial equality. In 2010,
twenty-seven out of 650 members of Parliament came from ethnic
minorities.

Demonstrators in Trafalgar Square in London rally against incitement and

Islamophobia.

Intolerance of immigrants and support for extremist right-wing

organizations has been strongest in the poorer inner-city areas. Immigration
and customs officials and police officers seem to detain a disproportionate
number of people of color for questioning, and a few notorious civil cases
have shown alarming prejudice among some police forces. Tensions and
unrest have occasionally boiled over.
 Perhaps the most noticeable challenge to civil equality in Britain today
is not one of race or ethnicity but of religion and culture. So-called
“Islamophobia,” or fear of Muslims, is a social phenomenon that has grown
out of tensions between the West and Islamic nations in recent years. In
Britain, violence and terror attacks by Muslim extremists have exacerbated
the problem, while law-abiding Muslims bear the brunt of discrimination
and harassment.

MALE PRIMOGENITURE
The rule of male primogeniture is an ancient custom that values men
over women. This rule governs the inheritance of class position and
family estates among the British aristocracy. Of the approximately
one thousand aristocratic titles in Great Britain, only about ninety
can be passed on to daughters. All others can be passed only to sons.
If a nobleman has sons, the inheritance goes to the firstborn. If the
man has daughters, but no son, he cannot pass his title and estate on
to a daughter. He must find a male relative, even a distant one, to
whom he can pass the title or it will essentially be put on hold, or even
terminated.
Male primogeniture conflicts with modern thinking, so some
wonder why it remains in an otherwise progressive nation. In fact, the
royal succession to the throne was always passed according to the
principle of male primogeniture, but in 2013, the rule was altered to
allow a firstborn female to succeed to the throne. The old system
remains, however, for the aristocracy. After all, if the concept of
equality were to be applied to the inheritance of class privilege, it
could highlight the unfairness of the entire system. Aristocracy in
itself is a concept based on the inequality between the classes.
Therefore, some aristocrats believe it’s better to leave well enough
alone.
CLASS DIVISIONS
Distinctions of accent, word usage, topics of conversation, upbringing, table
manners, dress, general deportment, meal times, and preferences for food,
drink, and entertainment—all these are clues by which one British person
might size up another’s class and place in society.
At the top of the ladder, second only to the monarchy, is the aristocracy.
Members have dwindling economic power but enjoy tremendous vestigial
influence and respect. The titled aristocracy is made up of dukes,
marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons. All pass their positions, called
peerage, to their children when they die, but for the most part, the peerage is
passed almost exclusively to male offspring.
 The boys of Eton College take part in the morning assembly. The prestigious
school was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI,

A paternalistic outlook, a sense of guardianship of property, and a duty

to perform public service are widespread attributes of this class. Twice a
year, life peers are created by the monarch from all walks of life, in
recognition of their contribution to their field or profession. This privilege
enables the holder to a seat in the House of Lords, but those titles cannot be
passed on to the next generation.
Among the middle classes, there are numerous subtle gradations. The
upper middle classes may earn money in the professions, but many
members of this class have inherited wealth as well. The higher echelons of
political and economic power and all walks of public life are still dominated
by those who attended one of Britain’s exclusive schools—Eton in
particular—and either Oxford or Cambridge University. Parents of all social
classes would like to be able to provide such educational advantages for
their own children.
However, old divisions and categories are being eroded, and new ones
are taking their place. Inheritance taxes, high labor costs, and falling
markets for agricultural products have hit members of the aristocracy hard.
Sports stars, celebrities, and other high-profile personalities, whose wealth
and fame far outreach that of most aristocrats, are increasingly seen as the
top tier of society. At the other end of the spectrum, government initiatives
have helped to reduce poverty, but the social divisions between the richest
and the poorest remain enormous.

INTERNET LINKS
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/26/survival-of-cornish-
identity-cornwall-separate-place
“Cornish identity: why Cornwall has always been a separate place” is a
fascinating 2014 article from The Guardian.

www.debretts.com/people/essential-guide-peerage
Debrett’s is an excellent source for information about British society
and social etiquette. The sections on peerage and titles explain
aristocratic hierarchies.

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/index.html
The Office for National Statistics Census 2011 is a section on Britain’s
most recent census.
A piper leades a bride and groom in a traditional wedding procession in
Applecross in the Highlands of Scotland.
 7 LIFESTYLE
In 2014, the name Muhammad (with its various spellings) topped the charts as
the most popular boys’ name for newborn British babies, surpassing the
previous favorites Oliver and Jack. This is an indication of the impact of a
growing Muslim population on British society. Among girls’ names, the Arabic
name Nur was number twenty-nine, in its first showing on the Top 100 list.

A CCORDING TO THE 2014 PROSPERITY

Index, issued annually by the London-based
Legatum Institute, Great Britain was the
thirteenth happiest place on Earth. Naturally,
happiness can’t be quantified like that, but by
comparing statistics about a country’s wealth and
well-being, it’s possible to come up with a ranking of
prosperity, which is equated with a population’s
overall happiness. While number thirteen is certainly
not number one (that honor belonged to Norway), it’s
not bad, out of a pool of 142. In fact, Britain placed
higher than most of its European neighbors. In
general, the British lifestyle is good.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE

In England and Wales, marriage is legal at age sixteen, but requires parental
permission for people under eighteen. In Scotland, the minimum age is also
sixteen, but requires no parental permission. Same-sex marriage is legal in
England, Scotland, and Wales following legislation passed in 2013 and
2014.
Most children live in two-parent families, but the number of single-
parent families is growing. In 2011, 26 percent of families with children
were headed by a single parent, of which 92 percent were women. One of
the factors affecting that situation is the divorce rate, which is one of the
highest in Europe, with 2.8 divorces for every one thousand people.
Teen pregnancy is also a factor, and a concern, with Britain having the
highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe. The good news, however, is that the
teen pregnancy rate has fallen almost 10 percent since 1969. In 2012, about
three of every one hundred girls ages fifteen to seventeen became pregnant
in England, Wales, and Scotland. Public health officials point to the success
of concerted efforts over the past decade or so to bring the teen pregnancy
rate down, with educational and health programs both in and out of school,
but say more work needs to be done.
 Protesters gather outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on June 3,
2013, in support of same-sex marriage.

CHILDHOOD
In general, the British have small nuclear families. Similar to other
industrialized countries, the birth rate in Britain is declining. Many aspects
of British life are similar to those in other Western countries.
Most babies are born in hospitals or birth centers run by midwives.
Childcare remains predominantly the mother’s concern, but there are also
many men who stay home to take care of the children while their wives
work.

THE ROYAL FAMILY

Perhaps nothing exemplifies Great Britain more than the British royal
family. Although the king or queen’s role is now mostly ceremonial,
the royalty is still considered tremendously important. Members of the
royal family perform many public duties, such as heading charities,
meeting with dignitaries, greeting the public, giving speeches, and
attending state ceremonies.
Elizabeth II became queen in 1952 at the age of twenty-five. On
Sept. 9, 2015, the queen will surpass the record set by her great-great-
grandmother Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901, as the
longest-reigning monarch in British history (sixty-three years, seven
months). Some say Elizabeth II has been the most popular and most
dutiful monarch in a thousand years. However, as the queen becomes
increasingly aged, it is clear the crown must soon pass to her son,
Prince Charles.
Although some in Britain advocate for an end to the monarchy—a
movement called Republicanism—recent polls show that 75 to 80
percent of the public favor keeping it. In fact, most British genuinely
love their royals and many people eagerly follow the latest royal
news. A royal wedding—such as the 2011 wedding of the queen’s
grandson Prince William and Catherine Middleton—is a huge affair.
The birth of their son Prince George in 2013 and subsequent news of
an expected second child in 2015 received a joyous popular response.
Prince George on his first birthday.
 Students rally in Parliament Square to highlight the plight of the UK's poorest
children as supporters on a Save the Children bus passes behind them.

Economic pressures are especially heavy burdens to low-income and

even middle-income families with young children. Preschool childcare is
expensive, and parents who cannot afford it are less likely to be able to
work. The government subsidizes early childhood education and childcare
in various ways, but policymakers are looking for ways to simplify, extend,
and provide more equity in its childcare support programs.
Poverty is the most serious problem facing British children. One recent
study concluded that there are almost 300,000 households in Great Britain
where none of the adults has ever worked. And about 300,000 children have
parents with serious drug problems. Children in families affected by
problems of poverty, drug abuse, violence, and mental illness—problems
that frequently overlap—have reduced chances of success in their own
lives.
Health officials are also concerned about the increasing problem of
childhood obesity in Great Britain, calling the situation a “state of
emergency.” The National Child Measurement Programme measures the
height and weight of around one million school children in England every
year. Between 2012 and 2013, more than one-quarter of those children aged
two to fifteen were found to be either obese or overweight, with slightly
higher numbers for Scottish children, and the figures for Welsh children
being the highest at about one-third.

Queen Elizabeth II visits students at St Mary and St Pancras Church of England

Primary School in London.

EDUCATION
Education is free and compulsory for all children between the ages of five
and eighteen. Schools are divided into primary (ages five–eleven) and
secondary (ages eleven–eighteen) schools, with a national curriculum
having achievement tests at various grade levels. The major exams are the
General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) taken at age sixteen,
(in Scotland, it’s the Scottish Certificate of Education) and the Advanced
(A) Level exam at age seventeen or eighteen. Some schools now offer the
International Baccalaureate qualification instead of A levels.
In addition to state schools, there are privately-run schools (known as
independent or public schools) that charge tuition. In these schools, pupils
benefit from small classes and a competitive system geared toward
university entrance. These schools often have more funds than state schools
for extracurricular activities such as sports, drama, and music. There are
around 2,500 independent schools in the UK, with some 615,000 children
enrolled —about 7 percent of all British children, and 18 percent of students
over age sixteen. Some religious groups also run schools, with an emphasis
on their faith’s values and teachings.
The A Level examinations or their equivalent are needed to enter a
university in Britain. Most undergraduate schools are state-financed, which
helps keep higher education somewhat affordable. The average tuition in
2014 was £9,000 ($14,000) per academic year. The government is trying to
encourage more students to attend university. In 2013, one study reported
that a record high level of 49 percent of students in England was “likely to
go on to higher education,” but some researchers challenge those findings
as misleadingly high. Though the figures are difficult to pin down, it seems
that the majority of UK students do not go on to college, but growing
numbers do.

University students protest against an increase in tuition fees in Newcastle,

England.
HEALTH CARE
Basic health care is provided free of charge by the National Health Service
(NHS), funded with tax revenues by the central government. The service,
with its rising costs and rising expectations, is a constant subject of political
debate, but is nevertheless considered one of Britain’s greatest policy
successes. Primarily funded through the general taxation system, the system
provides health care to every legal resident in the United Kingdom, with
most services free at the point of use.
Today the NHS is challenged by, among other concerns, the growing
proportion of elderly people in the population. The UK government predicts
that by 2051, one-quarter of all citizens will be over sixty-five, and 7
percent will be over the age of eighty-five. Britons worry that the increased
health needs for such a large elderly population will be enormously
expensive and will strain the system.

INTERNET LINKS
www.royal.gov.uk
The official website of the British monarchy is full of news,
information, and images of the royal family.

www.prosperity.com
The Legatum Prosperity Index is explained in more detail on this
website.

www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/overview.aspx
The official site of the National Health Service has an informative
overview.

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education
The UK Department for Education website has news and statistics.
A little girl stands by an ancient Celtic Cross in Wales.
 8 RELIGION
According to the 2011 UK census, the majority of residents identify as
Christian, followed by Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism.
Muslims tend to be younger and the most ethnically diverse. Christians tend to
be older, while Hindus are the most likely not to be born in the United Kingdom.
Twenty-three percent of Britons follow no religion.

G REAT BRITAIN IS OFFICIALLY A

Christian country, but not all belong to the
Anglican Church, nor are they all Christians.
About 60 percent of the English are Christian, and 40
percent belong to the Church of England. Of these,
about three out of ten people attend Sunday services
regularly, but more attend on holidays or in times of
personal need. Many people value their local church
community and the work it does, even if they are not
a part of it.
Times have changed since the days of Henry VIII, when it was mandatory
for all to follow the Christian denomination determined by the monarch.
The religious face of the British population has grown far more diverse in
the last century than it used to be when the main question was, “Are we
Catholic or Protestant?” Today, the UK is a place of many people with
many faiths.
CHRISTIANITY
Many denominations of Christianity are found in Britain, all with their own
followers. England and Scotland each has its own official church, but the
Scottish church is not a state church like England’s. One in five Christians
is aged sixty-five or over.

Westminster Abbey in London was the location of the wedding of Prince William
and Kate Middleton in 2011.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND This is the Anglican Church created by

Henry VIII in 1533 when he (and by extension all of England) broke away
from the Roman Catholic Church. Today the prime minister makes most
senior appointments in the church, in consultation with church leaders. The
monarch is the nominal head of the church, and Parliament has a voice in its
rituals. The monarch’s title is “Defender of the Faith,” but Prince Charles
has said that he would like to change it to “Defender of Faiths” when he
becomes king, to more fully reflect British society in the twenty-first
century.
The Church of England is one of Britain’s major landowners. Rents and
income from land are administered by the Church Commission and are used
to pay clerical salaries and the costs of maintaining its many church
buildings. Extensive renovations, increasingly necessary for many
cathedrals and churches, are generally funded by local or nationwide charity
appeals.
The Church of England is divided into two administrative provinces,
Canterbury and York, each of which has an archbishop. Beneath them are
forty-four dioceses, each with a bishop. These in turn are divided into over
thirteen thousand individual parishes.
The 467 members of the General Synod, the church’s law-making body,
decide overall matters of policy by discussion and voting. For instance, in
1992, the synod voted to approve the ordination of women as priests. Until
2015, however, women were not able to hold the top offices in the church, a
divisive policy that caused much debate among members. In autumn 2014,
the General Synod voted to amend church laws to allow the appointment of
female bishops.
Church of England bishops speak out on matters of social policy;
international and political affairs; marriage and family issues; health,
environmental, and ethical concerns; and many other aspects of life in
England.
 Saint Conan's Kirk in Scotland

THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND As part of the 1707 Act of Union with

England and Wales, Scotland was allowed to keep its own church. The
Church of Scotland, known informally as the Kirk—its Scots language
name—was founded in 1560 by the strict Calvinist John Knox. The church
developed into a staunchly Presbyterian organization and remains
completely separate from the Church of England as well as from the
government. The Scottish Episcopal Church is Scotland’s Anglican church.
The Kirk claims about 400,000 members, which is a mere 7.5 percent of
the population, but in the 2011 census, 32 percent of Scots claimed some
affiliation. The membership is aging, however, which does not bode well
for a robust church membership in the future. In addition, issues relating to
homosexuality, such as the ordination of gay ministers and the acceptance
of gay marriage, have caused great division among the church membership.
The number of people who attend church varies widely by region, and a
majority do not. Traditional Sunday practices, such as non-consumption of
alcohol in pubs and abstaining from fishing and sports, are no longer strictly
observed.

The church of Saint Tudno, built in the twelfth century, is in the north of Wales.

WALES There is an autonomous Anglican church, the Church in Wales,

with six dioceses under a single province, with about 75,000 members. In
2020, the Church in Wales will celebrate its centenary, and has established a
“2020 Vision” program for the years leading up to it.
The bulk of Welsh Christians are Nonconformist or Methodist,
followers of the eighteenth-century evangelist John Wesley. His message of
hard work and thrift appealed to the growing working classes of the time.
OTHER PROTESTANT SECTS The Methodist community in Britain is
not confined to Wales. A total of 450,000 adult members and a community
of 1.3 million is spread across Britain, concentrated predominantly in the
old industrial working-class areas. It is one of what are known as the Free
Churches, those which reject Episcopal rule and hierarchical structures,
concentrating instead on local leadership. The strictest Methodists abstain
from all alcohol.
Other sects include the Baptists and the United Reformed Church, a
melding of the Congregational Church of England and Wales and the
Presbyterian Church of England. The Religious Society of Friends, or
Quakers, is known for its pacifist views. Smaller sects include the
Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian
Scientists, Spiritualists, and the Salvation Army, which is best known for its
brass bands playing carols and anthems in order to raise money for projects
for the poor and destitute.

ROMAN CATHOLICISM There are roughly five million Roman

Catholics in Britain, partly the result of Irish and Polish immigrants, and
about half are active church members. The Cardinal Archbishop of
Westminster is the senior prelate, and the senior lay Catholic is the Duke of
Norfolk. Britain has seven Catholic provinces: four in England, one in
Wales, and two in Scotland, each with an archbishop, and below them are
thirty dioceses and three thousand parishes. There are large Catholic
communities in Liverpool and Glasgow, cities with large Irish immigrant
communities. Elsewhere, local pockets of Catholicism sometimes date back
to the days of persecution in the sixteenth century.
Historically, Catholics have been seen as politically suspect, owing
allegiance to the pope in Rome as opposed to the monarch of England.
There were Catholic plots against Elizabeth I and James I, and Catholic
support for Bonnie Prince Charlie in the eighteenth century. Even in the
twenty-first century, it would not be possible for a monarch or heir to the
throne to marry a Roman Catholic without a major constitutional change.
 The Bristol Cathedral Choir performs traditional Christmas carols in the Cabot
Circus shopping mall.

OTHER RELIGIONS
ISLAM Britain’s approximately 3.3 million Muslims make up the second-
largest religious group after Christianity. It is also the fastest growing
religion, with around 100,000 converts reported in the 2011 census. The
majority of British Muslims are of the Sunni denomination, and the largest
single ethnic group, at 38 percent, are Pakistani immigrants and their
descendents. Other Muslims come from Bangladesh and other South Asian
countries; Arab countries such as Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and
Palestine; and African countries such as Nigeria and Somalia.
 British protesters hold up a banner opposing Islamic dress during a march and
rally in Exeter, Devon.

The integration of Muslims into British culture has not gone smoothly.
Muslims tend to hold very strong conservative views—particularly
regarding marriage, family, and sexuality issues—that are sometimes at
odds with contemporary British society. Radical Islam, while not indicative
of the majority of Muslims, is a problem that is forcing Britain to confront
the conflicts between free speech and tolerance and what many regard as
the inflammatory hate speech preached by a minority of Muslim leaders.
On the other hand, British Muslims complain that they are the targets of
discrimination, attacks, and negative stereotyping.

JUDAISM Britain’s Jewish community is the second largest in Europe,

with more than 263,000 members and 409 synagogues. Most are
Ashkenazim Jews (from Germany and central Europe), with a small number
of Sephardim (from Spain, Portugal, and North Africa). The majority are
Orthodox Jews, and their chief spokesman is the Chief Rabbi, while there
are smaller numbers of Reform Jews, Liberal Jews, and Strictly Orthodox.
Roughly two in three Jewish children attend Jewish denominational
schools.
Most British people find anti-Semitism to be repugnant and
unacceptable in modern society. But the large, fast influx of Muslim
(particularly Arab) immigrants has caused a surge in anti-Jewish incidents
in the twenty-first century, as passions fuelled by the problem of Israel and
the Palestinians play out on the streets of London and other cities.

OTHER GROUPS Chinese communities in London and other big cities

mainly practice Buddhism. There are also Sikhs and Hindus and other
Asian religious groups. However, a growing number of people do not
subscribe to any particular faith and classify themselves as atheist, agnostic,
or humanist.

Central Synagogue, an Orthodox Jewish temple, in Birmingham in the West

Midlands of England

INTERNET LINKS
www.churchofengland.org
The Church of England website explains its beliefs, rituals, and views,
as well as key facts and statistics.

www.churchofscotland.org.uk
The Church of Scotland website explains the church doctrine, laws and
traditions, and news.

www.churchinwales.org.uk
The Church in Wales website covers issues and news relating to this
Anglican Church.

www.isb.org.uk
The site of the Islamic Society of Britain offers information and news
in English.
A refugee from Burundi studies the English language in a school in Kent,
England.
 9 LANGUAGE
Many words are spelled differently in British English and American English.
For example, humour, centre, and plough are British spellings, while humor,
center, and plow are American. In 1829, when the American Noah Webster
published a dictionary of American English, he created new spellings that he
thought made more sense. Other changes came about through usage.

T HE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE third-

most-common native language in the world,
after Mandarin and Spanish, with
approximately 335 million native speakers. However,
it is the most popular second language in the world,
which adds another 505 million speakers. English is
the principal language in the United Kingdom, the
Republic of Ireland, the United States, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas, Jamaica,
Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana. It is also
the official language of several African countries, and
is used widely as a language of commerce throughout
the world. It is one of the six official languages of the
United Nations, and one of the two official languages
of the Olympics.
The pronunciation, usage, vocabulary, and syntax used in different English-
speaking countries vary greatly. Just like any other language, English is
constantly changing and developing. There are new words for new concepts
being added and words falling into disuse or taking different meanings as
circumstances change.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE
When the Romans invaded Britain in 43 CE, the indigenous people spoke a
Celtic language. Under the Romans, Latin was the preferred tongue among
administrators and upper classes, but it did not filter down to the common
people.
English in its oldest form was brought to Britain by invading Germanic
groups from the fifth century onward, who pushed the Celts to the outlying
mountainous areas of Wales and Cornwall. The word English comes from
one of these groups, the Angles, who came from what is now Denmark.

OLD ENGLISH
The language as it was spoken between 450 and 1150 is called Old English.
Four kingdoms existed from the fifth to the eighth centuries—Northumbria,
Mercia, Kent, and West Saxony (Wessex)—each with their own language
variations. By the tenth century, the West Saxon language became the
official language, and most Old English manuscripts were transcribed in
that area of the country. Beowulf, a 3,000-line epic poem, (first lines shown
below) is the greatest surviving example of the literature and language of
this period.

Old English Modern English

Hwæt we Gardena ingear Lo! We spear-armed Danes in days of

dagum, þeod cyninga þrym ge old heard the glory of the tribal kings,
how the princes did courageous deeds.
 frunon huða æþelingas ellen
fremedon.

Old English is barely recognizable as English. Like other Germanic

languages, its nouns had cases and genders. The language was originally
written in a series of straight lines called runes, which were easy to inscribe
on stone or wood. Christian missionaries who arrived in Britain starting in
597 brought the Roman alphabet, which was widely adopted. As
Christianity spread, with Latin used in church services, hundreds of Latin
words crept into the English language. These include bishop, abbot, candle,
and angel. The Viking invaders of the tenth and eleventh centuries added
various Scandinavian or Old Norse words to the language, such as fog, skull
(skulle = “head”), egg, and sky (“cloud”).
The Norman invasion in 1066 had a huge impact on the English
language, bringing thousands of French terms into everyday use. For nearly
150 years, the new nobility and most of the church hierarchy were French-
speaking Normans. Many of the French words were additions, rather than
replacements, so that English now, for example, has not only chicken and
cow but the French-derived poultry and beef. These additions account for
the rich vocabulary of today’s English.
 The fourteenth-century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer is pictured on a horse in
the Ellesmere manuscript of his Canterbury Tales.

MIDDLE ENGLISH
The language evolved to a form called Middle English between
approximately 1150 and 1500. Beginning in the late fourteenth century,
English—rather than the previously preferred French—was taught in
schools and used in law courts. Prior to that, English had been thought too
coarse or common a language for important uses. King Henry IV (1399–
1413) was the first king whose primary language was English. By the early
fourteenth century, the dialect of London had become a recognized standard
as exemplified in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The opening lines of The
Canterbury Tales provide an example of what Middle English looked like.
(See next page.)

Modern English (rough

Middle English
translation)

Whan that Aprille with his When April with its sweet-smelling
shoures sote showers
The droghte of Marche hath Has pierced the drought of March
perced to the rote, to the root
And bathed every veyne in swich And bathed every vein in such
licour, liquor (or liquid)
Of which vertu engendred is the By which virtue generates the
flour … flower…

MODERN ENGLISH
In 1450, the language began to undergo a dramatic change in pronunciation
called The Great Vowel Shift. One change was that people stopped
pronouncing the final e on words. For example, the word made had been
pronounced “mahduh.” Spelling was just beginning to be standardized
around this same time, which explains some of the peculiarities of English
spelling, with oddities such as silent letters. At one time, those letters were
pronounced.
By the time William Shakespeare wrote his famous works around the
year 1600, the language had taken a form now called Early Modern
English. From that to today’s English was a progression of just a few
centuries, during which time many more people learned to read, were able
to travel abroad—thus spreading the language far and wide—and finally,
were able access the English language through new technologies.
THE WELSH LANGUAGE (CYMRAEG)
Around 20 percent of the population of Wales can speak Welsh, one of the
Celtic languages, but many more understand it. Road signs and town names
are bilingual in Welsh and English.

A bilingual road sign in Welsh and English.

Welsh is a phonetic language similar to French Breton and the Cornish

language, which died out in the eighteenth century. The letters j, k, q, v, x,
and z do not appear in Welsh. W and i can be both vowel and consonant,
with different sounds for each. Y is used as a vowel, pronounced “uh.” Ch is
a guttural sound, as in the Scottish loch; f is pronounced “v”; ff renders the
English “f” sound; dd is pronounced as “th”; and ll roughly as “thl.” A few
common terms are dydd da (thuhd-dar), meaning “good day”; sutmae (soot-
may), “how are you”; and croeso (kro-wee-so), “welcome.”

GAELIC AND SCOTS

Only about 57,000 people in Scotland speak Scottish Gaelic, and they are
found mostly in the Highlands and Outer Hebrides. Like Welsh, Gaelic is a
Celtic language, brought from Ireland to Scotland during the fifth century.
Unlike Welsh, the language has no official status in Scotland but has been
classified as an indigenous language. Gaelic words now used widely in
English include bard, glen, bog, slogan, whiskey, brogue, clan, and loch.
Scottish Gaelic is different from Irish Gaelic and is also different from
Scots, an ancient variety of English with its own distinct dialects. Most
Scots speakers live in the Scottish Lowlands.

A road sign near Uig, Scotland, is written in both Gaelic and English.

ENGLISH DIALECTS AND ACCENTS

The way a person speaks is a good indication of where he or she comes
from. A Welsh person speaks English with a musical, singsong lilt, while a
Scottish person has a pronounced, almost guttural accent. Those who come
from the West Country widen vowels and pronounce “s” as “z,” so that
“cider” becomes “zoyder.” Midlands accents in the Birmingham area are
flatter and more nasal.
Many of these local variations are the result of centuries of regional
developments in the English language. For example, in a wide area north of
the Humber River, across Yorkshire and over the border to Scotland, people
still say “lang” rather than “long.” In an area stretching farther south into
Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, words such as “night,” “right,” and
“fright” are pronounced with an “ee” sound as in “neat.” The southern
pronunciation of a long “ah” in “past,” “path,” and “laugh” never
progressed beyond a diagonal line from the Wash in East Anglia to Wales;
north of that line people tend to use a short “a” as in “flat” for these words.
Together with the age-old local dialects, Britain’s immigrant population
has brought further diversity and richness to English usage. For example,
reggae and rap music generally feature in the rich English patois of the
West Indian population.
Standard English, sometimes called the King’s or Queen’s English, or
Received Pronunciation, is the pronunciation generally used by educated
people of the middle and upper classes, and by most announcers on BBC
radio and television. The richness and variety of pronunciation and accents
is a major component of the renowned British sense of humor.
A difference in British accents in the north and south: those in the north
generally pronounce words such as bath, grass, and dance with a short vowel,
like the “a” in the word cat, while those in the south use an “ah” sound.

INTERNET LINKS
www.englishclub.com/english-language-history.htm
This “History of the English Language” is a quick overview with a
map and timeline.

www.thehistoryofenglish.com/index.html
This is an entertaining, informative, and much more in-depth history of
English.

www.gaelicmatters.com/celtic-language.html
“The Celtic Language—the basics and what it sounds like” covers the
varieties of Celtic languages in the British Isles.
“Rain, Steam, and Speed —The Great Western Railway” (1844), a painting by
J.M.W. Turner, depicts an early locomotive crossing the River Thames. the
painting depicts an early locomotive of the Great Western Railway crossing the
River Thames.
 10 ARTS
“The world is wide, no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were
there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of all the world; and the
genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from each
other.” —John Constable (1776–1837), English landscape painter

G REAT BRITAIN HAS LONG BEEN A

vibrant source of the arts—from ancient
objects in stone, tin, and gold to the latest,
cutting-edge digital media. The island’s contribution
to the world’s art scene is out of proportion to its
small size—it’s a key center of the global art world.
Britain’s artistic heritage is world renowned, from the
plays of William Shakespeare and the paintings of
John Constable to the music of The Beatles and
beyond.

CLASSICAL MUSIC
EARLY MUSIC AND THE BAROQUE Early English music was mainly
written for the Catholic Church. Thomas Tallis (1505–1585), under Henry
VIII, composed music for the new Anglican Church, while his pupil
William Byrd wrote numerous madrigals, choral works, and string and
keyboard works. In the seventeenth century, Henry Purcell (1659– 1695)
wrote church music and harpsichord pieces, as well as the operas Dido and
Aeneas and The Indian Queen, all of which combined the older medieval
tones and scales of the English tradition with Italian and French styles.
George Friedrich Handel (1685–1759), under the patronage of King George
I, composed Music for the Royal Fireworks, Water Music, and The Messiah.
These works are still played and enjoyed today.

NINETEENTH CENTURY AND BEYOND Late nineteenth-century

composers include Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who teamed up with his
contemporary W. S. Gilbert to compose fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan
operettas, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The
Mikado. Edward Elgar (1857–1934) is famed for his Enigma Variations, his
haunting Cello Concerto, and the “Pomp and Circumstance” marches,
which echoed the self-assurance of colonial Britain. Ralph Vaughan
Williams (1872–1958) was inspired by the rediscovery of English folk
songs and featured them in such works as Fantasia on Greensleeves.

The Beatles perform on stage at the London Palladium in front of 2,000

screaming fans.

POPULAR MUSIC
Genres originating in Great Britain, or radically influenced by British
musicians, include a broad range of rock music. Two bands led British
popular music onto the world stage in the 1960s—The Beatles and The
Rolling Stones. The Beatles, a quartet from Liverpool, had their first hit in
1962 with “Love Me Do” and dominated the British pop music scene until
they split up in 1970. They made their grand entrance into the US market
with a historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 that was seen
by more than 70 million viewers. They are widely regarded as the greatest
pop group in history and remain as an iconic musical influence on many of
today’s bands. The Rolling Stones released “Satisfaction” in 1965, one of
many hit singles and albums spanning the next four decades. The legendary
rockers have been inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The 1970s saw the emergence of colorful individual artists such as
Elton John and David Bowie and a division between teenagers and older
rock fans. Meanwhile, the punk rock movement tried to reclaim rock music
for the young and rebellious. Groups such as The Sex Pistols and The Clash
shocked people with their rude behavior and outrageous appearance. In the
1980s came synthesizer rock and bands such as The Eurythmics and the
iconic group Queen. The band The Police launched the solo career of its
lead singer and bassist, Sting, who has also become an activist for social
justice issues around the world. One of the biggest pop groups in the 1990s
was the Spice Girls, who were equally known for their raunchy music
videos. Rap, hip hop, or Brit-hop, also took off in the 1990s and evolved
into a wide variety of urban music genres. The twenty-first century has seen
British soul singers Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, and Adele top the charts.
 British singer Adele arrives at the Oscars ceremony in Hollywood in 2013.

LITERATURE
The breadth and richness of British poetry, prose, and drama stretch over
ten centuries.

POETRY In the fourteenth century, the British poet Geoffrey Chaucer

published The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories about a group of
pilgrims on a journey to visit a religious shrine at Canterbury Cathedral.

BESIDE THE LAKE, BENEATH THE TREES

The scenic beauty of the Lake District inspired a group of nineteenth-
century English poets, who came to be called the Lake Poets. William
Wordsworth, one of the best-known poets of the English Romantic
movement, was born in the region.
One day in April 1802, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were
walking along the shore of Ullswater, the second largest lake in the
Lake District, when they came upon a mass of daffodils. The sight
inspired him to write what has become one of the world’s most famous
poems.

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

By William Wordsworth (1804)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

J. K. ROWLING’S HARRY POTTER

The greatest British literary phenomenon of the twentieth to twenty-
first centuries is the Harry Potter fantasy series by the English writer
J. K. Rowling. An unemployed, single mother when she began writing,
Rowling became a multi-millionaire within five years of the release of
the first book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997. In
total, she wrote seven books in the series and today Rowling is the
best-selling living author in the United Kingdom, with sales exceeding
four hundred million copies. Although the books are categorized as
children’s books, many adults read them as well.
Harry Potter, the series’ protagonist, is an orphan boy who
discovers he is a wizard. He attends an exclusive school of wizardry
where he learns the magical arts, and not incidentally, grows up along
the way. Throughout the series, Harry’s quest is to overcome the Dark
wizard Lord Voldemort, in a classic story of good conquering evil.
In addition to being the bestselling book series in history, the
Harry Potter books were made into an eight-part film series. It
became the highest-grossing film series in history.
The Tales was the first piece of English literature written in the vernacular,
that is, the everyday language of the people—which in this case was Middle
English—rather than in Latin or French, which were considered superior
languages. Chaucer therefore is often heralded as the “Father of English
Literature.”
John Milton’s seventeenth-century epic poem Paradise Lost, based on
biblical references, conjures vivid images of Adam and Eve, Hell, and
Satan’s fall from Heaven. John Donne, who also lived in the seventeenth
century, was a metaphysical poet who used wit and clever puns to convey
complex ideas.

KING ARTHUR, MYTH OR LEGEND?

One of Britain’s most enduring heroes is King Arthur. Legend has it
that he was a great Celtic leader of the late fifth and early sixth
century, who defended Britain against the invading Saxons. No one
knows if Arthur was a real person or entirely fictional; the debate is
ongoing and passionate.
 Many ancient tales from various sources mention Arthur, but there
is no one definitive story. Nevertheless, over the centuries, certain
storytellers have elaborated on these legends to create a great body of
fantastical and romantic literature called Arthurian Legends. The
earliest known works about Arthur include History of the Kings of
Britain, c.1138, by the Welsh monk Geoffrey of Monmouth; the works
of the twelfth century French poet Chrétien de Troyes; and Sir
Thomas Malory’s compilation of traditional tales, Le Morte d’Arthur
(“The Death of Arthur”), first published in 1485. These are the stories
of Camelot, Arthur’s peaceable kingdom: his magical sword
Excalibur, his wife Queen Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, Merlin the
Magician, the Knights of the Round Table, and a host of other
characters.
Modern writers continue to explore the Arthur stories. T. H.
White’s popular The Once and Future King, first published in 1958, is
a reinterpretation of the old texts. The Broadway musical Camelot
was a smash hit in 1960 and was made into a movie in 1967. The
idealistic administration of US president John F. Kennedy was
sometimes called “Camelot.”
But King Arthur and his Camelot are first and foremost symbols of
Great Britain—myth masquerading as a glorious history, and in the
process, embodying the essence of what makes Great Britain what it
is.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare is so revered as a poet and playwright that he is
known as “The Bard”—not a bard, but the Bard with a capital B.
Between 1588 and 1613, he wrote thirty-seven plays, more than 150
sonnets, and numerous poems. The Royal Shakespeare Company,
founded in 1879, has two theaters devoted to his works: the Swan
Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon, his town of birth; and the Globe
Theatre in London. While the language can be a bit hard to
understand, the verse is rich, complex, clever and sometimes
hilarious, and the themes and characters are vibrant and relevant four
centuries later.

His historical plays are narratives of the lives of certain English

kings. His comedies are generally lighthearted tales of love, with
many a twist and turn before a happy ending. But Shakespeare’s
crowning glories are his tragedies. Romeo and Juliet, one of his most
popular plays, is a story of star-crossed young lovers. In the plays
Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, and King Lear, the central tragic hero is
dominated by a fierce emotion or character flaw that leads to his
eventual downfall: ambition in Macbeth, jealousy in Othello, revenge
and indecision in Hamlet, and pride in King Lear.
The eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns used his local dialect to
describe Scottish scenery and customs in poems such as “Tam O’Shanter”
and in songs such as “Auld Lang Syne.” Of the late eighteenth-century and
early nineteenth-century poets, William Wordsworth’s lyrical poetry about
the Lake District and John Keats’s romantic descriptive verse on the
beauties of nature are well known.
Early twentieth-century war poets Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon,
and Wilfred Owen all describe the horror of the trench warfare of World
War I. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas captivated the lilting musical quality
of English spoken by Welsh people; the radio play Under Milk Wood is one
of his more famous works. Britain has an official poet laureate, appointed
by the monarch to write official poetry on state occasions. Since 2009, the
Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy has held the position.

PROSE Writers include Samuel Johnson (eighteenth century), who wrote

essays on issues of contemporary interest, and Sir Winston Churchill
(twentieth century), who wrote History of the English-Speaking Peoples, a
four-volume history of Britain from Roman times until Queen Victoria’s
reign.
Novels became popular during the nineteenth century, with carefully
crafted social observations by Jane Austen, romantic tales by Charlotte
Brontë, gritty urban realism from Charles Dickens, and tragic rural stories
from Thomas Hardy. Twentieth-century novels include satires by Evelyn
Waugh, tales of the sea from Joseph Conrad, working-class sensuality from
D.H. Lawrence, and Graham Greene’s movie-like narrative techniques.
Children’s literature is forever richer thanks to Beatrix Potter’s Peter
Rabbit series, J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure
Island, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books, A. A. Milne’s Winnie-
the-Pooh books, and P. L. Travers’s Mary Poppins.
Prestigious literary prizes are awarded annually for original works of
fiction, generating widespread interest in new writing. Novelists such as
Helen Oyeyemi, Hilary Mantel, Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, and Ian
McEwan are just a few of the many notable British writers of today.

FILM AND TELEVISION

Britain’s film industry is world class, and at the top of that class as well.
Some of the top movies of the twenty-first century include Slumdog
Millioniare, by English film director Danny Boyle in 2008, and 12 Years a
Slave, by English director Steve McQueen in 2013, both of which won an
Academy Award for Best Picture.
One particularly enduring British film icon is the character James Bond,
a fictional secret agent created by novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. There are
twenty-six James Bond movies, from Dr. No in 1962 to Spectre, planned
for a 2015 release, in which seven actors have played Bond.
In 2010, the television drama series Downton Abbey, starring the
talented English actress Maggie Smith, became the latest in a long tradition
of British TV phenomena to wow audiences not only in Britain but Canada
and the United States as well. Britain also has a strong tradition of TV
comedy, such as the classic Monty Python series. And just as in the United
States, reality TV programs became popular in the 2000s. The hit singing
talent search program Pop Idol, created by the English producer Simon
Fuller, ran from 2001 to 2003, but spawned similar shows worldwide,
including the much longer-running American Idol.
 Actors and workers are on the set of Downton Abbey in Newbury, England.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

In the sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformation put an end to a great
deal of visual art in England. Public works of religious imagery, such as
paintings and sculptures, were considered to be idolatry, and were
associated with Roman Catholicism. At that time, most artwork was
religious in nature, so the effect on the art world was chilling. Many
existing artworks were destroyed.
The painting tradition, once it began to recover from the effects of the
Reformation, focused mainly on portraiture and landscapes. Wealthy
patrons imported portrait painters from Europe, but British landscape
painting rose into its own. J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851), an English painter,
transformed the landscape genre. This “painter of light” expressed the
sublime power of nature by focusing on the effects of color and radiance in
the composition rather than on detail, a controversial approach at the time.
John Constable (1776–1837), another English landscape artist, painted
images of real English landscapes rather than the imaginary scenes that
were the custom.
 “The Ancient of Days” is a painting by William Blake.

One English painter (and poet) who defies categorization is William

Blake (1757– 1827). His visionary works, which include religious subject
matter, have emotional, psychological, and hallucinatory qualities that were
so revolutionary that they were mostly rejected during his lifetime. It wasn’t
until the twentieth century that his work found an enthusiastic audience.
Britain’s rich architectural heritage is highly varied, stretching back
over ten centuries of religious, civic, business, and domestic styles. The
Tower of London and Durham Cathedral are examples of eleventh-century
Norman style. Exeter Cathedral shows the later Decorated style of English
Gothic architecture (1350–1400), while King’s College Chapel in
Cambridge, built in 1446, is done in the Perpendicular style.
Inigo Jones in the early seventeenth century developed the Continental
Palladian style in buildings such as the Queen’s House in Greenwich. Sir
Christopher Wren, a seventeenth-century architect, left a legacy of fifty-two
city churches, including Saint Paul’s Cathedral, which was built after the
Fire of London in 1666, and another four churches outside the City of
London.
The curving Georgian-style Royal Crescent in Bath was designed by
John Wood the Younger around 1775. The whole city is an architectural
delight. Edinburgh’s New Town is another example of the same
architectural style. Robert Adam’s Classical style is typified by Syon House
in Middlesex. Striking examples of Victorian architecture remain in Sir
George Gilbert Scott’s Saint Pancras Railway Station and Albert Memorial.
The Houses of Parliament, by Charles Barry, is also a fine example of
Victorian design.
Modern buildings in London continue the tradition of phenomenal
British architecture. The Swiss Re building, commonly known as “The
Gherkin,” is a spiral skyscraper built in 2003 by Norman Foster and
Partners. The London Eye, a giant Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the
River Thames in London; the Millennium Bridge, a suspended footbridge
over the same river; and the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, a huge indoor
arena, were all built to usher in the twenty-first century.
“The Gherkin” building in London was awarded a Royal Institute of British
Architects Stirling Prize in 2004.

INTERNET LINKS
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/anglo_saxons/arthur_01.shtml
“King Arthur, ‘Once and Future King,” is a quick overview of the
Arthurian Legends and what they mean to Britain.

www.jkrowling.com
Author J. K. Rowling’s official site provides news about her
philanthropy, charities, and other projects, as well as literary news.

www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_shakespeare
The BBC’s History site has a section devoted to The Bard.

www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/the-beatles
Rolling Stone magazine’s site presents an excellent section on The
Beatles, with timelines, pictures, videos, bios, and more.
A young boy plays with a toy boat at Hope Cove Beach in Devon, England.
 11 LEISURE
One of the most popular and longest-running TV shows in Britain is the sci-fi
classic Dr. Who. The show, which originally began in 1963 and ran until 1989,
follows the adventures of a time- and space-traveling Time Lord, or humanoid
alien called “The Doctor.” The series was relaunched in 2005 and continues to
be broadcast in more than fifty countries.

T HE BRITISH SPEND THEIR DOWN time in

much the same way people do in most Western
countries: listening to music, watching TV,
shopping, visiting with friends and family, or playing
video games. Kids and teens play sports, take
lessons, hang out, or catch up on their homework.
Some people spend their weekends tinkering with motorcycles and cars,
repairing or working on their vehicles in the garage and backyard; others
have different hobbies. Fishing is by far the national pastime. Fishing spots
range from canals and reservoirs to rivers where Scottish salmon can be
caught.

SPORTS
Sir Winston Churchill’s comment in 1938 that sports was “the first of all the
British amusements” rings true even today. Sports are an integral part of the
British way of life: millions of viewers watch soccer, rugby, cricket, and
horse racing on television every weekend. Participation in sports is also
popular. At school, children are encouraged to take part in games of soccer
or rugby (for boys), hockey, netball and lacrosse, and cricket, athletics,
running, swimming, or tennis in summer. Schools compete in numerous
local leagues, as do towns, counties, clubs, pubs, and companies.
In 2012 London hosted the Olympic Summer Games, which featured
twenty-six sports including water events, equestrian events, gymnastics,
track, cycling, wrestling, and more. At the end of the weeks of competition,
British athletes took home sixty-five medals, the third-highest medal count,
bested only by the United States, with 104 medals, and China, with eighty-
eight.

Dean Schofield of London Welsh takes the ball during the European Rugby
Challenge Cup match between London Welsh and Edinburgh Rugby in December
2014, in Oxford, England.

FOOTBALL Soccer, called football in Britain (and most everywhere

outside of the United States), is the most widely followed sport, with
national and international matches televised several times a week. English
football is organized into two principal annual competitions: the League
Championship and the Football Association (FA) Cup. The former is
divided into four divisions: the Premier League and Divisions One, Two,
and Three. Teams score three points for a victory and one point for a tie.
The team with the most points at the end of the season wins the
championship. At the end of each season, the bottom three teams in each
division move down a division, while the top two teams in each division
move up. A play-off competition between the next top four teams decides
the third team to move up a division. The last team in Division Three is
relegated to a minor league.
The FA Cup is a knockout competition where teams must win matches
to stay in the competition. There are separate Welsh and Scottish soccer
leagues. England, Scotland, and Wales also take part in the European
Championship once every four years. Individual teams can take part in
various European competitions if they qualify, while the national teams take
part in the World Cup held every four years.
Soccer is occasionally accompanied by incidents of “hooliganism,”
where supporters get out of control and sometimes become violent as a
response to a bad decision made by the referee or an unexpected defeat.
Such behavior is seen as more than simply bad sportsmanship, but as a
sociological phenomenon linked to unemployment, poverty, and social
discontent.

WINTER SPORTS The game of rugby was started at Rugby School in

1823. Rugby Union, traditionally an amateur game but now moving toward
professionalism, has an annual series competition known as the Six Nations
Championship played between England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, and
France. Matches for this series, and for international test matches against
rugby-playing countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa,
are played on famous grounds: England’s Twickenham, Scotland’s
Murrayfield, and Wales’s Millennium Stadium. Rugby League, on the other
hand, is a professional game and the players are paid. Each team has
thirteen players instead of the fifteen in Rugby Union, and the rules differ
slightly for tackling and in some other respects.

GARDENS
Gardening is a major hobby for many people. Many homes have a
small plot of land, whether a suburban garden, an allotment at some
distance from one’s house or apartment, or a larger country garden.
Newspapers have a regular column on gardening tips, and numerous
gardening books line shelves of libraries and bookshops. A degree of
competitiveness can take hold as neighbors try to outdo one another,
especially during preparations for local horticultural shows.
More than 3,700 individual gardens are open to the public under
the National Gardens Scheme, which raises money for charities. They
include ordinary suburban gardens and those of large country houses.
Examples of Elizabethan knot gardens, medieval walled enclosures of
fruit trees, roses and herbs, well-tended mazes, eighteenth-century
landscaped gardens, and cottage gardens with mixed vegetables and
flowers abound throughout the country. Agricultural and horticultural
shows are held throughout the summer months, and classes in
gardening and flower arranging, which offer a wealth of ideas to the
avid gardener, are available in the evenings.
 Field hockey is played at many schools by both sexes. Lacrosse is
played mainly by girls, while cross-country running is also quite popular.

SUMMER SPORTS During the summer, people play tennis and cricket,
and running, swimming, and water sports are popular. Tennis clubs abound,
particularly in the southern counties. The All-England Championships have
been held at Wimbledon since 1877.

Cricket is popular among all age groups in Great Britain.

Cricket is a game played by two teams of eleven players on a large

field, using a red leather ball and a flat wooden bat. The teams bat and bowl
alternately. Runs are scored by two batsmen running between the two
wickets—three vertical sticks in the ground known as stumps, and two
smaller sticks (bails) resting between them. The batsmen can be out of the
game in a number of ways such as by fielding positions that limit the
number of runs made and by bowling strategies that bowl the wickets down.
The team scoring the most runs wins the game. Test matches (international
games) can last for five days and still often end in a tie.

EQUINE SPORTS Horse racing takes place from the end of March to the
first week of November. Races at Royal Ascot are noted for the hats worn
by spectators as much as for the horse racing itself. The Queen and other
members of the royal family often have their own horses running in the
Royal Ascot races.
National Hunt races, over hurdles or larger fences, take place between
February and June. The most important races are the Cheltenham Gold Cup
and the Grand National at Aintree near Liverpool, which is the best-known
steeplechase. Local hunts raise money and run their own point-to-point
steeplechases during this period.
Competitions testing the riders’ skill at cross-country, horsemanship,
and jumping take place at Burghley and Badminton annually. Horse shows
are held across Britain during the summer months, ranging from small
village contests to the Royal Windsor Horse Show and the Royal
International Horse Show at Hickstead in West Sussex.

OTHER OUTDOOR PURSUITS

Walking is extremely popular. Even in the pouring rain, groups of walkers
clad in waterproof anoraks and boots, often accompanied by dogs, can be
seen walking across fields and moors and along river banks. There are
several long-distance footpaths, such as the Pennine Way that stretches for
268 miles (431 km) from the Peak District to the Scottish border. Footpaths,
bridle paths for horseback riding, and tracks give walkers access to much of
the countryside.
Rock climbing is popular in hilly areas such as around Mount Snowdon
in Wales, Froggatt Edge in the Peak District, and numerous locations in the
Lake District.
There is skiing in Scotland, although the snow can be unreliable. On a
lesser scale, many families have toboggans to use on slopes in public parks
and nearby fields in the winter. Many people skate on frozen ponds and
rivers.
Sailing is popular, especially on the southern coast and on the Isle of
Wight, where the Cowes Week Regatta takes place in early August. Tall
ship races leave from Plymouth, Falmouth, and Southampton in July and
August. Sailing, windsurfing, and water skiing take place on some
reservoirs and lakes during the summer.
Children slide down a hill in Bramhall Park in Cheshire, England, after a winter
snowfall.

INTERNET LINKS
www.olympic.org/london-2012-summer-olympics
Official site of the London 2012 Olympics shows highlights of the
“happy and glorious” games.

www.ngs.org.uk
NGS Gardens Open for Charity is full of pictures of gardens
throughout England.

www.bbc.com/sport
The BBC Sports section has up-to-the-minute news about a wide range
of British sports.
 image

A man runs carrying a tar-soaked burning barrel at a carnival in Ottery St. Mary,
England. The barrel run is a 400-year-old tradition.
 12 FESTIVALS
In Britain, January 5 is Twelfth Night, the night before the Epiphany, the last
day of “the Twelve Days of Christmas.” Custom has it that all Christmas
decorations must be removed on this date so as to avoid bad luck in the year
ahead.

T HE CALENDAR IS CHOCK FULL of special

days throughout Great Britain—religious,
national, and secular. “Bank holidays” are
official holidays, when most shops, schools,
businesses, and government institutions are closed.
There are numerous other, nonofficial days as well,
such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and
Halloween.
Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Phillip don official robes for the Garter
Day ceremonies at Windsor Castle.
 A man dressed as a Viking takes part in the torchlight procession through
Edinburgh for the start of the Hogmanay celebrations on December 30, 2013, in
Scotland.

The year begins with the usual New Year’s celebrations and with a touch of
old tradition as well. In Scotland, New Year’s Eve is called Hogmanay. This
ancient holiday incorporates winter solstice customs that probably date back
to pre-Christian times. One old ritual is the eating of haggis (spiced minced
meat boiled in a sheep’s stomach) before the “first footing.” This custom,
now rarely practiced, involves a tall man who visits homes bearing gifts and
best wishes and tries to be the first foot in the door in the new year. There is
the customary singing of “Auld Lang Syne,” from a poem by the Scottish
poet Robert Burns (1759–1796); and a few weeks later, on January 25, the
man himself is celebrated. On Burns Night, revellers enjoy banquets,
speeches, drinking, singing, recitations, and dancing.
In August, Wales puts on the National Eisteddfod, the country’s biggest
arts event and one of Europe’s oldest cultural festivals. The nine-day
festival celebrates Welsh music, literature, dance, and theater. Meanwhile,
around the same time, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe—the world’s largest
arts festival—takes place in Scotland’s capital.
November 5 is Guy Fawkes Day. Throughout England, bonfires are lit,
old clothes are turned into effigies, and fireworks are set off to
commemorate the failure of a plot in 1605 to blow up Parliament.
November 11 is Armistice Day, held to remember those who died in the
two World Wars. The Queen, attended by political leaders, leads a
procession of approximately a thousand veterans to lay wreaths at the
Cenotaph, a war memorial in the Whitehall section of London. On that day,
people wear red paper poppies in support of war veterans.
December 26 is Boxing Day. This day after Christmas is a bank holiday,
and most people simply spend the day with their families, going for a walk,
watching sports, or eating the Christmas leftovers. The holiday originated
with the old custom of wealthy people giving a “Christmas box” of money
or gifts to their servants and tradesmen.

NATIONAL DAYS Each of the British countries has its own National Day,
based on the day of its patron saint. England’s takes place on April 23, St.
George’s Day; Wales celebrates on March 1, St. David’s Day; and Scotland
observes November 30, St. Andrew’s Day. Although none of these days are
official bank holidays, many people across Britain are petitioning for their
own country’s day to be observed officially in that country.

Queen Elizabeth lays a wreath honoring veterans during the annual

Remembrance Sunday Service at the Cenotaph on Whitehall on November 9,
2014, in London.

RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
Although Great Britain is made up of three Christian nations, they are
religiously diverse nations as well. Naturally, they celebrate the Christian
holidays, with Easter and Christmas being the most important of the year.
Many nonreligious people, and some people of other religions celebrate a
secular Christmas.
 However, there are other religious holidays as well. The most important
Jewish holidays are the autumn holidays of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish
New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Many British of Indian
descent celebrate the Hindu holidays—such as Diwali, a colorful festival of
light in the autumn. British Muslims celebrate the holy days of the Islamic
calendar, with Eid-al-Fidr being one of the most important. This feast day
marks the end of the month-long fasting holy month of Ramadan. Some
Brits are petitioning the government to have Diwali and Eid declared
official bank holidays, but so far Parliament has not approved the initiative.

ROYAL PAGEANTRY
The British love of ceremony is best exemplified by the role of the
royal family. Their daily appointments are listed in The Times’s
newspaper court circular column. There are various regular and
customary occasions when the public can view royal pageantry.
• The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace takes place daily
at 11:30 a.m. when the guards change shifts. The ceremony is very
popular with tourists.
• The Trooping of the Colour is held on a Saturday in early June to
celebrate the sovereign’s official birthday. The queen, seated in a
horse-drawn carriage, inspects the troops of her personal guard. This
military ceremony dates to the early eighteenth century.
 The Changing of the Guard

• The State Opening of Parliament occurs every November after the

summer recess. The ceremony has scarcely changed since the
sixteenth century. For this, the queen travels from Buckingham Palace
in the Irish State Coach, and reads from the throne the Gracious
Speech—a statement of the current government’s legislative program
for the coming year.
• Garter Day, an impressive ceremony at Windsor Castle held every
June, is the day when new knights, chosen by the queen, are admitted
into the Order of the Garter. It is the highest order of knighthood, and
the oldest British Order of Chivalry, founded by Edward III in 1348.
• Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Year in 2012, marking her
sixty years as queen, was filled with special celebrations throughout
Great Britain and the Commonwealth.

COUNTRY FESTIVALS
Various regions celebrate rural festivities that date back over many
centuries.

PLOUGH MONDAY In some areas, Plough Monday, the Monday after

the Epiphany on January 6, is celebrated as the traditional resumption of
plowing after the Twelve Days of Christmas celebrations have ended.

SUMMER SHOWS Appleby Horse Fair, a horse sale, is held every June in
a picturesque village in the Lake District. A large proportion of villages and
counties hold rural fêtes, shows, or contests during the summer months,
generally for charity. Harvest festivals are held in churches throughout the
country in late August, and churches are decorated with agricultural
produce. In the West Country a Saxon custom of wassailing—wishing good
health to the apple trees and cider drinkers—continues on January 17.
FOLK DANCE Morris dancing, a type of English folk dance based on the
European Morisca, a Moorish dance, came to be associated with May
Games, held on May 1, and with the characters from Robin Hood (as seen
in the dancers’ costumes). The dance is performed by men, usually
accompanied by music from an accordion and drums, and is said to have
derived from pagan fertility rites.

INTERNET LINKS
www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/Overview.aspx
The official site of the British monarchy has a section devoted to royal
events and ceremonies.

www.educationuk.org/usa/articles/festivals-and-holidays
The British Council publishes this calendar of festivals, celebrations,
and public holidays with many links to events.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver joins schoolchildren in London to celebrate Food
Revolution Day in May 2014.
 13 FOOD
Many British foods have delightful names. Here are just a few: bangers and
mash (sausages and mashed potatoes); Cullen skink (smoked haddock soup);
rumbledethumps (cabbage, potato, and cheese casserole); toad in the hole
(sausages baked in a batter); jam roly-poly (a jam cakeroll), Eton mess
(strawberries, cream, and meringue), and spotted dick (a currant-filled sponge
pudding).

O NCE UPON A TIME, NOT ALL THAT long

ago, traditional British food had a reputation
for being rather plain and bland. However,
just as the English language has absorbed a broad
range of words from other languages, so British
cuisine has become more sophisticated, incorporating
many global influences.
Today’s typical British diet includes Italian-influenced dishes, such as pasta
and pizza; American fast food, French cookery, Chinese stir-fries, and a
variety of spicy Asian dishes such as Indian and Thai curries. Britain’s rich
heritage of immigration is reflected in the wide variety of ingredients
available in supermarkets. Cooking, food, restaurants, food magazines, and
TV shows with celebrity chefs, such as Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver,
are popular interests.

TRADITIONAL BRITISH FOOD

The traditional British breakfast is a hearty affair, requiring a huge appetite
and ample time. It is usually prepared as a weekend or holiday treat. Grilled
or fried pork sausages, sliced bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, and baked
beans are served together with fried, scrambled, or poached eggs, toast, or
fried or “eggy” bread. It may be accompanied by regional specialties such
as lambs’ kidneys; blood pudding, a type of rich sausage; oatcakes, which
are like small pancakes; or fried potatoes and cabbage, known as “bubble
and squeak.”
Everyday lunch and dinner meals are similar to those in Canada and the
United States, though sometimes the dishes have different names. In
Britain, the potatoes Americans know as French fries are called “chips”;
while the American chips—potato chips, corn chips and the like—are
“crisps.” A much loved English dish is fish and chips, which is batter-fried
white fish with fried potatoes.
Traditional Sunday dinner, called the Sunday Roast, is often served at
lunchtime. It features a roast beef with gravy, Yorkshire pudding, which is a
an eggy batter cooked in the meat’s juices; potatoes; vegetables, such as
carrots, peas, or turnip; and a “sweet,” or dessert.

A Christmas pudding is decorated with walnuts.

PUDDINGS AND PIES In Britain, a pudding is not what Americans call
pudding. Rather, it can be a sweet or savory dish of mixed ingredients. The
term “pudding” covers a wide variety of dishes, some are casserole-like,
others are cake-like, and still others defy categorization. The common
thread seems to be that they are homey and comforting. A sweet pudding
may be a cake-like dish that is steamed or boiled. A typical example is a
“figgy pudding,” or a Christmas pudding, a dark, spicy, steamed fruitcake
made with breadcrumbs, sugar, raisins or other dried fruits, suet, and a bit of
brandy, sherry, or rum. Summer pudding, on the other hand, is made with
bread and fresh berries.
A savory pudding can be a sausage, such as a black pudding, which is a
blood sausage of pork blood mixed with oatmeal; or a white pudding, a
sausage of pork meat, fat, suet, and oatmeal. Preparations such as these date
back several centuries.
Even a pie can be a pudding—shepherd’s pie is a casserole of minced
lamb (or beef), vegetables, and gravy with a mashed potato topping; steak
and kidney pie is diced beef, kidneys, and gravy in a pie crust; and the
amusingly named “toad in the hole,” is a dish of sausages baked in a
pancake-like batter.
 A traditional haggis is prepared for a Burns Night Dinner in Scotland.

LOCAL SPECIALTIES Scotland is well known for its salmon and river
trout, as well as its beef raised on the Highland moors. The national dish of
Scotland is haggis, a savory pudding made of a sheep’s innards (heart, liver,
and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, and spices, which is then
encased in a sheep’s stomach (or a standard sausage casing) and simmered
for about three hours. Tender Welsh lamb is usually served with mint sauce
and vegetables. Oysters from East Anglia are a delicacy traditionally served
only during months with an “r” in them.
THE PUB
Pubs abound in Britain—there are some forty-eight thousand of them—and
often play an important role in the community. Taken from the term “public
house,” meaning “open to the public,” the pub typically serves as a place
for local people to gather for a pint and some “pub grub,” or homey food,
discuss local events, and perhaps play some darts. Beer, ale, and hard cider
are usually the preferred drinks. The legal drinking age in Great Britain is
eighteen, but sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds can drink beer, wine, or cider
with a meal in public if they are accompanied by an adult.

A bartender works in a typical pub in London.

With some 1,200 different brands available, beer is a national drink,

made from hops and matured in oak casks. British beers, ales, stouts, and
porters are traditionally darker and bitterer than traditional US styles, and
are served at room temperature. Lagers, imported from Germany, Belgium,
and Denmark, are increasingly popular. Like American beer, lagers are
served cold.
 In the West Country, cider is brewed from apples; some rough local
brews known as scrumpy are extremely strong. Wine is produced in Kent
and Sussex in the south of England, where commercial vineyards have
proved moderately successful in penetrating the local market. In general,
however, most of England’s climate is not suitable for growing wine grapes.

TEA, A DRINK AND A MEAL

The British are the largest per capita consumers of tea in the world,
drinking about one-fifth of the world’s total tea exports. The custom of
afternoon tea, a light meal at 4 p.m. was established during the 1840s
by the Duchess of Bedford. Tea is typically accompanied by small
homemade cakes, scones, cookies, sandwiches, toasted muffins, or
crumpets.

Whiskies from Scotland’s one hundred distilleries remain a profitable

export, and numerous blended whiskies, and single and double malt
whiskies are matured on Scottish islands such as Jura and Islay. Gin, a spirit
flavored with juniper berries, dates to the Middle Ages, and numerous
brands are made in England and Scotland.
 INTERNET LINKS
projectbritain.com/food/index.htm
Project Britain’s site covers all areas of British life, including an in-
depth section about foods and food culture.

www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-British-Food/
Historic UK offers a “History of British Food” with links to other food
related topics.

www.buzzfeed.com/jenniferschaffer/yum-british-food
“23 Classic British Dishes To Keep You Warm Through The Long,
Dark Winter” on BuzzFeed has mouth-watering photos of iconic
British foods.

WELSH CAKES (PICE AR Y MAEN)

These little cakes can be eaten out of hand for breakfast, afternoon
tea, or a snack.
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. nutmeg
⅛ tsp. salt
½ cup cold butter
1 large egg, beaten
¼ cup to ½ cup golden raisins or currants
¼ cup milk
Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt. Cut in the
butter until mixture is crumbly. Add raisins or currants; add the egg
and milk and mix until combined. Turn the sticky dough onto a well-
floured surface and shape into a disc. Can be refrigerated at this
point.

Roll or pat the dough to ¼-inch thick and cut into 2 ½-inch to 3 ½-
inch rounds, adding flour underneath as needed to keep the dough
from sticking. Reshape the dough scraps until used up.

Cook on a buttered griddle or in a heavy bottomed pan over low-

medium heat for about three minutes per side or until they are golden
brown. If they look as if they are browning too quickly, turn the heat
down so they can cook through. Dust finished cakes with cinnamon-
sugar or powdered sugar, or split and spread with butter and honey or
jam. Makes approximately twelve cakes.

SUMMER PUDDING
Plan ahead when making this no-bake English dessert. It needs to sit
for at least eight hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.
1 cup sugar
juice of ½ lemon
6 ½ cups very ripe berries (raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, or
a mix)
A bout 24 slices of firm-textured white bread, crusts trimmed

Line a 1-quart charlotte mold, souffle dish, or mixing bowl with

plastic wrap, letting the excess hang over the sides. Add berries and
sugar to a saucepan and cook over medium heat just until sugar
dissolves, about three to five minutes. Squeeze in lemon juice, stir
gently and cool to lukewarm.
Cut sixteen bread slices at an angle across two opposite sides to make
triangles with two long, even sides and a narrower base. Cut the
remaining slices in half lengthwise to make rectangles about 3 inches
(7.6 cm) long. Arrange half the bread triangles with their points to the
center on the bottom of the mold or bowl to cover it completely.
Arrange the rectangular slices around the sides, overlapping them
slightly. Fill any gaps with scraps of bread.

Spoon half the berries and their juice into the bread-lined mold. Top
with bread slices cut to fit. Add remaining berries and top with more
bread, as tightly as possible. Let cool. Cover pudding with plastic
wrap, place a plate on top, and weigh it down with two large cans.
Place bowl on a plate (juice may seep out) and refrigerate for at least
eight hours. Bread will absorb the red juices. Invert pudding onto a
slightly bowled or lipped platter (to catch the juices). Remove plastic
wrap and cut into wedges. Serve cold with whipped cream.
MAP OF GREAT BRITAIN
Aberdeen, C2
Atlantic Ocean, A1–A2

Bath, C4
Belfast, B3
Belgium, D4–D5
Ben Nevis, B2
Birmingham, C4
Brecon Beacons, B4–C4
Bristol Channel, B4

Calais, D5
Cambrian Mountains, B4
Cambridge, C4
Cardiff, C4
Channel Islands, C5
Cheviot Hills, C3
Chiltern Hills, C4
Cotswolds, C4
Coventry, C4
Cumbrian Mountains, C3

Dartmoor, B5
Dover, D4
Dublin, B3

Edinburgh, C2
England, C4
English Channel, B5–C5

Felixstowe, D4
Folkestone, D5
Firth of Clyde, B2–B3
Firth of Forth, C2
France, C5–D5
Glasgow, B2
Grampian Mountains, B2–C2

Inner Hebrides, B2
Inverness, B2
Irish Sea, B3
Islay, B2
Isle of Man, B3
Isles of Scilly, B5
Isle of Wight, C5
Jura, B2

Lake District, C3
Lancaster, C3
Leeds, C3
Liverpool, C3
Loch Ness, B2
London, C4

Manchester, C3
Mendip Hills, C4
Mount Snowdon, B4

Netherlands, D4
Norfolk Broads, D4
North Channel, B3
North Downs, C4–D4
North Sea, D2
North West Highlands, B1–B2
Northern Ireland, B3
Norway, D1

Orkney Islands, C1
Outer Hebrides, B1
Oxford, C4

Peak District, C4
Pennines, C3
Plymouth, B5
Portsmouth, C5

Republic of Ireland, A3–B3, A4–B4

River Forth, B2
River Severn, C4
River Tees, C3
River Thames, C4
River Tyne, C3
River Wye, C4

Saint George’s Channel, B4

Scotland, B2–C2
Shetland Islands, C1
South Downs, C5
Southern Uplands, B3, C2
Swansea, B4

Wales, B4
Wash, C4
Weald, C4–C5
Winchester, C5
York, C3
Yorkshire Moors, C3
ECONOMIC GREAT BRITAIN
ABOUT THE ECONOMY
Note: Economic statistics reported here are for the entire United Kingdom.

OVERVIEW
The UK is a leading power and financial center; the third-largest economy
in Europe after Germany and France. Agriculture is intensive, highly
mechanized, and efficient, producing about 60 percent of food needs with
less than 2 percent of the labor force. Manufacturing has declined in
importance, but still accounts for 10 percent of economic output. Great
Britain has large coal, natural gas, and oil resources, but these are declining,
forcing Britain to import some of its energy. The global recession of 2008
hit the British economy especially hard, prompting the government to
institute austerity measures through 2017.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)

$2.4 trillion (2013)

GDP PER CAPITA

$37,300 (2013)

GDP SECTORS
Agriculture 0.7 percent, industry 20.5 percent, services 78.9 percent (2013)

INFLATION RATE
1.2 percent (September 2014)

CURRENCY
1 pound (GBP) = 100 pence
USD 1 = GBP 0.64 (November 2014)
Notes: 5, 10, 20, 50 pounds
Coins: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 pence; 1, 2 pounds

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
Wheat, barley, oats, oilseed, sugar beets, potatoes, milk, poultry, fish, cattle,
wool

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS
Machine tools, electric power, railroad equipment, shipbuilding, aircraft,
motor vehicles and parts, electronics and communications equipment,
metals, coal, chemicals, petroleum, paper products, food processing,
textiles, clothing

EXPORTS
Manufactured goods; fuels; chemicals; food; whiskey, beer, and other
beverages

IMPORTS
Manufactured goods, machinery, fuels, foodstuff, clothing

TRADE PARTNERS
Germany, China, Netherlands, US, France, Belgium, Norway

MAJOR AIRPORTS
London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester, Birmingham,
Edinburgh, Aberdeen

WORKFORCE
30.1 million (2013)

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
6.0 percent (July 2014)
CULTURAL GREAT BRITAIN
ABOUT THE CULTURE

OFFICIAL NAME
Great Britain is the largest of the 2,000 or so islands that make up the
British Isles.

NATIONAL FLAG
England, Scotland, and Wales each has its own flag. The United Kingdom
flag, known as the Union Jack, consists of England’s red cross of its patron
saint, Saint George, on a white background, combined with Scotland’s
diagonal white cross of its patron saint, Saint Andrew, on a blue
background and Ireland’s red diagonal cross of Saint Patrick. The flag of
Wales, a red dragon on a green and white background, is not integrated into
the Union design.

CAPITALS
UK and England—London
Wales—Cardiff (Caerdydd)
Scotland—Edinburgh

POPULATION
61.9 million (2014)

LITERACY RATE
99 percent
LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH
80.4 years; 78.3 years for men, 82.7 years for women (2014)

NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
New Year’s Day (January 1), Good Friday and Easter Monday
(March/April), Early May Holiday (Monday nearest May 1), Spring Bank
Holiday (Monday at end of May, formerly Whitsun), Summer Bank
Holiday (last Monday in August), Christmas Day and Boxing Day
(December 25 and 26)

ETHNIC GROUPS
White 87.2 percent, black/African/Caribbean 3 percent, Asian/Asian
British: Indian 2.3 percent; Pakistani 1.9 percent, mixed 2 percent; other 3.7
percent (2011)

RELIGIONS
Christian 59.5 percent, Muslim 4.4 percent, Hindu 1.3 percent, other 2
percent, none 25.7 percent, unspecified 7.2 percent (2011)

LANGUAGES
English, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish

LEADERS IN POLITICS
Tony Blair, UK prime minister (1997–2007)
Gordon Brown, prime minister (2007–2010)
David Cameron, prime minister (2010–)
Alex Salmond, first minister of Scotland (2007–2014)
Carwyn Jones, first minister of Wales (2009–)

TIMELINE
IN GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WORLD

6500 BCE • • 753 BCE

 English Channel formed Rome is founded.
4000–1500 BCE •
Henges, including Stonehenge,
constructed

43 CE •
Aulus Plautius invades Britain.

122–128 •
Hadrian’s Wall constructed
410 • • 116–117 CE
The Roman Empire reaches its greatest
Romans leave Britain extent, under Emperor Trajan (reigned
597 • 98–117 CE).
Saint Augustine and forty
monks arrive from Rome

871 •
King Ethelred and his brother, • 600 CE
the future Height of Mayan civilization
King Alfred the Great, defeat
the Danes.

1337 •
Start of Hundred Years’ War
1348 • • 1000
Start of Black Death The Chinese perfect gunpowder and
1536 • begin to use it in warfare.

Act of Union joins Wales to

England.

1588 • • 1530
The Spanish Armada is Beginning of transAtlantic slave trade
defeated. organized by the Portuguese in Africa.
 1642–1651 • • 1558–1603
English Civil War Reign of Elizabeth I of England
1666 • • 1620
Pilgrims sail the Mayflower to
Great Fire of London
America.
1707 •
Act of Union joins Scotland to
England.

1775–1783 • • 1776
American War of Independence US Declaration of Independence
1793–1815 • written
Britain goes to war against • 1789–1799
France in the Napoleonic Wars. The French Revolution

1857 •
Indian Mutiny, a rebellion
against British rule in India • 1861
1870 • The US Civil War begins.
• 1869
Education Act established,
The Suez Canal is opened.
becomes foundation for modern
education system • 1914
1922 • World War I begins.
• 1939
BBC, then known as the British
World War II begins.
Broadcasting Company, • 1949
established
The North Atlantic Treaty
1947 • Organization (NATO) is formed.
India and Pakistan gain
independence.

1956 • • 1957
Crisis over control of Suez The Russians launch Sputnik.
Canal involving • 1966–1969
Britain, France, and the Middle The Chinese Cultural Revolution
East • 1986
1982 • Nuclear power disaster at Chernobyl in
Falklands War between Ukraine
Argentina and Britain • 1991
Breakup of the Soviet Union
• 1997
Britain returns Hong Kong to China.
1997 •
• 2001
Tony Blair becomes prime
Terrorists crash planes in New York,
minister; Diana,
Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania.
Princess of Wales, dies
• 2003
War in Iraq begins.
2005 •
• 2008
Suicide bombers kill fifty-two
US elects first African American
people on
president, Barack Obama.
London’s transport system

2014 • • 2014
Scotland votes to remain a part Ebola epidemic in West Africa kills
of the United Kingdom more than five thousand people.
GLOSSARY
ale
A bitter beer made from rapid fermentation of malt, hops, and yeast at a
high temperature.

barrow
A communal burial ground in southern England.

Caledonia
An old name for Scotland.

constitutional monarchy
A political system that legally limits the actions of the king or queen.

devolution
The delegation of certain powers by a central authority to regional
governments.

Druids
An ancient order of Celts consisting of learned men who were usually
judges, priests, or teachers.

eisteddfod (aye-STED-fod)
A poetry, singing, and musical competition during which all proceedings
are held in Welsh.

Gaelic
The Celtic language of Scotland.

glen
A narrow, secluded valley.

Huguenots
Protestants in France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

loch (LOCK)
The Scottish term for a deep lake.

Magna Carta
A historical document that guaranteed political rights and personal liberties
in Britain.

operetta
A comical or romantic opera.

peers
Members of the House of Lords, Britain’s upper house of Parliament.

ria (REE-ah)
A coast characterized by a series of long, narrow, wedge-shaped inlets that
widen and deepen uniformly toward the sea.

tartan
A fabric of Scottish origin that has a plaid design and is traditionally made
into a kilt.

tor
A high, craggy hill.

weald
A forest or wooded area.

Witan
An Anglo-Saxon council of men that decided on royal succession and other
policy matters.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
BOOKS
Banker, Leslie, and William Mullins. Britannia in Brief: The Scoop on All Things British. New York:
Ballantine Books/Random House, Inc., 2009.
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Great Britain. New York: DK Publishing, 2014.
Fraser, Rebecca. The Story of Britain: From the Romans to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton &
Co., 2005.
Fry, Plantagenet Somerset. Kings & Queens of England and Scotland. New York: DK Adult, 2011.
History of Britain and Ireland. New York: DK Publishing, 2011.
Lacey, Robert. Great Tales from English History: A Treasury of True Stories about the Extraordinary
People–Knights and Knaves, Rebels and Heroes, Queens and Commoners–Who Made Britain Great.
New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2007.

FILM
A History of Scotland (a ten-part series). BBC Home Entertainment, 2010. DVD.
Anne of the Thousand Days. Universal Studios, 1969. DVD.
Brave. Disney-Pixar, 2012. DVD.
Michael Wood’s Story of England. BBC Home Entertainment, 2012. DVD.
The Madness of King George. MGM, 1996. DVD.
The Queen. Miramax Lionsgate, 2006. DVD or Blu-ray.
The Story of Wales. Bfs Entertainment, 2012. DVD.

WEBSITES
BBC Goodfood, British recipes. www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/british
Britain Is Great. www.gov.uk/britainisgreat
Britannia. www.britannia.com
British Broadcasting Corporation. www.bbc.com
British Monarchy. www.royal.gov.uk
Britroyals. www.britroyals.com/timeline.asp
Environment Agency. www.gov.uk/government/organisations/environment-agency
Gov.UK. www.gov.uk
VisitBritain. www.visitbritain.com/en/US
VisitScotland. www.visitscotland.com/en-us
Wales Cymru. www.visitwales.com
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS AND WEBSITES
Al Jazeera.com, “Poll: Muhammad most popular boy’s name in UK,” Al Jazeera, Dec. 1, 2014
www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/12/mohamed-now-uk-now-most-popular-boys-name-
2014121112154850319.html
BBC News Europe. “United Kingdom Profile.” www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18023389
British Monarchy. www.royal.gov.uk
Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way. New York: William Morrow &
Co., 1990.
Carrington, Damian. “Climate change will make UK weather too wet and too dry, says Met Office.”
The Guardian, March 25, 2014. www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/25/climate-
change-uk-weather-wet-dry-met-office
Cook, Sonia Van Gilder. “First Come, First Crowned: The British Monarchy Gets Modern.” Time,
Oct. 31, 2011. content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2098162,00.html
Dugan, Emily. “Teenage pregnancies in England and Wales are at the lowest point since records
began.” The Independent, Feb. 25, 2014. www.independent.co.uk/life-style/Hui, Sylvia. “In UK,
aristocrats still face ‘Downton’ dilemma.” AP The Big Story, April 12, 2013. bigstory.
ap.org/article/uk-aristocrats-still-face-downton-dilemma
Jones, Jonathan. “Blake’s heaven.” The Guardian, April 25, 2005.
www.theguardian.com/culture/2005/apr/25/williamblake
Legatum Institute. “Legatum Prosperity Index 2014.” www.prosperity.com
Martin, Arthur. “How 94% of fish stocks have vanished from British waters.” The Daily Mail, May
5, 2010. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1272378/Extraordinary-decline-British-fish-stocks-
drop-94-cent.html
Matthews, John. King Arthur, Dark Age Warrior and Mythic Hero. London: Carlton Books, 2004.
Mount, Harry. “Queen Elizabeth II: the most dutiful monarch in a thousand years.” The Telegraph,
March 13, 2013. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/
Office for National Statistics. “2011 Census for England and Wales.” www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-
method/census/2011/index.html
United Kingdom Government. www.gov.uk
Urquhart, Conal. “Flooding and storms in UK are clear signs of climate change, says Lord Stern.”
The Guardian, Feb. 13, 2014. www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/13/flooding-storms-
uk-climate-change-lord-stern?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Wintour, Patrick. “David Cameron: UK may be a small island but it has the biggest heart.” The
Guardian, Sept. 6, 2013. www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/sep/06/david-cameron-uk-small-
island
INDEX
Act of Union, 36–37, 87
Albion, 11
Alfred the Great, 29
America, 35–37, 39, 66
American Revolution, 39
Angles, 29–30, 70, 94
Anglican Church, 16, 35, 47, 85–88, 101
Anglo-Saxon, 29–30
anti-Semitism, 90
aristocracy, 73–75
Arthur, King, 28, 105
authors (writers), 106–108
automobiles, 55, 62, 63

Beaker People, 28
Beatles, The, 8, 101, 102–103
beer, 58, 128
Beowulf, 94
Black Death, 32, 34
Blair, Tony, 42
Blake, William, 110
Boleyn, Anne, 35
Boyle, Danny, 8, 108
British Empire, 5–6, 8, 32, 41, 70
Buckingham Palace, 21
Burns, Robert, 107, 120

Caledonia, 11, 29
Camelot, 105
Cameron, David, 6, 9, 46, 71
Canterbury Cathedral, 16, 31, 33, 103
Canterbury Tales, The, 95, 96, 103
Cardiff, 20, 22, 47–48
Catholic / Catholics, 9, 33, 35, 37, 85–86, 89, 101
Celtic / Celts, 11–12, 17, 29–30, 69–70, 84, 94, 96–97, 105
census, 69–70, 87, 90
Charles I, 36
Charles II, 32, 37
childhood obesity, 80
children’s literature, 106, 108
Chinese, 71, 91, 125
Christian(s) / Christianity, 29, 30, 33, 85, 88, 89, 95, 121
Christmas, 89, 121, 123, 126–127
Church in Wales, 88
Church of England, 35, 81, 85–88
Church of Scotland, 87
Churchill, Winston, 40, 108
climate change, 64
coal, 22, 54, 57, 63
colonies, 35, 37, 39, 70–71
Commonwealth of Nations, 41
Conservative Party, 46, 48, 64
Constable, John, 101, 109
Cornish (identity or language), 69, 97
Cornwall, 17, 68–70, 94
Cromwell, Oliver, 36
crops, 58
Crossrail, 55
Crusades, 31, 33
currency, 58

Denmark, 29–30, 94, 128

Diamond Jubilee, 42, 122
diversity, 9, 98
Druids, 29

Edinburgh, 18, 21–22, 47–48, 119–120

Edward I, II, III, IV, VI, VII, 31–39
Eisteddfod, 120
Elizabeth I, 35–36, 89
Elizabeth II, 7–8, 40, 42, 44, 79, 81, 119, 122
Empire, British, 5–6, 8, 32, 70
England, 6–7, 12, 14–17, 20, 22–24, 27–32, 35–37, 40, 45–46, 48–49, 53, 57–58, 62–64, 67, 69, 71,
78, 80–82, 85–89, 91, 109, 114, 121, 128–129
English Channel, 12, 16–17
Europe, 11–12, 19, 27, 29, 37, 40, 53, 57–58, 70–71, 78, 90, 109
European Union, 40, 42, 48, 54, 58, 61–62

farming, 16, 18–20, 24, 30, 58–59

France, 12, 16, 31–32, 37, 39, 54, 70–71, 115

gardens / gardening, 115

George VI, 40
Germany, 29, 39–40, 54, 70, 90, 128
Gilbert and Sullivan, 102
Great Britain, meaning of, 12–13
Great Fire of London, 38
Great Vowel Shift, 96

Hadrian’s Wall, 29
Handel, George Friedrich, 101
Harry Potter, 8, 15, 106
haggis, 120, 127
healthcare, 57, 83
Hebrides, 19, 27, 97
henges, 28
Henry III, VI, VII, 31–32
Henry IV, 95
Henry VIII, 35, 85–86, 101
historical eras, 50 Hogmanay, 120

immigration, 8–9, 70–72, 125

India / Indian, 5, 37, 39, 69–71, 98, 101, 121, 125
Industrial Revolution, 37, 56
Ireland / Irish, 9, 14, 35, 45–46, 49, 50, 69–70, 88–89, 93, 97–98, 114
Islam, 89–90
Islamophobia, 72
islands, 10, 18–19, 27, 37, 129
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” 104

James I, 36, 89
James II, 37
James Bond, 8, 108–109
Jews / Jewish, 33, 70, 90–91, 121

kings, 29–31, 36
Alfred (the Great), 29
Arthur, 28, 105
Charles I, 36
Charles II, 37, 38
Edward the Confessor, 31
Edward I, 31
Edward II, 32
Edward III, 32
Edward IV, 32
Edward VI, 35
Edward VII, 39
George I, 102
George VI, 40
Harold II (Godwinson), 31
Henry II, 31
Henry III, 31
Henry IV, 95
Henry VI, 32
Henry VII (Tudor), 32
Henry VIII, 35, 85–86, 101
James I, 36, 89
James II, 37
John (Lackland), 31
Kenneth MacAlpin, 30
Offa, 29
Richard I (the Lionheart), 31
Richard III, 31–32
William I (the Conqueror), 31
William and Mary, 37

Labour Party, 48
Lake District, 14–15, 24, 104, 107, 117, 123
London, 6–7, 12, 16–17, 20–23, 31–32, 37–38, 40, 42–43, 48–49, 55, 58, 62, 64, 67, 70–72, 80–81,
86, 91, 95, 102, 110–111, 113, 121, 124, 128
London Congestion Zone, 63

male primogeniture, 73
medieval, 15, 18, 29, 32, 101
Middle Ages, 32, 33, 129
Middleton, Catherine, 79
Muslims, 33, 72, 74, 89–90, 122

National Health Service, 57, 83

Normans, 31, 70, 95
Norse, 31, 95
Northern Ireland, 9, 45–46, 49, 50
novels, 108

Olympics, 6–7, 93
Orkney Islands, 19

Pakistan, 5, 71
Parliament, 21, 31, 36–37, 39, 45–49, 51, 72, 80, 82, 86, 110, 121–122
Peak District, 14–15, 59, 117
Pennine Way, 14, 117
pilgrimages, 33
Plaid Cymru, 48
Platagenets, 31–32
poet laureate, 108
poetry / poets, 103, 104, 106–108
pollution, 61–63
poverty, 75, 80, 114
Prince Charles, 68, 79, 86
Prince George, 43, 79
Prince William, 79, 86
Prosperity Index, 77
Protestant(s), 9, 37, 85, 88, 109
Protestantism, 35, 37
pubs, 87, 113, 127–128
puddings, 126, 131

queens
Elizabeth I, 35–36, 89
Elizabeth II, 7–8, 40, 42, 44, 81, 119, 122
Mary I, 35
Mary (William and), 37
Victoria, 39, 79

recession, 6, 54
Reformation, Protestant, 32, 35, 109
Restoration (of Charles II), 32, 36–37
Richard I, 31
Richard III, 31–32
rivers, 14, 22, 25, 29, 62, 113, 117
River Severn, 20, 23, 29
River Thames, 17, 21–23, 29, 111
robins, English and American, 66
Rolling Stones, The, 103
Roman Catholic Church, 9, 33, 35, 37, 85–86, 89, 101
Roman Empire, 11, 29
Romans, 11, 29, 94
Rome, 35, 89
Rowling, J.K., 106
royal family, 79, 116

Salmond, Alex, 50
schools, 75, 81–82
Scotland, 6, 11–12, 14–15, 18–20, 24, 27–30, 32, 37, 43–49, 51, 61, 63, 70, 78, 81, 85, 87, 89, 97–98,
114, 117, 120–121, 127, 129
Scots language, 98
Scottish Gaelic language, 97–98
Scottish Independence Referendum, 6, 50
Scottish National Party, 48, 50
Shakespeare, William, 8, 18, 96, 101, 107
Shetland Islands, 10, 19
sports, 6, 55, 75, 82, 87, 113–116, 121
stone circles, 28
Stonehenge, 17, 28
Stuarts, 36
summer pudding, recipe, 131

tea, 129–130
teen pregnancy, 78
terrorism, 9, 42, 74
Thomas, Dylan, 108
tourism, 20, 28, 29, 53
Tudors, 31–32
Turner, J.M.W., 109

United Kingdom, 6, 8, 19, 22–23, 40, 42–43, 45–49, 51, 53, 59, 61–62, 83–84, 93, 115
United States, 37, 39, 42, 54, 70–71, 93, 109, 114, 126

Victoria, 39, 79
Vikings, 30–31, 70

Wales, 12, 14, 20, 22–24, 28, 30–32, 35, 40, 45–49, 55, 61, 63–64, 67–68, 70, 78, 84, 87–89, 94, 96,
98, 114, 117, 120–121
wars, 5, 32, 39, 70, 121
Welsh cakes, recipe, 130
Welsh language, 96–98
whiskey, 18, 58, 98
wildlife, 24–25, 65–67
William and Mary, 37
William the Conqueror, 31
Wordsworth, William, 104, 107
World Heritage sites, 15, 28–29
World War I, 39, 108
World War II, 40, 48, 70