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British people
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The British (also known as Britons, informally Brits or archaically Britishers) are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, one of the Channel Islands, or of one of the British overseas territories, and their descendants. In a historical context, the word is used to refer to the ancient Britons, the indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain south of the Forth. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which are acquired through a variety of means including by birth in the UK and by descent from British nationals.
Although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, a developed British national identity emerged following the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.
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The British (also known as Britons, informally Brits or archaically Britishers) are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, one of the Channel Islands, or of one of the British overseas territories, and their descendants. In a historical context, the word is used to refer to the ancient Britons, the indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain south of the Forth. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which are acquired through a variety of means including by birth in the UK and by descent from British nationals.
Although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, a developed British national identity emerged following the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The notion of Britishness—which was closely tied with Protestantism at the time of its inception—was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and was developed further during the Victorian era. The complex history of the formation of the United Kingdom created a "particular sense of nationhood and belonging" in Britain; Britishness came to be "superimposed on to much older identities", and the English, Scottish and Welsh "remain in many ways distinct peoples in cultural terms", giving rise to resistance to British identity. Because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but is held with strong conviction by Unionists.
Contemporary Britons are descended mainly from the varied ethnic stocks that settled in Great Britain before the 11th century. Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse influences were blended in Britain under the Normans, Scandinavian Vikings who had lived in northern France. Conquest and union facilitated migration, cultural and linguistic exchange, and intermarriage between the people of England, Scotland and Wales during the Middle Ages, Early Modern period and beyond. Since the 19th century, and particularly since the mid-20th century there has been immigration to the United Kingdom by people from Ireland, the Commonwealth, other parts of Europe and elsewhere; they and their descendants are mostly British citizens with some assuming a British, dual or hyphenated identity.
International perceptions of the British broadly revolve around their politeness and reserved nature. The British are a diverse, multicultural society, with "strong regional accents, expressions and identities". The social structure of Britain has changed radically since the 19th century, with the decline in religious observance, enlargement of the middle class, and increased ethnic diversity. The population of the United Kingdom stands at around 60,000,000. The British diaspora is concentrated in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and United States.
History of the term
Greek and Roman writers between the first century BC and the first century AD describe the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britannic. Etymologicum Genuinum and Parthenius mention of Bretannus (the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek ??etta???) as a Celt forefather of the Britons. It has been suggested that this name came from a Gaullish description meaning "people of the forms" referring to their practice of tattooing or painting their bodies using blue woad. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanike as a group name for the islands. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain. The name became associated with the Roman province of Britannia and as the Romans failed to establish control of the Scottish Highlands the frontier was effectively drawn at the Antonine Wall, then around AD 200 at Hadrian's Wall. The post-Roman period brought a series of invasions, and in medieval Britain control of territory by Britons became confined to Wales, Cornwall and northern England. The term Britannia remained in use as the Latin name for the island, and Historia Britonum claimed legendary British origins as a prestigious genealogy for Welsh kings, followed by the Historia Regum Britanniae which popularised this pseudo-history to support the claims of the kings of England.
History
Ancestral roots
The genetic record of the British people is still a matter for debate. It has been commonly supposed that today only the Welsh and the genetic descendants of the Cornish remain in the same locations as their Dark Age and Medieval ancestors. However, recent research suggests that the majority of persons in all regions of the British Isles are the genetic descendants of settlers from the Iberian peninsula who arrived in the region between 7,500 and 15,000 years ago.
It is thought that ancient Iberia served as a refuge for palaeolithic humans during the last major glaciation when environments further north were too cold and dry for continuous habitation. When the climate warmed into the present interglacial, populations would have rapidly spread north along the west European coast. Genetically, in terms of Y-chromosomes and Mt-DNA, inhabitants of Britain and Ireland are closely related to the Basques, reflecting their common origin in this refugial area. Basques, along with Irish, show the highest frequency of the Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup R1b in Western Europe; some 95% of native Basque men have this haplogroup. The rest is mainly I and a minimal presence of E3b. The Y-chromosome and MtDNA relationship between Basques and people of Ireland and Wales is of equal ratios than to neighbouring areas of Spain, where similar ethnically "Spanish" people now live in close proximity to the Basques, although this genetic relationship is also very strong among Basques and other Spaniards. In fact, as Stephen Oppenheimer has stated in The Origins of the British (2006), although Basques have been more isolated than other Iberians, they are a population representative of south western Europe. As to the genetic relationship among Basques, Iberians and Britons, he also states (pages 375 and 378):
By far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal), ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales and 93% Castlerea, Ireland. On average only 30% of gene types in England derive from north-west Europe. Even without dating the earlier waves of north-west European immigration, this invalidates the Anglo-Saxon wipeout theory...
...75-95% of British and Irish (genetic) matches derive from Iberia...Ireland, coastal Wales, and central and west-coast Scotland are almost entirely made up from Iberian founders, while the rest of the non-English parts of the British Isles have similarly high rates. England has rather lower rates of Iberian types with marked heterogeneity, but no English sample has less than 58% of Iberian samples...
In his 2006 book Blood of the Isles, which is based on genetic research, Bryan Sykes comes to similar conclusions, in which he says:
In the Middle Ages
In mediaeval times, the term British was used to refer to the pre-Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of Great Britain, in particular the Welsh - that is those now commonly called the (ancient) Britons - in contrast to the English. For example, references by Giraldus Cambrensis to the British refer to what were later called the Welsh.
Formation of the United Kingdom
became the figure of national personification of the United Kingdom during the 18th century]]
British became synonymous with a national civic identity with the formation in 1707 of the united Kingdom of Great Britain, which became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and in turn, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland with the secession of what became the Republic of Ireland. British national identity was "a pragmatic creation designed to exploit and develop new economic and militaristic opportunities of expanding trade and industrial and technological and scientific revolution". Nevertheless, it became common for the people of the Kingdom of Great Britain to assume a "layered identity", that is, to think of themselves as simultaneously British and also Scottish, English, and Welsh. As the Napoleonic Wars with the Catholic First French Empire advanced, the notion of Britishness became "closely bound up with Protestantism". According to researcher Peter Borsay, the proliferation of neo-classical monuments at the end of the 18th century and start of the 19th, such as The Kymin at Monmouth, were attempts to solidify the concepts of Great Britain and Britishness at the time of the Act of Union 1800 with the Kingdom of Ireland, the Napoleonic Wars with the First French Empire, and the expansion of the British Empire through military and commercial victory. He wrote:
Colonial, Victorian and world war periods
recruitment poster.]]
Rule, Britannia! is a British patriotic song, originating from the poem "Rule, Britannia" by James Thomson and set to music by Thomas Arne in 1740. Thomson, born in the Scottish Lowlands, was interested in forging British national identity.
"At the height of the Empire, and when Britain 'stood alone' during the Second World War, the Scottish, Welsh and Irish populations were prepared to suppress nationalist issues on pragmatic grounds. The British Empire provided unprecedented opportunities for upward mobility and the accumulations of wealth".
Modern period
The term Britishness is often associated with Unionist tradition, however the term Unionist is often associated with Northern Ireland and so Britishness is more often used. It can be seen however that Britishness evokes a range of responses and attitudes that make an exact definition elusive.
Most recently this concept has been used by Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to initiate debate on British identity. Brown's speech to the Fabian Society's Britishness Conference proposed that British values demand a new constitutional settlement and symbols to represent a modern patriotism, including a new youth community service scheme and a British Day to celebrate. He suggested that one focus could be in terms of celebrating the best of the United Kingdom stressing the view that what unites the United Kingdom is stronger than the issues dividing it, such as calls for Scottish independence, football loyalties, or claims from England against distribution of funds to the Scottish Parliament. One of the central issues identified at the Fabian Society conference was how the English identity fits within the framework of a devolved United Kingdom.
An expression of the Government's initiative to promote Britishness was the inaugural Veterans' Day which was first held on 27 June 2006. As well as celebrating the achievements of armed forces veterans, Browns' speech at the first event for the celebration said: "Scots and people from the rest of the UK share the purpose – that Britain has something to say to the rest of the world about the values of freedom, democracy and the dignity of the people that you stand up for. So at a time when people can talk about football and devolution and money, it is important that we also remember the values that we share in common".
Geographic distribution
United States
Many British Americans have ancestry in America that dates back to colonial times in the 17th and 18th centuries. Those who went to New England are known as Yankees. With their roots being in America for such a long period, many British Americans have begun to think of themselves ancestrally simply as "Americans." This is especially true in the South.
British emigrant and ethnic descent communities are found across the world, and in some places, settled in significant numbers. Countries with significant numbers of people of English, Scottish, Ulster (Scots-Irish) and Welsh ancestry or ethnic origin include the United States (particularly Utah, New England, New York, California, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Southern States), Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand.
Culture
The experience of military, political and economic power from the rise of the British Empire, led to a very specific drive in artistic technique, taste and sensibility in the United Kingdom.
Demographics
Identity in Britain | Identity | Percent |
|---|
| British only | 31 | | British + Home Nations Identity | 15 | | Home Nations Identity | 49 | | Other | 5 |
The UK is an ethnically diverse country with people from various stock. For most of the last millennium, the lands now constituting the United Kingdom were largely inhabited by indigenous peoples with small to medium-scale migration from Europe occurring between the 16th and 20th centuries. In 1066, the Normans successfully took control of England and, in subsequent years, there was some migration from France. In the 19th century, immigration by people outside Europe began on a small scale as people arrived from the British colonies. This increased during the 20th century. Since World War II, however, substantial immigration from the New Commonwealth and European countries has considerably altered the demographic make-up of many cities in Britain. The majority of Britons are White (92%) with the remainder from various ethnic groups, mainly Asian, Black, and mixed-race.
Historically, British was expounded as a meta-identity for all of the residents of Britain. However, the number of people in Great Britain identifying themselves as British has been declining in recent times. For example, the percentage identifying as British fell in England from 63% in 1991-2 to 48% in 2003, in Scotland from 31% in 1974 to 20% in 2003, and in Wales from 34% in 1978-9 to 27% in 2003. The
Identity in Northern Ireland | Identity | Percent |
|---|
| British only | 19 | | British and Irish | 58 | | Irish only | 18 | | Other | 4 |
percentage describing themselves equally as both British and in terms of their national origin has also fallen.
The 2001 UK General Household Survey (GHS) contained an element measuring the number of people describing themselves as British. The incidence of those willing to call themselves British in any sense is highest in England, but nowhere commands a majority. Interestingly, it does command a majority of non-White respondents (57%), compared to 45% White respondents. Furthermore, 51% of non-White respondents consider themselves British-only, whereas only 29% of White respondents describe themselves so.
Starting in the 2001 census, White Irish and White British were recognised as distinct ethnic groups in Great Britain. This distinction is avoided in the census of Northern Ireland, where White Irish and White British are combined into a single "White" ethnic group on the census forms. Naturally, numbers of those describing themselves as British in Northern Ireland are divided dramatically across community lines (approximate to religious differences between Catholic and Protestant). An Institute of Governance briefing in 2006 described the division between the communities so:
British in any sense | Location / Group | Percent |
|---|
| England | 48% | | Northern Ireland | 64% | | Scotland | 20% | | Wales | 35% | | White | 45% | | Non-white | 57% |
The 2001 UK census measured the numbers of people from a Protestant background in Northern Ireland to be 53% and from a Roman Catholic background to be 44%.
The Northern Ireland Life & Times Survey samples attitudes to nationality and ethnicity every year. The results of the 2006 survey suggest that 90% of Protestants in Northern Ireland regard themselves as British and 15% of Roman Catholics regard themselves as such; 71% of Catholics regard themselves as Irish and 3% of Protestants regard themselves as this; 6% of Protestants and 8% of Catholics regard themselves as both British and Irish. The total of people who regard themselves as British in Northern Ireland was 56%; as Irish 33% and as both British and Irish was 8%.
The 2006 Life & Times Survey found that the category for Northern Irish had attracted 26% (23% of Catholics and 26% of Protestants). Of those claiming to not be of any particular religion, 35% regarded themselves as British; 34% as Northern Irish; and 20% as Irish.
Sensitivity around use of term
Whether someone refers to their nationality as English, Northern Irish, Scottish, Welsh, it does not necessarily mean that they do not also consider themselves British. For example, a person may consider himself British or Welsh, or equally British and Welsh, or mostly one or the other. However, even when given the widest common choice of options, some people still prefer to identify themselves as exclusively English (17%), Scottish (31%), Welsh (21%), or Northern Irish (21%), referring to aspects of their own culture and history which distinguish the nations of the United Kingdom from each other. These figures can be compared to those who identity themselves as exclusively British, England (10%), Scotland (4%), and Wales (9%).
The use of the term is sensitive in some areas, particularly in Northern Ireland, and can vary in exact meaning depending on context and the author's personal prejudices.
The term British is also used by naturalised immigrants and their descendants. By a slight margin it is the preferred term of non-White residents of the United Kingdom. Thus Black British is common usage, particularly in England, though less so in Scotland where such groups can be, for example, Pakistani Scots.
Since partition of the island in 1922, British identity has become a source of division in Northern Ireland.
At partition, Unionists in what was to become Northern Ireland, identified as Ulstermen or -women and the contentious term, British Isles, was avoided by Unionist historians as much as it was by Nationalist ones.
Since the Troubles, there has been a doubling of those identifying as British within the Protestant community in Northern Ireland (rising to nearly 70%), while Ulster and Irish identity has collapsed among that group. There has been a 75% drop among Catholics of those identifying as British (from 20% down to 6%) in the same period, where Irish is the predominant identity (approximately 60%). High rates of intermarriage between nationalists and unionists following independence is attributed as the disappearance of British Unionist and Anglo-Irish identities in the Republic of Ireland, where the political implications of intermarriage are perceived as unimportant. In Northern Ireland, in contrast, with high degrees of housing, educational, political and community segregation, only 5% of marriages cross community divides. The people of Northern Ireland are British citizens, and individuals may choose to assert Irish citizenship also, if they so choose.
In Ireland
| Identity in Northern Ireland |
|---|
| | | Identity in Northern Ireland since 1968. Protestant identity is shown on the left. Catholic identity is shown on the right. |
British identity has long been problematic in Ireland. Prior to the union with the Great Britain, British identity was never applied to Irish people. From an Irish perspective, regardless of religion or political persuasion, this status quo continued during the period when the whole island formed part of the United Kingdom, although a greater number of people on Great Britain began to describe Irish people as British during the same period. Since partition of the island in 1922, British identity has become a source of division in Northern Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, British identity is never asserted and will almost certainly cause offence. A pejorative term, West Briton, has been in use since the 19th century, though not originally intended pejoratively, and was used by nationalist leader Daniel O'Connell British House of Commons in 1832:
Before the 20th century, and the partition of the country, the aristocratic class identified themselves as Anglo-Irish rather than British. At partition, Unionists in what was to become Northern Ireland, identified as Ulstermen or -women and the contentious term, British Isles, was avoided by Unionist historians as much as it was by Nationalist ones.
In the British overseas territories
The people of the British overseas territories are British by citizenship, via origins or naturalization. Along with aspects of common British identity, each of them has their own distinct identity shaped in the respective particular circumstances of political, economic, ethnic, social and cultural history. For instance, in the case of the Falkland Islanders that is explained by Lewis Clifton, Speaker of the Falklands Legislative Council as follows:
In the Commonwealth
Canada
In the 2006 Canadian census, the provided statistics allow for more than one response, so that a person could record their ancestry as being both Scottish and Welsh.
Ancestry as reported in 2006 Canadian census | Ethnic Origins | Total | Single Response | Multiple Response | Percentage |
|---|
| Total Population | 31,241,030 | 18,319,580 | 12,921,445 | | | English | 6,570,015 | 1,367,125 | 5,202,890 | 21% | | Scottish | 4,719,850 | 568,515 | 4,151,340 | 15% | | Welsh | 440,965 | 27,115 | 413,855 | 1.5% | | Cornish | 1,550 | 65 | 1,485 | < 0.1% |
Australia
In the 2006 Australian census, the provided statistics allow for more than one response, so that a person could record their ancestry as being both Scottish and Welsh.
Ancestry as reported in 2006 Australian census | Ancestry | Total | Percentage |
|---|
| Total Population | 19,855,288 | | | English | 6,283,647 | 31.65% | | Scottish | 1,501,204 | 7.5% | | Welsh | 113,242 | 0.5% | | British | 5,656 | < 0.1% |
New Zealand
A significant number of New Zealanders are of British ancestry. As late as the 1950s, it was common for British New Zealanders to refer to themselves as simply British, such as when Prime Minister Keith Holyoake described Sir Edmund Hillary's successful ascent of Mt. Everest as "[putting] the British race and New Zealand on top of the world". New Zealand passports described nationals as "British Subject and New Zealand Citizen" until 1974, when this was changed to "New Zealand Citizen".
While "European" identity predominates political discourse in New Zealand today, the term "British" is still used by some to explain aspects of the country's overall cultural affiliation. Others see the term as better describing previous generations; for instance, journalist Colin James referred to "we ex-British New Zealanders" in a 2005 speech. It remains a relatively uncontroversial descriptor of ancestry.
In an interview with the New Zealand Listener in 2006, the opposition leader of that time Don Brash made the following statement;
- British immigrants fit in here very well. My own ancestry is all British. New Zealand values are British values, derived from centuries of struggle since Magna Carta. Those things make New Zealand the society it is.
See also
Bibliography
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