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Concept
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Summary
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in Northwestern Europe that comprised the entirety of the British Isles between 1801 and 1922. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into a unified state. The establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 led to the remainder later being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1927.
The United Kingdom, having financed the European coalition that defeated France during the Napoleonic Wars, developed a large Royal Navy that enabled the British Empire to become the foremost world power for the next century. For nearly a century from the final defeat of Napoleon following the Battle of Waterloo to the outbreak of World War I, Britain was almost continuously at peace with Great Powers. The most notable exception was the Crimean War with the Russian Empire, in which actual hostilities were relatively limited. However, the United Kingdom did engage in extensive offensive military operations in Africa and Asia, such as the Opium Wars with the Qing dynasty, to extend its overseas territorial holdings and influence.
Beginning in earnest in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Imperial government granted increasing levels of autonomy to locally elected governments in colonies where white settlers had become demographically or politically dominant, with this process eventually resulting in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa becoming self-governing dominions. Although these dominions remained part of the British Empire, in practice dominion governments were permitted to largely manage their own internal affairs without interference from London, which was primarily responsible only for foreign policy.
Rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the state's formation continued up until the mid-19th century. The Great Irish Famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the mid-19th century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland and increased calls for Irish land reform.
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