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BIG BEN CHIMES | 0:00:03 | 0:00:05 | |
This was once the heart of the British Empire. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:28 | |
It used to house the India Office and the Colonial Office. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:33 | |
Between them, they ruled a quarter of the globe. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
Today, the British Empire is long gone. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:46 | |
But hidden away at the top of a staircase | 0:00:46 | 0:00:48 | |
is a work of art from 1778 | 0:00:48 | 0:00:52 | |
that brings back the spirit of that age. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:55 | |
This is a painting called Britannia Receiving The Riches Of The East. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:11 | |
And it shows Britannia sitting on a rock with the British lion beneath her, | 0:01:11 | 0:01:16 | |
receiving various gifts - | 0:01:16 | 0:01:18 | |
a string of pearls, | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
a casket of jewels, | 0:01:22 | 0:01:24 | |
a great porcelain vase, | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
a tea chest | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
and a bale of cotton. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
Britannia's receiving these gifts as though she's entitled to them, | 0:01:32 | 0:01:37 | |
as though it were her birthright. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:39 | |
Not a view we hold today, and perhaps that's one reason | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
why it's hidden away in the Foreign Office, where few visitors can see it. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
But it does give us an insight into the era - | 0:01:45 | 0:01:49 | |
the development of the British Empire | 0:01:49 | 0:01:51 | |
with a kind of spirit of adventure and opportunity - | 0:01:51 | 0:01:55 | |
even though we know today that there was a darker side | 0:01:55 | 0:01:59 | |
as Britain tried, by force, to impose its will on the unwilling. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:04 | |
In the middle of the 18th century, | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
with naval and commercial victories overseas, | 0:02:43 | 0:02:45 | |
Britain was entering a new imperial era. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
It drew us into a different way of thinking about the world, | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
led from the top by the Royal Family, the figureheads of the nation. | 0:02:55 | 0:03:01 | |
Here at Kew, in a modest, even homely fashion, | 0:03:10 | 0:03:14 | |
King George III and Queen Charlotte raised their large family. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
But there was nothing modest about what they taught their children. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
At the heart of the palace is a very special children's toy. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:30 | |
This is a tiny, elegant cabinet, very small. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:36 | |
But it contains the whole world. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
When you open it, take out the drawers, | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
what's revealed is one of the very first jigsaw puzzles ever made. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:47 | |
And it shows a map of the world. | 0:03:47 | 0:03:51 | |
It was used to teach the children geography. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
And I'm going to see if I can put it together, | 0:03:56 | 0:03:58 | |
which is not easy, because, unlike modern jigsaws, | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
which have their sort of interlocking pieces, this doesn't. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
It's almost completely shapeless. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
The shapes are the shapes of the countries. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:07 | |
So you have to know where each country goes, | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
and, what's more, it's all written in French. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
So you have to speak French as well. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
Er... | 0:04:14 | 0:04:15 | |
Hmm. Ah! | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
Ethiopia, I think. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
Wait a moment. Somalia... | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
Don't think my geography's that bad. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:24 | |
Where's this thing go? | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
I can't read that one. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
Can you read that one? | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
The infant Prince of Wales poring over this puzzle | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
pieced together strange countries and continents. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:42 | |
When the jigsaw was complete, | 0:04:49 | 0:04:50 | |
the young prince could look at all the lands that he would inherit - | 0:04:50 | 0:04:55 | |
Great Britain, Ireland, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:58 | |
the east coast of America, | 0:04:58 | 0:05:01 | |
but not the part to the west - | 0:05:01 | 0:05:03 | |
"Partie inconnues", "Unknown part" - | 0:05:03 | 0:05:05 | |
bits of the Caribbean, | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
down here, parts of West Africa, the Gold Coast... | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
...parts of India. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:15 | |
But interestingly, not Australia and New Zealand, | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
because when this jigsaw was made, they hadn't yet been discovered. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
That was still to come. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:23 | |
In his lifetime, he would add those two great chunks to his Empire. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:28 | |
What an enticing prospect the whole thing must have seemed! | 0:05:28 | 0:05:32 | |
British explorers crossed the oceans, | 0:05:40 | 0:05:42 | |
claiming new territories in the name of the King. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
At the heart of Britain's naval exploits | 0:05:53 | 0:05:55 | |
was Greenwich. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:57 | |
It's here that our great seafaring heroes are celebrated - | 0:06:02 | 0:06:07 | |
Horatio Nelson, | 0:06:07 | 0:06:10 | |
Sir Walter Raleigh | 0:06:10 | 0:06:13 | |
and, of course, Captain James Cook. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:16 | |
Captain Cook was one of our greatest explorers. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
In three daring, magnificent voyages, he crisscrossed the world, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:30 | |
finding things that were unknown in Europe at the time - | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
new peoples, new species, | 0:06:33 | 0:06:36 | |
new islands, new countries, | 0:06:36 | 0:06:39 | |
new continents even. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
The very names of his ships - | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
Endeavour, Resolution, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
Adventure, Discovery - | 0:06:47 | 0:06:49 | |
send a chill down the spine. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
Cook's expeditions weren't just undertaken by rough sailors. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
He also travelled with scientists, with botanists | 0:07:09 | 0:07:14 | |
and with artists. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:16 | |
This room is hung with the paintings | 0:07:19 | 0:07:21 | |
of one of the artists who accompanied Cook on his voyages - | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
William Hodges. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
They're the holiday snaps of Cook's journeys, | 0:07:27 | 0:07:31 | |
and pretty sensational they are. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
In the 1770s, | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
Hodges' canvases changed Britain's understanding of the world. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:49 | |
People were thrilled to see for the first time | 0:07:53 | 0:07:57 | |
the far-flung lands of the Pacific. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:01 | |
This big canvas is the most exciting of all Hodges' paintings | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
and it shows a true and really terrifying event | 0:08:14 | 0:08:18 | |
on one of Cook's voyages. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
He was sailing in the Resolution when it got caught in a terrible storm, | 0:08:20 | 0:08:24 | |
described by one of his officers | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
as great black clouds coming up from the horizon, | 0:08:26 | 0:08:29 | |
the wind blowing in all directions | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
and, worst of all, these. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:35 | |
The waterspouts - four waterspouts - great columns of water. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:40 | |
This one all turbulent, lifting up into the sky. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
And the officer described how they had to shorten sail quickly, | 0:08:43 | 0:08:47 | |
furl all their sails, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:49 | |
and try and claw their way off the land to avoid going onto the rocks. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:54 | |
But what's really striking about this painting | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
isn't just that it's a picture of a terrifying incident. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:03 | |
It's these figures down here that Hodges has painted in. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
A half-naked woman with a child | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
and a man standing on the rocks with his hand up, almost in benediction, | 0:09:11 | 0:09:16 | |
some say looking like Moses showing the way to the Promised Land | 0:09:16 | 0:09:21 | |
or parting the waters to make a safe passage for Resolution. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:26 | |
Hodges is saying this is much more than just a dangerous journey. | 0:09:27 | 0:09:32 | |
There's something mystical about this, about the triumph of man over nature. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:36 | |
This is an epic voyage | 0:09:36 | 0:09:38 | |
with Captain Cook as its hero. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
The spirit of adventure didn't just inspire great explorers. | 0:09:55 | 0:10:01 | |
In their wake came thousands of people | 0:10:01 | 0:10:03 | |
wanting to escape Britain in search of opportunity. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:07 | |
These British didn't leave home just to conquer unknown lands. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:25 | |
They wanted to settle, to make a new life. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
Ever since the 17th century, | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
for those brave enough to make the journey, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
America had seemed a thrilling new world offering prosperity and freedom, | 0:10:46 | 0:10:52 | |
ideals which remain at the heart of the American Dream. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
Ah! Looks like a dog's breakfast. MAN LAUGHS | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
Thanks very much. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:16 | |
Oh, it's nice and warm, anyway. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:20 | |
Three bucks. | 0:11:20 | 0:11:21 | |
-Great. Thank you. -Enjoy. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:22 | |
Philadelphia's one of the great American cities | 0:11:27 | 0:11:30 | |
and it's remarkable, because it was the vision of one man, | 0:11:30 | 0:11:34 | |
an Englishman, William Penn. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:36 | |
He was a Quaker, a religious sect which was persecuted in Britain. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
He himself had been imprisoned. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:42 | |
And he came over here to seek freedom | 0:11:42 | 0:11:45 | |
and founded Penn...sylvania. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:47 | |
And, for that matter, this great city of Philadelphia - | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
the Greek for "the city of brotherly love". | 0:11:51 | 0:11:55 | |
And now the city of the Philly cheesesteak. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
Don't know which end to start at. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:01 | |
HE CHUCKLES | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
The figure of William Penn still dominates the city of Philadelphia. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:18 | |
Penn wanted to make this a place of tolerance, | 0:12:24 | 0:12:28 | |
a place where all religious sects could flourish | 0:12:28 | 0:12:32 | |
without fear of persecution, | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
equal in the eyes of God. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
Throughout the 18th century, | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
the British settlers built on Penn's ideals | 0:12:42 | 0:12:44 | |
of living in harmony together. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
Central to this was architecture. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:52 | |
Following Penn's guidelines, | 0:12:52 | 0:12:56 | |
Old City, Philadelphia, was built with wide streets, | 0:12:56 | 0:13:00 | |
healthy open spaces, | 0:13:00 | 0:13:04 | |
uniform, regimented houses - | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
all built on simple geometric lines. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
Perfect harmony - in stone. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:18 | |
But lurking behind this ideal was an inconvenient truth - | 0:13:22 | 0:13:27 | |
that the great city of freedom | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
was built on land that had belonged to Native Americans. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
Many of my people were forced out of the region | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
by the mid-1700s, late 1700s. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:39 | |
The majority of us were forced further west. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:42 | |
Those that remained had to basically hide in plain sight... | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
without the rights that we had | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
in dealing in British courts, even under William Penn. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
It was a difficult time and it's been a difficult time. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:56 | |
What's your feeling about Penn? | 0:13:56 | 0:13:58 | |
He was a man trying to live out his faith, | 0:13:58 | 0:14:00 | |
to build an ideal situation here in Pennsylvania. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
But for us to live together | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
meant that we did not impose our wills on each other. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:10 | |
That was not necessarily the way | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
that even Penn, in all of his benevolence, seemed to view it. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:18 | |
It was living in peace under his government, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
under the British Crown, | 0:14:21 | 0:14:22 | |
and that was something that was foreign to us. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:25 | |
It didn't suit the settlers' image of themselves | 0:14:38 | 0:14:40 | |
to think they'd simply stolen their land from somebody else. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:44 | |
So much so that one Pennsylvanian-born artist, | 0:14:44 | 0:14:48 | |
Benjamin West, created a fantasy around the founding of the colony. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:54 | |
At the centre of the picture is William Penn himself | 0:15:08 | 0:15:12 | |
in Quaker dress, a rather portly figure. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:15 | |
There are merchants here - colonialists - | 0:15:15 | 0:15:19 | |
offering gifts to the Native Americans. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
The Chief there and, sitting in a circle, the sort of elders of the tribe. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:29 | |
This painting became an instant bestseller. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
That's to say it was reproduced | 0:15:34 | 0:15:36 | |
and hung in hundreds of American homes. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
And the reason was that it gave a portrait of Empire | 0:15:39 | 0:15:42 | |
which the settlers wanted to see. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
So the whole scene is one of perfect harmony. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:51 | |
Not of an empire or a colony being established by force and violence, | 0:15:53 | 0:15:58 | |
which, of course, happened, | 0:15:58 | 0:16:00 | |
but of agreement between the people who lived here | 0:16:00 | 0:16:04 | |
and the people who were coming in, | 0:16:04 | 0:16:06 | |
and the assumption that each had something to offer the other. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:10 | |
An ideal portrait, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:13 | |
a perfect picture of what Empire could be. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
It wasn't long before the settlers were confident enough | 0:16:32 | 0:16:36 | |
not to need the motherland. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:38 | |
In 1776, America declared its independence from Britain, | 0:16:38 | 0:16:44 | |
and war broke out between them. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:46 | |
For eight years, the country was drenched in blood, | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
a defining moment in its history | 0:16:57 | 0:16:59 | |
and an enduring inspiration for its art. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:04 | |
Against all expectations, | 0:17:12 | 0:17:15 | |
the British Crown was defeated by its own colony. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:19 | |
One finely crafted object | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
marks the transformation of America into a new nation. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:39 | |
This is the Liberty Bell, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
a symbol as powerful for America | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
as the White House or the Statue of Liberty. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
It was originally cast in memory of William Penn and his ideals | 0:17:51 | 0:17:57 | |
by the state of Pennsylvania. | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
It was actually made not here, but in London. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:03 | |
It developed this famous crack, | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
which means it can never now be rung. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
And it had this inscription put on it - | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
"Proclaim liberty... | 0:18:13 | 0:18:15 | |
"throughout all the land | 0:18:16 | 0:18:19 | |
"unto all the inhabitants thereof." | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
A quotation from the Bible. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
Tradition has it that when the American Declaration of Independence from Britain | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
was signed here in Philadelphia, | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
with its commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, | 0:18:31 | 0:18:36 | |
this bell rang out to mark the occasion. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:40 | |
Back in Britain, | 0:18:58 | 0:18:59 | |
many felt the loss of America was a national humiliation. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
They were determined the same thing shouldn't happen again. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
Britain's focus now moved to the East | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
and to its interests in India. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:28 | |
During two centuries of trade, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
Britain had grown rich on the spoils of India. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
Its art and treasure were prized for their rare, exotic beauty. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:45 | |
But as Britain tried to extend its power, from trading partner to ruler, | 0:19:56 | 0:20:03 | |
it met resistance. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:05 | |
In a storeroom of the Victoria and Albert Museum | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
is an object that instilled fear in British hearts. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:23 | |
This is Tipu's Tiger. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
It was made for Tipu Sultan, | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
the ruler of Mysore in southern India, | 0:20:35 | 0:20:38 | |
who was the thorn in the flesh of the British. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:40 | |
He hated them, fought them all the time, | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
and they feared him. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:45 | |
His emblem was the tiger. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
He once said, | 0:20:48 | 0:20:50 | |
"I'd rather live two days as a tiger than 200 years as a sheep." | 0:20:50 | 0:20:55 | |
And he had this extraordinary toy made. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
It's a kind of toy for adults. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:01 | |
Now, what happens is, if I wind the handle, | 0:21:01 | 0:21:06 | |
the tiger apparently lets out a fearsome growl. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:10 | |
And the figure here, who is a European, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:15 | |
screams in terror and agony. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
I'll just put my hand there to stop it from falling | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
and start the winding. Here we go. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:24 | |
HOOTING | 0:21:24 | 0:21:26 | |
LAUGHS | 0:21:26 | 0:21:27 | |
HOOTING | 0:21:27 | 0:21:28 | |
I think that's the scream! | 0:21:31 | 0:21:32 | |
Where's the growl? | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
STRONGER HOOT Ooh! | 0:21:34 | 0:21:36 | |
That was the growl of the tiger. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:38 | |
HOOTING It's brilliant! | 0:21:38 | 0:21:40 | |
In 1799, Tipu Sultan was finally defeated | 0:21:50 | 0:21:54 | |
and met his death at the hands of the British. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:58 | |
The tiger was taken from his palace and brought to London, | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
where it was put on display. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:04 | |
The message was clear. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:06 | |
If we didn't want India to go the same way as America, | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
we had to start taking our responsibilities in the Empire seriously. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:14 | |
Like the tiger, India had to be tamed. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:19 | |
Today, Calcutta is the poorest but also the most vibrant | 0:22:59 | 0:23:03 | |
of all India's great cities. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:06 | |
It's a place of nonstop energy and excitement, | 0:23:07 | 0:23:10 | |
where life is lived on the streets. | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
In the 18th century, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
Calcutta was a power base for British traders. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:28 | |
From the first, they were astonished and bewitched | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
by the sights, the sounds, the smells of India. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:37 | |
They even started adopting Indian customs. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
Wearing Indian clothes. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:55 | |
In fact, acting more Indian than British. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:59 | |
MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH | 0:23:59 | 0:24:01 | |
But as a new century dawned, | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
this easy mingling between cultures came to an abrupt end. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:16 | |
A new Governor-General was appointed to impose British control over India, | 0:24:36 | 0:24:41 | |
Richard Wellesley. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:43 | |
There was no danger of Wellesley going native. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:45 | |
He despised the way the British and the Indians mixed. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
He actually thought of the Indian people as depraved. | 0:24:48 | 0:24:51 | |
And he didn't want to be just the leader of a great trading company, | 0:24:51 | 0:24:55 | |
he actually wanted to be a ruler. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:57 | |
And in keeping with these imperial ambitions, | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
he built himself a new residence - Government House. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
The grandeur of Government House was designed to intimidate India. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:41 | |
At the end of this ceremonial route came the throne room. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
And here the Governor-General sat in state, like a king. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:01 | |
Wellesley was the first Governor-General | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
to have a throne made for himself - of solid silver, | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
supported by lions, for Britain, on each end. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:13 | |
And what an impression it must have made when visitors came here. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:17 | |
They must have felt, as they approached the throne, | 0:26:17 | 0:26:19 | |
the might of British power. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
At the back of this great house | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
is an area given over to busts of Roman emperors. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:50 | |
150 years' worth of Roman rule. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
Julius Caesar is here. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:54 | |
Augustus. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:56 | |
Even Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned. | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
The implication is obvious - | 0:26:59 | 0:27:01 | |
Wellesley saw himself as their successor, | 0:27:01 | 0:27:04 | |
part of their tradition. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
And if Wellesley was a Caesar, Britain was Rome. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:13 | |
Throughout the 19th century, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
Calcutta was transformed into an imperial city, | 0:27:33 | 0:27:37 | |
where size mattered. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:40 | |
There were to be great churches. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:42 | |
A Gothic-style cathedral. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
An imposing law court. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:50 | |
Grand mansions and villas. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:54 | |
Even the post office exuded authority and power. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:02 | |
And it wasn't just the buildings. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:09 | |
The whole British way of life was imported. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
Even our national sport. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:16 | |
It's a nice bat. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:22 | |
Very slow, cos I shall miss it otherwise. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
ALL CHEER LAUGHS: Try one more. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:33 | |
I haven't played this for 50 years. One more? | 0:28:38 | 0:28:41 | |
ALL CHEER I'm running. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:45 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:52 | |
Thank you so much. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:54 | |
The new imperialists saw India through blinkers. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:13 | |
A fascinating world, | 0:29:13 | 0:29:15 | |
but one from which they would remain separate. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
This detachment was reflected in the art of the time. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:25 | |
People in Britain | 0:29:26 | 0:29:29 | |
were very curious about what India was like. | 0:29:29 | 0:29:32 | |
What was it that drew people here? | 0:29:32 | 0:29:34 | |
And it wasn't long | 0:29:34 | 0:29:36 | |
before professional painters started coming out here to Calcutta | 0:29:36 | 0:29:40 | |
and began painting scenes. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:42 | |
And what they drew was interesting, | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
because it wasn't quite the exotic, vibrant, colourful India | 0:29:45 | 0:29:49 | |
that we know now. | 0:29:49 | 0:29:52 | |
It was a rather quieter, paler version of India, | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
as though they didn't want to upset people back home | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
by suggesting it was too turbulent and a difficult life here. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:02 | |
There was a lot of attention paid to the fine details of buildings... | 0:30:02 | 0:30:07 | |
to pale horizons and trees. | 0:30:09 | 0:30:13 | |
It was, in a way, India... but without the Indians. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
By the middle of the 19th century, | 0:30:45 | 0:30:46 | |
the British were wondering how to develop their Empire. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:49 | |
And they came up with an idea, | 0:30:49 | 0:30:51 | |
which a civil servant at the time described as | 0:30:51 | 0:30:53 | |
"creating a monument that would exceed in grandeur | 0:30:53 | 0:30:56 | |
"the aqueducts of Rome, the pyramids of Egypt | 0:30:56 | 0:30:59 | |
"and the Great Wall of China". | 0:30:59 | 0:31:01 | |
He meant the railway. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:04 | |
Calcutta's Howrah Station. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:13 | |
Built in 1851, | 0:31:13 | 0:31:15 | |
it's one of the busiest in India, | 0:31:15 | 0:31:17 | |
used by three-quarters of a million passengers a day. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:21 | |
Railway mania in India | 0:31:47 | 0:31:49 | |
meant that 25,000 miles of railway was laid in just 50 years. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:54 | |
It meant that a journey from Calcutta to Delhi, | 0:31:54 | 0:31:56 | |
which by road in 1800 would have taken six weeks, | 0:31:56 | 0:32:00 | |
by 1900 took under a day. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:03 | |
And, of course, it meant a huge improvement in efficiency, in trade | 0:32:03 | 0:32:08 | |
and in control of the country. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:10 | |
WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:32:12 | 0:32:14 | |
The Empire was now able to reach even the most remote regions of India. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:30 | |
The state of Rajasthan seems unchanged by time. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:54 | |
It's a place rich in folklore, where life is still bound by tradition. | 0:32:55 | 0:33:01 | |
-Ram! Ram! -Ram! Ram! | 0:33:06 | 0:33:07 | |
Can I climb on? | 0:33:07 | 0:33:09 | |
I'll go round. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:11 | |
Oh! | 0:33:12 | 0:33:14 | |
OK. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:17 | |
Ooh! | 0:33:19 | 0:33:20 | |
OK, let's... | 0:33:25 | 0:33:27 | |
Ooh! Ah! Oh! | 0:33:27 | 0:33:31 | |
Let's go. | 0:33:31 | 0:33:33 | |
I'm on my rather ungainly way | 0:33:41 | 0:33:43 | |
to a place where it's possible to discover | 0:33:43 | 0:33:46 | |
how Indians in the 19th century viewed the British. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:51 | |
This region was the home of rich Indian merchants | 0:33:58 | 0:34:02 | |
who travelled throughout the country. | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
On their return home, | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
they paid for their houses to be transformed | 0:34:17 | 0:34:20 | |
into spectacular works of art. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:23 | |
Every big house in the town of Mandawa was decorated with frescoes. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:44 | |
But look closely and you can see some very bizarre images. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:49 | |
They were inspired | 0:34:52 | 0:34:54 | |
by the Indian merchants' dealings with the British. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
With these frescoes, the people of Mandawa | 0:35:02 | 0:35:05 | |
had come up with a way of depicting their rulers. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
These exuberant paintings | 0:35:17 | 0:35:19 | |
weren't done by artists who were shipped in, professionals, | 0:35:19 | 0:35:22 | |
they were done by the local builders. | 0:35:22 | 0:35:24 | |
And you can see it in the way they did it, | 0:35:24 | 0:35:25 | |
because they were asked to paint all the excitement of new technology, | 0:35:25 | 0:35:29 | |
railway trains, motor cars, that kind of thing. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:32 | |
And a lot of portraits of the British | 0:35:32 | 0:35:35 | |
with whom these people, the merchants, were doing trade. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:37 | |
So what did they do? | 0:35:37 | 0:35:39 | |
Well, they used illustrations, perhaps from magazines, | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
or somebody told them what things looked like, | 0:35:42 | 0:35:44 | |
and they just let their invention rip. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:46 | |
This painter, for instance, | 0:35:46 | 0:35:47 | |
has been told that a train is like houses on wheels. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:52 | |
Never seen a train, so what does he paint? | 0:35:52 | 0:35:56 | |
Rows of little houses on wheels, with the passengers in, | 0:35:56 | 0:36:00 | |
being pulled along by an engine. | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
"What's an engine like?" | 0:36:02 | 0:36:03 | |
"It's like a kind of bottle with steam coming out at the end." | 0:36:03 | 0:36:06 | |
So what does he paint? | 0:36:06 | 0:36:07 | |
Literally, a bottle | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
with a funnel at the top and steam coming out. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:12 | |
The idea behind it, of course, is partly a sort of admiration | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
for the British and their technological achievements, | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
but there's also a sort of nice sense of mischief. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:26 | |
You feel, with some of the figures, | 0:36:26 | 0:36:29 | |
they're actually making fun of the rather upright and pompous | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
British attitudes at the time. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:33 | |
Kishore Thalia lives in one of the finest of these Indian merchants' houses. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:06 | |
Look at this! | 0:37:14 | 0:37:15 | |
The interior of his house is decorated in the traditional Indian style, | 0:37:15 | 0:37:20 | |
as though the British had never arrived. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:23 | |
This is ladies' courtyards. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:27 | |
So this would be only for women? | 0:37:27 | 0:37:28 | |
Only for women. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:30 | |
Before, ladies not allowed outside, so pray here. | 0:37:30 | 0:37:33 | |
So they pray here and live here, really? | 0:37:33 | 0:37:36 | |
-Yes. -Yes. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:37 | |
What paintings do they have? What are these pictures? | 0:37:37 | 0:37:39 | |
These are the Hindu god and goddess. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:42 | |
So it's all religious? | 0:37:42 | 0:37:44 | |
-All religion paintings. -Lovely. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:48 | |
And these were painted by just the local person? | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
-Lower caste, lower caste. -Lower caste? | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
And upstairs, what was all this? Cos this is all painted too. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
Look at the procession of elephants and horses | 0:38:00 | 0:38:03 | |
and soldiers and... | 0:38:03 | 0:38:05 | |
And that's a band, is it? | 0:38:05 | 0:38:06 | |
-Is that musicians playing? -Yes, band, band. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
They look like soldiers, but they're musicians. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:11 | |
So it's a wedding procession, is it? | 0:38:11 | 0:38:13 | |
-A wedding procession. -Yes. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:16 | |
-Are you married? -I am married. | 0:38:18 | 0:38:20 | |
Did you have a big wedding with bands and music and...? | 0:38:20 | 0:38:23 | |
-Yes. -Did you? Did you have an elephant? | 0:38:23 | 0:38:25 | |
-No elephant. Horse. -A horse? | 0:38:25 | 0:38:27 | |
-Horse. -Did you ride the horse? | 0:38:27 | 0:38:28 | |
-Yes. -Oh! | 0:38:28 | 0:38:30 | |
The ancient traditions of India were to prove unyielding, | 0:38:52 | 0:38:56 | |
despite British efforts to impose their own attitudes. | 0:38:56 | 0:39:01 | |
It was a clash of cultures that couldn't be resolved. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:07 | |
As the 19th century wore on, | 0:39:15 | 0:39:17 | |
Indians began to become discontented with British rule. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:21 | |
They felt that the British were out to change their whole way of life, | 0:39:21 | 0:39:25 | |
abolish their religious ceremonies, | 0:39:25 | 0:39:28 | |
even possibly try and convert the country to Christianity. | 0:39:28 | 0:39:31 | |
It came to a head in 1857, | 0:39:31 | 0:39:33 | |
when soldiers in the Indian Army rose and killed their officers. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:37 | |
And the mutiny quickly spread right across the country. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:41 | |
The rebellion led to brutal atrocities on both sides. | 0:39:47 | 0:39:51 | |
But the British emerged supreme. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:59 | |
British artists were quick to show the revolt and its defeat | 0:40:06 | 0:40:09 | |
as a triumph of imperial values over barbarism. | 0:40:09 | 0:40:15 | |
The breaking of India set a pattern for the whole of the Empire, | 0:40:24 | 0:40:28 | |
where disobedience was to be crushed without mercy. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:32 | |
-TANNOY: -'The train now approaching Platform 2 is the...' | 0:40:38 | 0:40:42 | |
Back home, people were adjusting to the demands of Empire. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:47 | |
Popular support couldn't be taken for granted | 0:40:47 | 0:40:51 | |
and everything was done to encourage an imperial instinct. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:56 | |
Every new generation now had to be taught | 0:41:00 | 0:41:03 | |
the importance of Empire. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:05 | |
This is a book - An ABC For Baby Patriots | 0:41:05 | 0:41:10 | |
by Mrs Ernest Ames. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:12 | |
It's a sort of humorous look at the Empire, | 0:41:12 | 0:41:15 | |
but, of course, it had a serious message behind it. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:18 | |
A was for the Army. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:20 | |
"B stands for Battles. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:22 | |
"C is for Colonies Rightly we boast | 0:41:22 | 0:41:27 | |
"That of all the great nations Great Britain has most." | 0:41:27 | 0:41:31 | |
D. E. E! | 0:41:31 | 0:41:33 | |
"E is our Empire | 0:41:33 | 0:41:36 | |
"Where sun never sets | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
"The larger we make it The bigger it gets." | 0:41:38 | 0:41:42 | |
And F. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:44 | |
"F is for flag Which wherever you see | 0:41:44 | 0:41:48 | |
"You know that beneath it You're happy and free." | 0:41:48 | 0:41:52 | |
Goodness, how times have changed! | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
The job of Britain's public schools | 0:42:03 | 0:42:06 | |
was to provide soldiers and civil servants to run the Empire. | 0:42:06 | 0:42:10 | |
The ethos of service to Queen and country | 0:42:17 | 0:42:19 | |
was taught not just in the classroom but on the playing fields. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:24 | |
PLAYERS CHEER | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
There's a famous poem about the role of sport, | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
not just in school but in life, by Henry Newbolt - | 0:42:31 | 0:42:34 | |
a poem that every schoolboy would have learnt. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:37 | |
It begins with the captain of the team, at a desperate moment, | 0:42:37 | 0:42:40 | |
putting his hand on the shoulder of a team-mate | 0:42:40 | 0:42:42 | |
and saying, "Play up, play up and play the game." | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
And then the scene moves to a battlefield in Africa, | 0:42:46 | 0:42:50 | |
with the desert sand sodden with blood, | 0:42:50 | 0:42:53 | |
with the machine gun jammed, the colonel dead, the line broken, | 0:42:53 | 0:42:57 | |
and a voice is heard rallying the troops | 0:42:57 | 0:42:59 | |
with that schoolboy cry, "Play up, play up and play the game." | 0:42:59 | 0:43:05 | |
-SOLDIERS: -One! | 0:43:08 | 0:43:10 | |
-Squad, two! -Two! | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
-Squad, three! -Three! | 0:43:12 | 0:43:15 | |
The lessons learnt at school | 0:43:16 | 0:43:19 | |
were designed to be applied on battlefields across the globe. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:23 | |
In the 1880s, as Britain expanded into Africa, | 0:43:28 | 0:43:31 | |
a figure emerged who was seen to embody all the imperial virtues. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:38 | |
This is General Charles Gordon, | 0:43:52 | 0:43:55 | |
perhaps the greatest hero of the Empire. | 0:43:55 | 0:43:59 | |
He sits, in this statue, on a camel, | 0:43:59 | 0:44:03 | |
looking very glamorous with a fez, | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
dressed in uniform with his medals. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:10 | |
He was a professional soldier | 0:44:11 | 0:44:13 | |
and he'd been on expeditions to Turkey, to India, to China, | 0:44:13 | 0:44:19 | |
covering himself in great glory, | 0:44:19 | 0:44:21 | |
famous among the British public for his deeds. | 0:44:21 | 0:44:24 | |
But it was his final expedition | 0:44:24 | 0:44:26 | |
which took him to the Sudan | 0:44:26 | 0:44:29 | |
to relieve the besieged capital of Khartoum. | 0:44:29 | 0:44:33 | |
And what made him an immortal to the British public | 0:44:33 | 0:44:37 | |
was not what he achieved there | 0:44:37 | 0:44:39 | |
but the way that he died. | 0:44:39 | 0:44:40 | |
Gordon chose to die rather than desert his post, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
inspiring the most famous portrait of Empire - | 0:44:48 | 0:44:52 | |
GW Joy's Gordon's Last Stand. | 0:44:52 | 0:44:56 | |
The image of the general nobly facing down the foreign hordes | 0:44:59 | 0:45:03 | |
was irresistible to the British public. | 0:45:03 | 0:45:07 | |
In death, Gordon was transformed from a soldier to a saint. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:20 | |
Gordon's body was never found, | 0:45:47 | 0:45:49 | |
so in the national hysteria that followed his death | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
there was nothing for people to commemorate | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
until they turned, as with all the great martyrs, | 0:45:55 | 0:45:59 | |
to souvenirs of his life. | 0:45:59 | 0:46:01 | |
There's an extraordinary collection of them. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:03 | |
This is just a few of the objects that were left behind. | 0:46:03 | 0:46:07 | |
This, for instance, is General Gordon's cigarette case. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:13 | |
It was his only known indulgence, that he smoked cigarettes. | 0:46:13 | 0:46:16 | |
Otherwise he was a puritan in every way. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:19 | |
And it actually has three cigarettes in it. | 0:46:19 | 0:46:22 | |
Though whether they're from the time, I leave up to you to decide. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:26 | |
Now, there's an interesting box here. | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
This has got an extraordinary relic, | 0:46:31 | 0:46:35 | |
a piece of paper, | 0:46:35 | 0:46:37 | |
and on the paper it says, | 0:46:37 | 0:46:40 | |
"A fly that walked the Gordon nose." | 0:46:40 | 0:46:45 | |
And there is the little crushed body of the fly. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:50 | |
Poor thing. Made a terrible mistake of walking Gordon's nose. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:55 | |
I wonder how they got that. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:56 | |
Now, the most remarkable memory of Gordon... | 0:46:56 | 0:47:01 | |
This piece of stone | 0:47:02 | 0:47:04 | |
is said to be the stone on which Gordon was standing | 0:47:04 | 0:47:06 | |
when he was killed. | 0:47:06 | 0:47:07 | |
This belonged to Queen Victoria, who was a great admirer of his. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:11 | |
It's got this wreath of leaves in silver. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:15 | |
But really interestingly, | 0:47:15 | 0:47:17 | |
here, the date of his death and a Christian cross, | 0:47:17 | 0:47:21 | |
almost like a saint's relic. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:25 | |
Of course, there's no way of authenticating any of these objects. | 0:47:25 | 0:47:29 | |
But the almost-religious cult of Gordon | 0:47:29 | 0:47:33 | |
marks the point when the pursuit of Empire | 0:47:33 | 0:47:35 | |
becomes almost a medieval crusade. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:39 | |
The public cried out for vengeance for Gordon's death. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:47 | |
An army was sent to Africa under the slogan "Remember Gordon". | 0:47:47 | 0:47:52 | |
And this time, they carried a new weapon - | 0:47:52 | 0:47:56 | |
the world's first machine gun, | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
invented in London by Hiram Maxim. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:03 | |
As merchants of death go, it's very beautiful, isn't it? | 0:48:08 | 0:48:11 | |
-It's a wonderful machine. -Beautiful. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:13 | |
What was so special about it? | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
What was it that Maxim achieved with this? | 0:48:16 | 0:48:18 | |
Well, he was the first person | 0:48:18 | 0:48:20 | |
to ever really make a fully automatic gun. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:23 | |
Up till this time, somebody had to have hand power - | 0:48:23 | 0:48:27 | |
they cranked it by hand, | 0:48:27 | 0:48:29 | |
and you could only fire as fast as the man could go. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
But what Maxim discovered was, | 0:48:33 | 0:48:34 | |
with all that force that came back from when you fire a rifle, | 0:48:34 | 0:48:39 | |
you could use that force, | 0:48:39 | 0:48:40 | |
and he invented this wonderful system | 0:48:40 | 0:48:42 | |
that just kept it cycling around, the force loading, firing, | 0:48:42 | 0:48:45 | |
and carrying on from there. | 0:48:45 | 0:48:46 | |
And what was the effect of it on warfare? | 0:48:46 | 0:48:48 | |
It just absolutely revolutionised the whole aspect of warfare. | 0:48:48 | 0:48:52 | |
It made us realise that cavalry was now no longer of any use, | 0:48:52 | 0:48:57 | |
and you could take a whole... | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
you could take six of these machines instead of six regiments | 0:48:59 | 0:49:03 | |
and achieve exactly the same thing. | 0:49:03 | 0:49:04 | |
What date is this one? | 0:49:04 | 0:49:05 | |
This one was made in 1896. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:09 | |
1896. | 0:49:09 | 0:49:11 | |
-Does it still fire? -Absolutely. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:13 | |
It's in perfect working order. | 0:49:13 | 0:49:15 | |
-Can I fire it? -You can. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:17 | |
-You can give it the whole nine yards. -OK. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
I'll give you a pair of those things. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:21 | |
It's a bicycle saddle. | 0:49:21 | 0:49:23 | |
Safety catch off and fire. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:28 | |
-Safety catch off and push forward. -OK, I'll give it a go. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:32 | |
RAPID GUNFIRE | 0:49:35 | 0:49:38 | |
RAPID GUNFIRE | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
The British used the weapon without mercy | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
in their campaigns in Africa. | 0:49:58 | 0:50:00 | |
In 1898, they returned to the Sudan | 0:50:05 | 0:50:08 | |
to meet Gordon's killers at the Battle of Omdurman. | 0:50:08 | 0:50:12 | |
In the Maxim gun, | 0:50:21 | 0:50:23 | |
the British Army had a weapon that made them unbeatable. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
It was mechanised slaughter. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:29 | |
At the Battle of Omdurman, | 0:50:29 | 0:50:31 | |
11,000 Sudanese were killed in one day, | 0:50:31 | 0:50:35 | |
those that didn't die immediately left bleeding to death | 0:50:35 | 0:50:38 | |
in the desert sand. | 0:50:38 | 0:50:40 | |
The British commander, Lord Kitchener, said, | 0:50:40 | 0:50:43 | |
"I think the enemy have had a good dusting." | 0:50:43 | 0:50:47 | |
Once again, art was to sanitise the reality of Empire. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:57 | |
Paintings of the African wars were heroic... | 0:50:58 | 0:51:02 | |
..romantic... | 0:51:03 | 0:51:06 | |
..emphasising the bravery of the cavalry | 0:51:07 | 0:51:11 | |
rather than the power of the Maxim gun. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:14 | |
One of the most successful painters of the age, Richard Caton Woodville, | 0:51:17 | 0:51:22 | |
became famous for his pictures of Britain's foreign battles. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:26 | |
The story was always the same - | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
the hardy British crushing the unruly natives. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:41 | |
You can still see treasures plundered in these campaigns. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:50 | |
Britain's rule and influence the world over | 0:51:54 | 0:51:58 | |
meant many exceptional works of art found their way here. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:03 | |
One notorious plunder occurred in 1897. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:19 | |
These are the magnificent Benin Bronzes. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
They were looted by the British Army from the capital of Benin, | 0:52:26 | 0:52:31 | |
from the kingdom in West Africa whose king had defied British rule. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:34 | |
They went in, destroyed the city... | 0:52:36 | 0:52:40 | |
and brought back 4,000 different objects, | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
among them, these and many other beautiful brass plaques. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:48 | |
Some of them were sold to pay for the expedition, | 0:52:51 | 0:52:55 | |
others were put on display. | 0:52:55 | 0:52:56 | |
And the extraordinary thing is that when they were displayed here in London, | 0:52:56 | 0:53:00 | |
people simply refused to believe | 0:53:00 | 0:53:02 | |
they could have been done by the Africans in Benin. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:07 | |
They thought this work was too fine. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:11 | |
And it is very fine. The detail is wonderful. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:13 | |
The faces and the hands and the decoration | 0:53:13 | 0:53:16 | |
all beautifully, beautifully done. | 0:53:16 | 0:53:19 | |
The message the British were sending to their colonies in Africa | 0:53:27 | 0:53:31 | |
was that, "Seizing your treasure like this | 0:53:31 | 0:53:35 | |
"is the price you'll pay for defiance." | 0:53:35 | 0:53:39 | |
African art was itself to change under British rule. | 0:53:47 | 0:53:52 | |
Artists acknowledged the power of the Empire | 0:53:54 | 0:53:57 | |
as they created objects to please their new masters. | 0:53:58 | 0:54:02 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:54:04 | 0:54:06 | |
This is a little wooden carving of Queen Victoria, | 0:54:08 | 0:54:12 | |
made by the Yoruba people of West Africa. | 0:54:12 | 0:54:15 | |
The person who did this would never have seen her. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:18 | |
She never went on a state visit to Africa. | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
She hardly went anywhere in her colonies. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:23 | |
But they've got a very good likeness. | 0:54:23 | 0:54:25 | |
Rather solemn, po-faced. Quite recognisable as Queen Victoria. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:30 | |
She's got her crown, big bosom with string of pearls. | 0:54:30 | 0:54:36 | |
She's got a rather grand dress on. | 0:54:36 | 0:54:39 | |
Here a...fly swat or a fan - not quite sure which. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:44 | |
But anyway, it's clearly Queen Victoria, and the point about this is, | 0:54:44 | 0:54:47 | |
this is just one example of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of images | 0:54:47 | 0:54:52 | |
of Queen Victoria which were used to represent the British Empire | 0:54:52 | 0:54:56 | |
right round the globe. | 0:54:56 | 0:54:58 | |
People who never saw her heard about her, | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
knew that she was at the heart of it, the Great White Queen. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:06 | |
She looks almost... | 0:55:07 | 0:55:08 | |
not regal but divine here, like a god. | 0:55:08 | 0:55:11 | |
The power of Victoria's image carried on beyond her death. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:24 | |
In 1911, the Victoria Memorial by Thomas Brock was unveiled, | 0:55:25 | 0:55:30 | |
blocking the view of Buckingham Palace. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:34 | |
This statue is so familiar you barely notice it. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
It's almost part of the scenery, and yet, if you examine it closely, | 0:55:49 | 0:55:53 | |
it's the most extraordinary celebration - | 0:55:53 | 0:55:55 | |
not just of the Queen but of her Empire when it was at its peak. | 0:55:55 | 0:55:59 | |
The scale of the monument is truly impressive. | 0:56:03 | 0:56:06 | |
There sits the Queen on her throne, looking rather boot-faced | 0:56:07 | 0:56:13 | |
and staring up across Westminster. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:17 | |
Underneath, the inscription... "Victoria Regina Imperatrix" - | 0:56:17 | 0:56:22 | |
"Victoria Queen Empress". | 0:56:22 | 0:56:25 | |
And then on three sides, | 0:56:25 | 0:56:28 | |
what were thought of as the virtues that Empire provided for the colonies - | 0:56:28 | 0:56:34 | |
justice, | 0:56:34 | 0:56:37 | |
truth | 0:56:37 | 0:56:39 | |
and charity, | 0:56:39 | 0:56:40 | |
interestingly shown as motherhood, the mother protecting her children. | 0:56:40 | 0:56:46 | |
And the whole glorious marble fantasy | 0:56:48 | 0:56:51 | |
crowned by the golden image of winged victory. | 0:56:51 | 0:56:55 | |
Britain's triumph. | 0:56:55 | 0:56:58 | |
By the time this grandiose memorial was unveiled, | 0:57:10 | 0:57:14 | |
the cracks in Empire were already starting to show. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:17 | |
Independence movements were springing up, world war was looming, | 0:57:17 | 0:57:21 | |
and within decades, those countries | 0:57:21 | 0:57:23 | |
that Britain had thought of as her overseas possessions | 0:57:23 | 0:57:27 | |
were starting to fall away, | 0:57:27 | 0:57:29 | |
turning what had been planned as a celebration of Empire | 0:57:29 | 0:57:33 | |
into its mausoleum. | 0:57:33 | 0:57:36 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:11 | 0:58:13 |