This doctoral thesis considers the significance of Australian engagement with China within British imperial history between the late-eighteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It sets out to explore the notion that colonial and early-federation Australia constituted an important point of contact between the British and Chinese Empires. Drawing on a long tradition of imperial historiography and recent advances in British World and Anglo-Chinese history, it utilises extensive new archival research to add a colonial dimension to the growing body of scholarship on the British Empire’s relations with Qing China. In doing so, it also seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the internal dynamics and external relations of Britain’s late-Victorian and Edwardian Empire. The following chapters centre around two overarching historical themes. The first is the interconnection between Chinese migration to Australia and the protection of British mercantile and strategic interests in the Far East as imperial issues. The second is the relationship between Australian engagement with China and the development of the idea of a Greater Britain. Each of these themes throws up a range of fascinating historical questions about the evolving character of Britain’s late-Victorian and Edwardian Empire, the inter-relation of its various parts and its ability to navigate the shifting winds of political and economic change. Taken together, they shed new light not only on Anglo-Australian, Anglo-Chinese and Sino-Australian history, but also serve to illuminate a series of triangular relationships, connecting the metropolitan, Far Eastern and Australian branches of the British Empire.

Lower Canada occupied a strategic position in Britain's policies for the defence, trade and settlement of British North America. The smooth development of these three interests was threatened by the autonomist ambitions of the colony's French-speaking (Canadien) leaders. Between 1820 and 1841 British policy had to cope with the collapse of traditional canadien elites as reliable supporters of imperial interests, the persistent hostility of the new canadien leadership towards commerce and immigration, and the increased restlessness of the growing minority of English speaking colonists. During the 1820s, the Governor alienated the bureaucracy, the traditional social leaders of French Canada, and the elected Assembly by his encouragement of diverse efforts to anglicize the colony's administration, institutions and civil law. The political divisions of the British colonists encouraged the Canadiens to seek greater autonomy for tie colony, tb and British policy after 1828 favoured concession e the Canadiens as the best way to smooth out political obstacles to social and economic change. But increased immigration alarmed the Canadiens, created a larger and more complex British community in the colony, and made the imperial government more anxious to conciliate the British than the French colonists after a few of the latter revolted in 1837-38. Economic and demographic pressures were important but the debate over political legitimacy was a major element too. Belief in prescriptive legitimacy faded during the 1820s; the growth of liberal attitudes in the British part of the population brought impatience towards the colony's antiquated civil law and hastened the creation of suitable conditions for the growth of a modern commercial state. Britain imposed a new constitution giving greater powers to the fast-growing colony of Upper Canada and to the British merchants and settlers of Lower Canada.

This thesis presents a case study of letters written by black South Africans to the Aborigines' Protection Society (APS) between 1879-1888. Recognizing that previous histories of the APS have been based primarily on British correspondence, this thesis contends that including these marginalized black letters is crucial if historians are to develop a nuanced understanding of the APS in particular, and of British imperialism in general. By placing these letters within a framework of imperial knowledge networks, this thesis traces how the messages and voices of black South African correspondents traveled in letter form to England and then were disseminated in published form by the APS. This thesis demonstrates how correspondents used writing to the APS as a tool of anti-colonial resistance, as well as how the APS used their positionality to censor and control the voices of its correspondents. Emphasizing the entanglement of correspondents' resistance and adaptation with the APS's imperialist mission, this thesis presents its case study as a window into the negotiated and unstable natures of British imperialism. / Graduate / 2021-04-06