The British Empire (1972)

The British Empire
Original languageEnglish
Original release
Release11 January (1972-01-11) –
4 April 1972 (1972-04-04)

The British Empire, Echoes of Britannia’s Rule was a 13-part British documentary television series produced by the BBC and Time-Life Films first broadcast in 1972. It was preceded by Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation in 1969, and followed by Alistair Cooke’s America: A Personal History of the United States in the same year, and Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man in 1973. It cost £500,000 to produce and was narrated by Robert Hardy.[1][2][3][4][5]

At the time, it provoked a debate in the House of Lords for its apparent bias against the Empire.[6][7]

Episodes

No.TitleOriginal release date
1"Oh! the Jubilee!"11 January 1972 (1972-01-11)
The first episode opens with the celebrations marking Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee on 22 June 1897, using the event to illustrate the British Empire at its greatest territorial extent.
2"The sugar slaves"18 January 1972 (1972-01-18)
3"Remember Cawnpore"25 January 1972 (1972-01-25)
4"All Frontier and Nothing Else"1 February 1972 (1972-02-01)
5"In Darkest Africa"8 February 1972 (1972-02-08)
6"Raj"15 February 1972 (1972-02-15)
7"Scramble for Africa"22 February 1972 (1972-02-22)
8"The Challenge"29 February 1972 (1972-02-29)
9"Beyond the Black Stump"7 March 1972 (1972-03-07)
10"New Gods for Old"14 March 1972 (1972-03-14)
11"The Gift of Endless Dreams"21 March 1972 (1972-03-21)
12"The Long Farewell"28 March 1972 (1972-03-28)
13"The Setting of the Sun"4 April 1972 (1972-04-04)

References

  1. ↑ Fleming, N. C. (1 March 2010). "Echoes of Britannia: Television History, Empire and the Critical Public Sphere". Contemporary British History. 24 (1): 1–22. doi:10.1080/13619460903565192. ISSN 1361-9462.
  2. ↑ Stern, Michael (15 January 1972). "New BBC series dissects Empire". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  3. ↑ Hardon, Tom (1980). "6. The British Empire". In Rosenthal, Alan (ed.). The Documentary Conscience: A Casebook in Film Making. University of California Press. p. 146. ISBN 0-520-04022-8.
  4. ↑ FitzSimons, Trish; Laughren, Pat; Williamson, Dugald (2011). "4. New waves of documentary". Australian Documentary: History, Practices and Genres. Cambridge University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-521-16799-4.
  5. ↑ Briggs, Asa (1995). "10. The Jubilee: before and after". The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom. Oxford University Press. p. 939. ISBN 0-19-215964-X.
  6. ↑ Ramaswamy, Chitra (2 February 2017). "British Empire: Heroes and Villains review – a poignant reminder of how history gets rewritten". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  7. ↑ "BBC and "British Empire" series (Hansard, 6 July 1972)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 17 June 2026.


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