Kingdom of Great Britain

The Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all of Great Britain.
On 1 May 1707, the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed, the result of Acts of Union being passed by the parliaments of England and Scotland to ratify the 1706 Treaty of Union and so unite the two kingdoms.[89][90][91]

In the 18th century, cabinet government developed under Robert Walpole, in practice the first prime minister (1721–1742). A series of Jacobite Uprisings sought to remove the Protestant House of Hanover from the British throne and restore the Catholic House of Stuart. The Jacobites were finally defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, after which the Scottish Highlanders were brutally suppressed. The British colonies in North America that broke away from Britain in the American War of Independence became the United States of America, recognised by Britain in 1783. British imperial ambition turned towards Asia, particularly to India.[92]

Britain played a leading part in the Atlantic slave trade, mainly between 1662 and 1807 when British or British-colonial ships transported nearly 3.3 million slaves from Africa.[93] The slaves were taken to work on plantations in British possessions, principally in the Caribbean but also North America.[94] Slavery coupled with the Caribbean sugar industry had a significant role in strengthening and developing the British economy in the 18th century.[95] However, Parliament banned the trade in 1807, banned slavery in the British Empire in 1833, and Britain took a leading role in the movement to abolish slavery worldwide through the blockade of Africa and pressing other nations to end their trade with a series of treaties. The world’s oldest international human rights organisation, Anti-Slavery International, was formed in London in 1839.[96][97][98]