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In 1500 England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. Following the Act of Union in 1707, England and Scotland had joined together to form Great Britain.

In 1500 England already had an empire. Wales had been conquered in the Middle Ages and much of Ireland was under English military control. As English power grew in the 17th and early 18th centuries, it began to seize coastal areas that could be reached directly by sea. English forces invaded the east coast of North America and Caribbean islands such as Barbados, St Kitts and Jamaica.

The Royal African Company set up fortresses on the West African coast and used these to transport enslaved people across the Atlantic to work on plantations in the Americas. Meanwhile the East India Company’s trading posts in India grew into military forts and control of trade with Asia - previously held by the Dutch and the Mughal Empire - passed to Britain as a result of agreements with Indian rulers.

By 1750, England had been transformed into the British Empire. Its early growth and the Triangular Trade in enslaved Africans resulted in new patterns of migration to Britain from Africa, India and the Americas.