Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World

Age was a critical factor in shaping imperial experience. Children, Childhood and Youth in the British World is the first study to investigate the lives of – and meanings attached to – children and youth within the context of the British world. Children and young people, both British and Indigenous, locally-born and migrant, embodied the hopes and anxieties of British colonists. Recipients of the decidedly mixed blessings of British rule, they were at once petty imperialists, migrant 'pioneers', active resisters and dispossessed victims. This volume locates children, childhood and youth in broader social contexts and acknowledges young people as historical agents, rarely operating within situations of their choosing, but nonetheless shaping their own lives. Their experiences and the ways in which they were represented exemplify the processes through which 'Britishness' was expressed and contested across the globe. This history illuminates social and cultural aspects of young people's pasts and tests the possibilities (and limitations) of the British world paradigm.

Shirleene Robinson is Vice Chancellor's Innovation Fellow in the Department of Modern History at Macquarie University, Australia. She is the author ofSomething like Slavery? Queensland's Aboriginal Child Workers, 1842–1945 and a range of other works that focus on gender and sexuality in Australian and transnational contexts.

Simon Sleight is Lecturer in Australian History at King's College London, UK and Adjunct Research Associate at Monash University, Australia. His work explores historical youth cultures, urban history and imperial history. His previous work includesYoung People and the Shaping of Public Space in Melbourne, 1870–1914.