This chapter explores how Britain's status as an imperial nation shaped debates about and changes in the nature of citizenship between roughly 1867 when some working-class men were granted the parliamentary franchise and 1928 when adult suffrage was made universal. It was during this period that empire and nation became linked in new ways, marked by Britain taking a ‘more consciously imperialist course’, especially prior to World War I, and its empire becoming an increasingly visible symbol of national worth. The chapter will explore how Britain's status as an imperial nation informed debates about political citizenship, influenced responses to the broadening of the franchise and, in turn, produced new understandings of and concerns with the nature of citizenship. While both the meanings of citizenship and considerations of Britain's imperial project were contested throughout the period, the chapter focuses primarily on those hegemonic understandings and their various articulations that dominated public culture, both shaping political debate and infusing everyday life.

Between 1866 and 1928 the size of the electorate in Britain multiplied by about twenty times, from about 1.4 million in 1866 to 28.5 million by 1929. Thus it was during this period that British liberal democratic citizenship was consolidated. But this process of consolidation or development was a highly contested one; throughout, those who had a political stake in the nation guarded their prerogative jealously and it was as a consequence of debate and struggle over the terms of political fitness that new classes of individuals were enfranchised.