Editing Imperial Conference

{{Short description|19th & 20th Century gatherings of British Imperial officials}}
{{About|meetings in the British Empire|the Japanese imperial meetings|Gozen Kaigi}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2016}}
[[File:ImperialConference.jpg|thumb|right|300px|King [[George V of the United Kingdom|George V]] (front, centre) with his prime ministers in 1926. Standing (left to right): [[Walter Stanley Monroe]] ([[Prime Minister of Newfoundland|Newfoundland]]), [[Gordon Coates]] ([[Prime Minister of New Zealand|New Zealand]]), [[Stanley Bruce]] ([[Prime Minister of Australia|Australia]]), 
[[J. B. M. Hertzog]] ([[Prime Minister of South Africa|Union of South Africa]]), 
[[W. T. Cosgrave]] ([[President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State|Irish Free State]]). Seated: [[Stanley Baldwin]] ([[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|United Kingdom]]), King George V, [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]] ([[Prime Minister of Canada|Canada]]).]]

'''Imperial Conferences''' ('''Colonial Conferences''' before 1907) were periodic gatherings of government leaders from the self-governing colonies and dominions of the [[British Empire]] between 1887 and 1937, before the establishment of regular [[Meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers|Meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers]] in [[1944 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference|1944]]. They were held in [[First Colonial Conference|1887]], [[1894 Colonial Conference|1894]], [[1897 Colonial Conference|1897]], [[1902 Colonial Conference|1902]], [[1907 Imperial Conference|1907]], [[1911 Imperial Conference|1911]], [[1921 Imperial Conference|1921]], [[1923 Imperial Conference|1923]], [[1926 Imperial Conference|1926]], [[1930 Imperial Conference|1930]], [[British Empire Economic Conference|1932]] and [[1937 Imperial Conference|1937]].

All the conferences were held in London, the seat of the Empire, except for the 1894 and 1932 conferences which were held in [[Ottawa]], the capital of the senior [[Dominion]] of the Crown.  The 1907 conference changed the name of the meetings to Imperial Conferences and agreed that the meetings should henceforth be regular rather than taking place while overseas statesmen were visiting London for royal occasions (e.g. jubilees and coronations).

== List of conferences ==
{| class="wikitable"
! width=50px| Year
! width=175px| Date
! width=150px| Host
! width=125px| Location
! width=125px| Retreat
! width=150px| Chairman
|- 
! [[First Colonial Conference|1887]]
| 4 April – 6 May
| {{Country|United Kingdom}} 
| London
|[[Senate House, London|Senate House]], [[Bloomsbury]]
| [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury|Lord Salisbury]]
|- 
! [[1894 Colonial Conference|1894]]
| 28 June – 9 July
| {{flagicon|Canada|1868}} Canada
| [[Ottawa]]
|[[Centre Block]]
 
|[[Mackenzie Bowell]]
|-  
! [[1897 Colonial Conference|1897]]
| 24 June – 8 July  
|rowspan=10|{{Country|United Kingdom}} 
|rowspan=10|London
| 	[[Colonial Office]], [[Whitehall]]
| [[Joseph Chamberlain]]
|-  
! [[1902 Colonial Conference|1902]]
| 30 June – 11 August
 
 
|rowspan=9|
| [[Joseph Chamberlain]]
|- 
! [[1907 Imperial Conference|1907]]
| 15 April – 14 May
 
 
| [[Henry Campbell-Bannerman]]
|-  
! [[1911 Imperial Conference|1911]]
| 23 May – 20 June 
 
 
| [[H. H. Asquith]]
|- 
! [[Imperial War Cabinet|1917]]
| 21 March – 27 April 
 
 
| [[David Lloyd George]]
|-
! [[Imperial War Cabinet|1918]]
| 12 June – 26 July 
 
 
| [[David Lloyd George]]
|-
! [[1921 Imperial Conference|1921]]
| 20 June – 5 August 
 
 
|[[David Lloyd George]]
|- 
! [[1923 Imperial Conference|1923]]
| 1 October – 8 November
 
 
| [[Stanley Baldwin]]
|- 
! [[1926 Imperial Conference|1926]]
| 19 October – 22 November
 
 
| [[Stanley Baldwin]]
|- 
! [[1930 Imperial Conference|1930]]
| 1 October – 14 November
 
 
|[[Ramsay MacDonald]]
|- 
! [[British Empire Economic Conference|1932]]
| 21 July  – 18 August
| {{flagicon|Canada|1868}} Canada
| [[Ottawa]]
|  [[House of Commons of Canada|House of Commons Chamber]], [[Parliament Hill]]
|[[R. B. Bennett]]
|-
! [[1937 Imperial Conference|1937]]
| 14 May – 24 June
| {{Country|United Kingdom}} 
| London
|
| [[Stanley Baldwin]]<br><small>(until 28 May)</small><br>[[Neville Chamberlain]]<br><small>(from 28 May)</small>
|-
|}

== Notable meetings ==
Originally instituted to emphasise imperial unity, as time went on, the conferences became a key forum for dominion governments to assert the desire for removing the remaining vestiges of their colonial status.<ref name="Seminars for Statesmen">{{cite journal |last=Mole |first=Stuart |date=September 2004 |title=Seminars for statesmen': the evolution of the Commonwealth summit  |journal=[[The Round Table Journal|The Round Table]] |volume=93 |issue=376 |pages=533–546 |doi=10.1080/0035853042000289128 |s2cid=154616079 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The conference of 1926 agreed to the [[Balfour Declaration 1926|Balfour Declaration]], which acknowledged that the dominions would henceforth rank as equals to the United Kingdom, as members of the '[[British Commonwealth of Nations]]'.

The conference of 1930 decided to abolish the legislative supremacy of the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|British Parliament]] as it was expressed through the [[Colonial Laws Validity Act]] and other [[Imperial Acts]]. The statesmen recommended that a declaratory enactment of Parliament, which became the [[Statute of Westminster 1931]], be passed with the consent of the dominions, but some dominions did not ratify the statute until some years afterwards. The 1930 conference was notable, too, for the attendance of [[Southern Rhodesia]], despite it being a self-governing colony, not a dominion.<ref>{{cite journal |date=April 1980 |title=The Lessons of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia |journal=[[International Security]] |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=177–84 |jstor= 2626673|doi=10.2307/2626673|last1=Brides |first1=Saint }}</ref>

== Towards Commonwealth meetings ==
As [[World War II]] drew to a close, Imperial Conferences were replaced by [[Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference]]s, with 17 such meetings occurring from 1944 until 1969, all but one of the meetings occurred in London. The gatherings were renamed [[Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting]]s (CHOGM) in 1971 and were henceforth held every two years with hosting duties rotating around the Commonwealth.

== See also ==
{{Commons category|Imperial Conferences}}
* [[British Empire Economic Conference]] (1932)
* [[Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting]]
* [[First Colonial Conference]]
* [[Historiography of the British Empire]]
* [[Imperial War Cabinet]]

== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Keith, A.B. ''The Government of the British Empire'' (1935).
* {{cite book |last1=Kendle |first1=J.E. |author-link1=John Kendle |year=1967 |title=The Colonial and Imperial Conferences, 1887-1911: A Study in Imperial Organization |url=https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/74/3/999/91500 |series=Imperial Studies |volume=XXVIII |publication-place=[[London]] |publisher=[[Longman]]s for the [[Royal Commonwealth Society]] |asin=B0000CO3QA |doi=10.1086/ahr/74.3.999 }}
* Olson, James S., ed. ''Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism'' (1991) pp 292–300; Covers 1907, 1911, 1921, 1923, 1926 and 1932
* Palmer, G.E.H. ''Constitution and Cooperation in the British Commonwealth'' (1934)
* [https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofcol00colo/page/n3/mode/2up ''Colonial Conference, 1887"], London: HM Stationery, 1887
* [https://archive.org/details/minutesofproceed00colo/page/n5/mode/2up ''Colonial Conference, Minutes, 1907''], London: HM Stationery, 1907
* [https://archive.org/details/imperialconferen0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater ''Imperial Conference, 1923''], London: HM Stationery, 1923
* [https://archive.org/details/imperialconferen0000impe ''Imperial Conference, 1926''], London: HM Stationery, 1926

{{Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings}}

[[Category:Imperial Conference|*]]
[[Category:Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings|*]]