AHC: Create a new British settler-colony somewhere in the world with a foundation date of 1900.

Shevek23

At that late date--I am thinking Antarctica. Some expedition finds a suite of attractive resources on a portion of the Antarctic coast particularly convenient to reach from either South Africa or Australia/New Zealand, and then some cocaine-sniffing visionary billionaire of the Jules Verne reading type (HG Wells does not have the sort of gung ho vision of victory through technocracy needed here) decides to go all in to pledge to found an "electric Utopia" or some such thing--you know, the resources include stupidly easy to mine open coal faces, so the plan is to mine the coal, use it to generate massive amounts of electricity and process heat on the spot, use the electricity to process aluminum, and a whole surplus of other things.

The "settler colony" starts out as individual Quonset hut barracks but fairly quickly morphs into a serious and systematically realized plan to build an integrated sealed arcology.

Oh, and the project is at least somewhat successful; there are in fact markets for the various products; the big central planned integrated mining/construction/industrial plant scheme does work, within the general limits of early 20th century capitalism, and come the Great War, the Dominion of Antarctica (I suppose the British will eventually claim the whole continent) is a significant source of war materiel--enough so in fact that HMG sends more colonists there (disproportionately women, because I presume the early start up years involved a heck of a gender ratio, whereas during the war years British women prove themselves to be capable of being productive in factories and so on, so it is thinkable to send some to Antarctica). The 1920s and '30s will involve some disappointing slumps and a certain degree of emigration, but by then some children will have been born there and large numbers of people might prefer to stay on, and autarky projects might seem to promise independence from world markets and British political oversight. Then of course the WWII crisis looms, the mostly patriotic Anglo-Antarcticans rally, and again Antarctica makes an outsized contribution to the war effort.

I have more thoughts on the south polar Dominion but I'm running out of energy and will go on if there is interest!

And yes, such a response is probably ASB as it requires an ATL geographic concentration of attractive resources gathered in one spot to jump-start the first coastal settlement, though perhaps the rest of the colony's expansion can be into terrain with realistic resource incidences.
 

vizzer

The settler colony is the difficult bit as the British did gain colonies post 1900 although usually called Mandates. An interesting one would be if there was a strong evangelical movement to reclaim the Holy Land for Christendom resulting in Palestine being flooded with British settlers.
 

Finbarr the Fair

While Britain had significant interests in East Africa before 1899, perhaps Kenya could have attracted more settlers to the Highlands and other comfortable zones? Displacing more Africans to become more like Southern Rhodesia.
 

yulzari

Argentina? With a 1900 population smaller than Canada and about 8%ish of the UK population plus extensive UK links in trade, investment and middle class cultures it would only need to attract the actual settlers. The infrastructure is largely in place and a large part of the urban population are recent European immigrants.
 

Father Maryland

Finbarr the Fair said:
While Britain had significant interests in East Africa before 1899, perhaps Kenya could have attracted more settlers to the Highlands and other comfortable zones? Displacing more Africans to become more like Southern Rhodesia.
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Yeah this seems like the best bet ( other then some smallish island in a remote place). Pretty extensive existing OTL White settlement and the areas that were colonized were more similar to a European climate and had less of the Tropical diseases that limited White settlement in most of Africa.

Maybe aided by a British program post WW1 to heavily settle WW1 veterans ( Especially unemployed ones) with land grants in the Highlands. Maybe break up the Colony in some form to create a dominion with a larger percentage of the populace being European.

Another option might be the Brits buying or seizing Portuguese Angola and doing an earlier version of the Portuguese program to heavily encourage European immigration ( Not just from Britain).

Another option would be the Brits buying or seizing the Canary islands or Azores or the Balearics and doing similar programs to encourage White settlement.

Cyprus might be another option with the Brits encouraging European settlement not just to reinforce its claim but also reduce unemployment in Britain.

Less self supporting might be earlier British anti Capitol punishment efforts resulting in the resurrection of penal colonies for the sort considered more dangerous say in the Maldives, Diego Garcia, Mauritius or some Pacific islands.
 

Father Maryland

Jackson Lennock said:
Jewish Kenya per the 1904 Uganda Scheme.

Nicobar and Andaman Islands for Anglo-Indians.

Britain separates the Sinai from Egypt and settles a bunch of folks there.
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Don't think the Sinai would be a solution likely to last much longer then OTL British control of the Canal. Unless maybe you've got a earlier POD with the Brits actually obtaining the territory as a permanent possession like the US Panama Canal Zone. And maybe have Egypt balkanize into a bunch of competing weak warlord states.
 

Chris Nation

Banned
Father Maryland said:
Don't think the Sinai would be a solution likely to last much longer then OTL British control of the Canal. Unless maybe you've got a earlier POD with the Brits actually obtaining the territory as a permanent possession like the US Panama Canal Zone. And maybe have Egypt balkanize into a bunch of competing weak warlord states.
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The Suez Canal would be included in the Sinai Crown Colony, presumably.
 

King-Emperor

If memory serves, there was also a plan to resettle the British subjects in India on the Andaman Islands once independence became inevitable. Doesn't seem like too big of a stretch to make it work.
 

Incasaurus

Marshall Islands ,

In original time line Spain sold the islands to Germany in the late 19th century , maybe due to some political reasoning the islands were sold to Britain instead. Obviously however due to its remote location it wouldn’t have been many British colonists at all.
What is the plausibility of Socotra anyone? Just randomly popped into my head.
 
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