British rule in Burma

British rule in Burma lasted from 1824 to 1948. This started from the successive three Anglo-Burmese wars through the creation of Burma as a province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony. The rule finally ended with independence. The region under British control was known as British Burma.

Colony of Burma မြန်မာကိုလိုနီ
1824–1948
Flag (1939–1948) Emblem (1939–1948)
Anthem: God Save the King (1824–1837; 1901–1948) God Save the Queen (1837–1901)
British Burma during World War II Dark green: Japanese occupation of Burma Light silver: Remainder of British Burma Light green: Occupied and annexed by Thailand
Status	Division of the Bengal Presidency (1826–1862) Province of British India (1862–1937) Colony of the United Kingdom (1937–1948)
Capital	Moulmein (1826–1852) Rangoon (1853–1942) Shimla (1942-1945) Rangoon (1945–1948)
Capital-in-exile	Shimla, British India (1942–1945)
Common languages	English (official) Burmese
Religion	Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam
Monarch
• 1862–1901	Victoria
• 1901–1910	Edward VII
• 1910–1936	George V
• 1936	Edward VIII
• 1936–1948	George VI
Governor
• 1862–1867 (first)	Sir Arthur Purves Phayre
• 1946–1948 (last)	Sir Hubert Rance
Legislature	Legislative Council of Burma (1897–1936) Legislature of Burma (1936–1947)
• Upper house	Senate
• Lower house	House of Representatives
Historical era	Colonial era
• First Anglo-Burmese War	5 March 1824
• Anglo-Burmese Wars	1824–1826, 1852–1853, 1885
• Separation from British India	1937
• Japanese and Thai occupation	1942–1945
• Independence from the United Kingdom	4 January 1948
Currency	Burmese rupee, Indian rupee, Pound sterling
ISO 3166 code	MM
Preceded by Succeeded by British Raj Konbaung Dynasty State of Burma Japanese occupation Thai occupation Union of Burma
Today part of	Myanmar

Further reading

• Baird-Murray, Maureen [1998]. A World Overturned: a Burmese Childhood 1933–47. London: Constable. ISBN 0094789207 Memoirs of the Anglo-Irish-Burmese daughter of a Burma Frontier Service officer, including her stay in an Italian convent during the Japanese occupation.
• Charney, Michael (2009). A History of Modern Burma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Desai, Walter Sadgun (1968). History of the British Residency in Burma. London: Gregg International. ISBN 0-576-03152-6.
• Fryer, Frederick William Richards (1905). "Burma" . The Empire and the century. London: John Murray. pp. 716–727.
• Harvey, Godfrey (1992). British Rule in Burma 1824–1942. London: AMS Pr. ISBN 0-404-54834-2.
• Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV (1908), The Indian Empire, Administrative, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, pp. xxx, 1 map, 552
• Naono, Atsuko (2009). State of Vaccination: The Fight Against Smallpox in Colonial Burma. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan. pp. 238. ISBN 978-81-250-3546-6. ( http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4729301/Cite Archived 2020-07-30 at the Wayback Machine)
• Richell, Judith L. (2006). Disease and Demography in Colonial Burma. Singapore: NUS Press. pp. 238.
• Myint-U, Thant (2008). The River of Lost Footsteps: a Personal History of Burma. London: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374531164.

Other websites

• J. S. Furnivall, "Burma, Past and Present", Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 22, No. 3 (25 February 1953), pp. 21–26, Institute of Pacific Relations. <http://jstor.org/stable/3024126>
• Ernest Chew, "The Withdrawal of the Last British Residency from Upper Burma in 1879", Journal of Southeast Asian History, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Sep. 1969), pp. 253–278, Cambridge University Press. <http://jstor.org/stable/20067745>
• Michael W. Charney: Burma, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.