British Subjects - Prior To 1949

Prior To 1949

At common law, every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the English and later British Crown was an English or British subject. This meant that to be a subject, one simply had to be born in any territory under the sovereignty of the Crown. The only exception at common law was that the children of foreign ambassadors took the nationality of their fathers, who were immune from local jurisdiction and from duties of allegiance. From time to time, statutes were passed expanding the class of persons who held the status of subject, e.g. the statute 25 Edw. III st. 2 that naturalised the children of English parents born overseas.

In Calvin's Case in 1608, the Court of Exchequer Chamber ruled that a Scottish subject of King James VI of Scotland, who was also King of England, was by virtue of his allegiance to the King's person not an alien, but a natural-born subject under English law.

Entitlement to the status of British subject was first codified by the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914, which came into effect on 1 January 1915.

Within the British Empire, the main class of people who were not British subjects were the rulers of native states formally under the protection of the British Crown, and their peoples. Although their countries may for all practical purposes have been ruled by the imperial government, such persons are considered to have been born outside the sovereignty and allegiance of the British Crown, and were (and, where these persons are still alive, still are) known as British Protected Persons.

Between 1947 and 1951 each of the various existing members of the British Commonwealth of Nations created its own national citizenship (the Irish Free State had done so in 1935, but left the Commonwealth in 1949). In 1948, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the British Nationality Act 1948, which came into effect on 1 January 1949 and introduced the concept of "Citizenship of the UK & Colonies".