Thinking the empire poor: plebeian petitions for clemency in Britain and New South Wales.

Few historians have interrogated the nature of empire through the perspectives of the labouring majority. Reviewing recent debates in imperial history, this article tests whether the British Empire in the early nineteenth century can be considered a coherent state by examining how plebeians in Britain and New South Wales were, and believed themselves to be, subjects within the same empire. Using petitions for clemency, it contends that the labouring classes interacted with, fostered and understood shared imperial structures. Thinking the empire poor reveals that the British Empire was a coherent imperial state consisting of geographically heterogenous locations united by shared institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]