Early Colonial Era
English common law has the rationale of natural-born citizenship, following the principle of jus soli, in the theory that people born within the dominion of the crown, which included self-governing dominions and colonies, would have a "natural allegiance" to the crown as a "debt of gratitude" to the crown for protecting them through infancy. As the dominion of the British empire expanded, British subjects included not only persons within the United Kingdom but also those throughout the British Empire.
By this definition, anyone born in Hong Kong after it became a British colony in 1842 was a British subject. Then, under the Naturalisation of Aliens Act 1847 expanded what had been covered in the Naturalisation Act 1844, which applied only to people within the United Kingdom, to all its dominions and colonies. The Act made provisions for naturalisation as well as allowing acquiring British subject status by marriage between a foreign woman and a British subject man.
Read more about this topic: British Nationality Law And Hong Kong
Famous quotes containing the words early, colonial and/or era:
“Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends—the few”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“The North will at least preserve your flesh for you; Northerners are pale for good and all. There’s very little difference between a dead Swede and a young man who’s had a bad night. But the Colonial is full of maggots the day after he gets off the boat.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)
“The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)