Dominion

A dominion was a largely self-governing polity within the British Empire or Commonwealth, with its own institutions and substantial but evolving autonomy.

Responsible government: A system in which a government remains in office only while it commands the confidence of an elected legislature. Its adoption in settler colonies supplied the domestic political autonomy that dominion status formalized.
Dominion of Canada: The name used for Canada after Confederation in 1867, when it became a self-governing polity within the British Empire. Canada supplied the original official use of the title and an early model of dominion government.
Colonial Conference: A series of meetings among British imperial leaders and colonial representatives, beginning in 1887, that later developed into Imperial Conferences. These meetings gave dominion governments a forum to negotiate imperial policy and their constitutional standing.
British Empire: A worldwide system of territories governed or controlled by Britain, assembled through conquest, settlement, and imperial administration. Dominions occupied a self-governing position within this broader imperial structure.
Confederation of Canada: The 1867 union of several British North American colonies into the Dominion of Canada. The British North America Act created the first polity officially called a dominion.
Commonwealth of Australia: A federation established in 1901 that united six Australian colonies as a self-governing polity in the British Empire. Australia shows how a federation could hold dominion status while remaining constitutionally tied to Britain.
Imperial Conference: A periodic meeting of Britain and its self-governing Dominions to discuss shared imperial and Commonwealth affairs. It coordinated governments that increasingly claimed equal status but lacked a single central authority.
British protectorate: A territory under British control of external affairs or defense while retaining some local rulers and institutions. A protectorate’s limited local authority differed from the dominions’ responsible national governments.
Statute of Westminster 1931: A British law recognizing legislative equality for the self-governing Dominions and limiting Westminster’s authority over them. It established the legislative independence that dominion status had developed toward.
Dominion of New Zealand: The name adopted by New Zealand in 1907 as its status within the British Empire changed from colony to dominion. New Zealand’s adoption of the title illustrates that dominion status could be conferred without federation.

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