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Broadly speaking, nationals of the United Kingdom, the Dominions, and the various British colonies had always shared a common citizenship status of "British subject". However, in 1946 the Canadian par... View MoreBroadly speaking, nationals of the United Kingdom, the Dominions, and the various British colonies had always shared a common citizenship status of "British subject". However, in 1946 the Canadian parliament passed the Canadian Citizenship Act, which established a separate Canadian citizenship. In response, a Commonwealth conference met in London in 1947, where it was agreed that each of the Commonwealth member states would be free to legislate for its own citizenship, while still retaining elements of a common Commonwealth citizenship.
The resulting legislation passed by the United Kingdom for itself and its colonies was the British Nationality Act 1948, which was introduced by a Labour government. It marked the first time that married British women gained independent nationality, regardless of the citizenship of their spouses.[2] Legislation passed in the other Commonwealth countries included Australia's Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948, New Zealand's British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act 1948, and Southern Rhodesia's Southern Rhodesian Citizenship and British Nationality Act, 1949.
