Abstract: The research subject of this study is the British society in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, while the article's research object is the contradiction between the ethical imperatives of the British imperial project and its society's traditional conservative-democratic values, which ultimately became the basis for the conflict between the ideas of nation and empire. The aim of this article is to reconstruct and analyze the specifics of the English society's perception during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries of the imperial project as a threat to the conservative and democratic traditions of Great Britain. The study is grounded on basic scientific principles and methodology of cultural history, while at the same time is based on the fundamental paradigm of imaginary communities and the constructivist theory of identity. The scientific novelty of this study lies in its attempt to examine the contradiction between the imperial ethics and the traditional system of values in the English society, on the one hand, and the elites representing these different projects, on the other. The authors demonstrate the conflict between the culture of governance and the attitude towards the law, established in the British Isles by the 19th century, and the practice of “administrative slaughter” of colonial officials, who were perceived as a threat to the Anglo-Saxon legal model. Particular attention is paid to the features behind the formation of colonial administration representatives. The authors analyze the characteristics of the English state-legal ideal, reveal the reasons for the transformation of state models under the conditions of managing colonies, and show the role of the British elite, the “younger sons”, in the development of the imperial project of Great Britain.