Page "History of the United Kingdom" Paragraph 55

The Great London Exhibition of 1851 clearly demonstrated Britain's dominance in engineering and industry ; that lasted until the rise of the United States and Germany in the 1890s ..

Using the imperial tools of free trade and financial investment, it exerted major influence on many countries outside Europe, especially in Latin America and Asia.

Thus Britain had both a formal Empire based on British rule and an informal one based on the British pound.