Sir William Milton: a Leading Figure in Public School Games, Colonial Politics and Imperial Expansion, 1877-1914
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Sir William Milton: a leading figure in Public School Games, Colonial Politics and Imperial Expansion, 1877-1914 by Jonty Winch Dissertation presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Professor A.M. Grundlingh Co-supervisor: Professor W.R. Nasson March 2013 1 Declaration By submitting this dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. March 2013 Copyright 2013 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved 2 Abstract This investigation is aimed at providing a better understanding of William Milton’s influence on society in southern Africa over a period of more than thirty years. In the absence of any previous detailed work, it will serve to demonstrate Milton’s importance in restructuring the administration, formulating policy and imposing social barriers in early Rhodesia – factors that will contribute to the research undertaken by revisionist writers. It will also go some way towards answering Lord Blake’s call to discover exactly what the Administrator did and how he did it. Milton’s experiences at the Cape are seen as being essential to an understanding of the administration he established in Rhodesia. Through examining this link – referred to by historians but not as yet explored in detail – new knowledge will be provided on Rhodesia’s government in the pre-First World War period. The Cape years will offer insight into Milton’s working relationship with Rhodes and his involvement in the latter’s vision of the region’s social form and future. They will also shed light on Milton’s attitude towards people of colour. Cricket and rugby are key themes running through Milton’s life. The study will illuminate much about the creation of South African sport at a time when the public school games ethic was important in the nature of empire. Milton made an enormous but controversial contribution to the playing of the games, club culture, facilities, administration, international competition and who was eligible to represent South Africa. 3 Contents Preface and Acknowledgements 4 Chapter 1: William Henry Milton – his background and early life 15 Chapter 2: A Marlborough ‘Nomad’ persuades the Cape to play Rugby Football 27 Chapter 3: Milton, the Western Province Cricket Club and the administration of the summer game during 1877-88 43 Chapter 4: A ‘turning point’ in South African cricket history: the planning, significance and impact of the 1888/89 tour 63 Chapter 5: Powerful opponents disrupt Milton’s hopes of a ‘MCC of South Africa’ 83 Chapter 6: No ‘boomerangs during the luncheon interval’: Milton, Hendricks and the colour question 102 Chapter 7: ‘A god-forsaken place to spend one’s life in’: Milton arrives in Rhodesia 124 Chapter 8: ‘An absolute monarchy with him as king’: the last years of Cecil John Rhodes 143 Chapter 9: Milton’s ‘second phase’ in office: ‘one of reconstruction and hard work’ 162 Chapter 10: Milton concludes a period of ‘wise, calm and prudent guidance’ 182 Chapter 11: Conclusion and last years: ‘He sowed the seed often under great difficulties’ 200 List of Sources 213 Notes 223 4 Preface and Acknowledgements ‘Where a score or so of our sons are found there is found cricket,’ observed the famous writer, Anthony Trollope, in a publication that he edited in 1868 and entitled British Sports and Pastimes.1 It was a year in which W.G. Grace played possibly his finest innings – 134, all run, for Gentlemen against Players on a dreadful pitch at Lord’s – and Aboriginal workers from Wimmera sheep stations made history as the first cricketers from Australia to undertake an official tour of England. It was also the year that one of Trollope’s relatives – thirteen- year-old William Henry Milton – entered Marlborough College. In time, the young Milton demonstrated ability in sport and probably read Trollope’s book. It is a publication that provides interesting comment on the period, although Milton might have been surprised to discover that football was not included. According to Trollope, the game was ‘without an acknowledged code … we by no means grudge to football the name it has won itself, but it has hardly as yet worked its way up to a dignity equal with that of hunting and shooting, or even with that of cricket and boat-racing’.2 It is well known that team games gained in popularity in the latter part of the nineteenth century, largely because of the input of the public schools. Headmasters believed that the culture of athleticism not only instilled discipline and produced ‘gentlemen’, but helped train men for the purpose of serving Britain overseas. It was through the medium of games at Marlborough that Milton learnt manly Victorian virtues and the basic requirements of imperial command. His headmaster in his last years, Dean Farrar, saw the educational value of sport in ‘playing out tenaciously to the very last a losing game, ready to accept defeat but trying to the very end to turn it to victory.’3 Milton would be groomed to fit the mould of colonial recruit and, several years after leaving school, he joined the influential movement of young men from public school and ancient university who maintained and developed the Empire. They settled in distant outposts where, says Richard Holt in Sport and the British, their games were ‘not so much a luxury as a necessity, a means of maintaining morale and a sense of shared roots, of Britishness, of lawns and tea and things familiar’.4 Central to this dissertation is an investigation into the role played by Milton in the global diffusion of British ball games during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the Cape, his sporting prowess made an immediate impact on both cricket and rugby, whilst his 1 Anthony Trollope (ed.), British Sports and Pastimes, London, 1868, 290 2 Trollope, British Sports and Pastimes, 2-3 3 Richard Holt, Sport and the British: A Modern History, Oxford, 98 4 Holt, Sport and the British, 208 5 administrative qualities gained the attention of the British colonial political and sporting elite. Milton emerged as the dominant personality at the Western Province Cricket Club, from where he controlled a game that served as a potent symbol of exclusivity. It was on the club’s behalf that he organised the first tour by an English team, an enterprise which promoted the concept of Empire but also reinforced his understanding of sport’s potential value for identity- building. This latter development became clearly apparent when arch-imperialist Cecil John Rhodes paved the way for Milton to head British expansion into the northern hinterland. As Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, Milton recruited sportsmen for public office; established playing facilities; chaired sports’ committees and used his influence to safeguard the future of the imperial games through structuring white education along the lines of the English public school system. In order to understand the part Milton played in the dissemination of the games ethic, it is necessary to situate it within both southern African history and the broader imperial and global context. In the countries where Britain wielded her greatest authority – namely those that constituted her Empire – it was cricket and rugby that were seen to prevail. They were the games that would give rise to the lengthy tours and keenly anticipated ‘Tests’ involving the mother country and her dominions. Cricket made an early start, owing its existence in far- flung territories to sailors, soldiers and settlers amongst others. A match was played in the port of Cambay in 1721, with the first cricket club outside Britain being formed in Calcutta in 17925. The game went on to make deep inroads into the Australian way of life and it was said in 1832 that no gentleman there ‘could expect to “dangle at a lady’s apron strings” unless he could boast of his cricket prowess.’6 At the same time, ‘meanings attached to games varied from place to place according to racial and political divisions and aspirations’.7 Sports historian, Jeff Hill, points to many cases where ‘the initiative came from indigenous people themselves eager to modernise their own societies and seeing in British sports a mark of modernity and progress.’8 Rugby might not have succeeded in India – (the Calcutta Cup serves as an intriguing reminder of the game having been played in that part of the world) – but cricket was ever present. Recent research disputes the traditional view that ‘for many 5 Ramachandra Guha, A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport, London, 2002, 3 6 J.Pollard, The Formative Years of Australian Cricket, 1803-1843, quoted in in American Sociological Review, February 2005, Volume 70 7 Holt, Sport and the British, 227 8 Jeff Hill, The International Diffusion of Modern Sport, De Montfort University ‘Sports History and Culture’ lecture notes, 2007 6 years the game excited no more than idle curiosity among the indigenous population’.9 Ramachandra Guha points out in A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport: ‘It appears that in the beginning the British had no intention of teaching the natives to play cricket … the Indian might roll the pitch or serve the whisky. He might even watch cricket and (at a price) retrieve the ball or throw it for the sahibs to bat back.