Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects Imperially-Minded Britons: A Study of the Public Discourse on Britain’s Imperial Presence in the Cape-to- Cairo Corridor, Military Reform, and the Issue of National and Provincial Identity, 1870-1900 Timothy Ramer Lay Marquette University Recommended Citation Lay, Timothy Ramer, "Imperially-Minded Britons: A Study of the Public Discourse on Britain’s Imperial Presence in the Cape-to- Cairo Corridor, Military Reform, and the Issue of National and Provincial Identity, 1870-1900" (2013). Dissertations (2009 -). Paper 304. http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/304 Imperially-Minded Britons: A Study of the Public Discourse on Britain’s Imperial Presence in the Cape-to- Cairo Corridor, Military Reform, and the Issue of National and Provincial Identity, 1870-1900 by Timothy Ramer Lay, B.A., M.A. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin December, 2013 ABSTRACT “Imperially-Minded Britons: A Study of the Public Discourse on British Imperial Presence in the Cape-to-Cairo Corridor, Military Reform, and the Issue of National and Provincial Identity, 1870-1900” Timothy Ramer Lay, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2013 The Victorian era was marked by the incremental expansion of the British Empire. Such developments were not only of enormous importance for government officials and the contributors of that expansion, but for the broader general public as well, as evidenced by the coverage and discussion of such developments in the Cape to Cairo corridor in the national and provincial presses between 1870 and 1900. Transcending the discussions surrounding the politics of interventionism, the public’s interest in imperial activities— such as the annexation of the Transvaal, the First Anglo-Boer War, the Zulu War, Gordon’s mission into the Sudan, the Jameson raid and the Second Anglo-Boer War— also led to debates about the status of military institutions and the necessity for military reform. Lastly, although these debates reflected on public understandings of British national identity, they also demonstrated specific provincial sympathies, suggesting that national identity was constituted differently in England and Scotland. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, and foremost, I wish to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for his unfailing love, strength, and providence. A work of this magnitude is never produced in isolation. I therefore extend my most sincere thanks to my advisor Dr. Timothy McMahon for his guidance in working out the dissertation questions, his exhaustive assistance in bringing this project to completion, and his constant encouragement. Throughout the twists and turns of the researching and writing process there were many times when I thought this project would never get finished, but Dr. McMahon never lost faith that it would get completed. In addition, I wish to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Carla Hay and Dr. Julius Ruff, for their time in reading the dissertation, their helpful critiques, and their encouragement as well. I would also like to specifically acknowledge the assistance of the circulation and interlibrary loan personnel at Marquette University for handling innumerable storage and interlibrary loan requests. Thanks too to the staff at British Library Newspapers whose assistance and resources made this project possible. Lastly, I wish to warmly thank my family and friends for their unceasing support and encouragement over the lengthy process of researching and writing the dissertation. ii CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. iii INTRODUCTION. 1 CHAPTER PART I: THE PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON IMPERIAL INTERVENTION 1. PUBLIC INTEREST IN SOUTH AFRICAN AFFAIRS, 1870-1881: THE ANNEXATION OF THE TRANSVAAL, THE ZULU WAR AND THE FIRST ANGLO-BOER WAR. 16 2. BRITISH INTRIGUE AND INTERVENTION IN EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN, 1882-1896 . 81 3. RENEWED INTEREST IN SOUTH AFRICAN AFFAIRS, 1895-1900: THE JAMESON RAID AND THE SECOND ANGLO-BOER WAR. 160 PART II: MILITARY- CIVIL RELATIONS AND BRITAIN’S IMPERIAL CULTURE 4. IMPERIAL AWARENESS AND BRITISH MILITARY REFORM, 1850-1900 . 222 5. NATIONAL AND PROVINCIAL REALTIONS WITH THE MILITARY AND THE EMPIRE . 277 CONCLUSION . 307 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 312 iii ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1-1 “The Zulu War,” Illustrated London News, 10 May 1879, 429 . 77 1-2 “British Officers Engaged in the Zulu and Afghan Wars,” Graphic 1 March 1879, 212 . 78 1-3 “The Rebellion in the Transvaal,” Graphic 19 March 1880, 290 . 79 1-4 “The Transvaal War,” Illustrated London News 19 May 1881, 490 80 2-1 “At Last,” Punch 7 February 1885, 66 . 158 2-2 “Too Late,” Punch 14 February 1885, 78 . 159 3-1 “Mafeking is Relieved,” Graphic, 26 May 1900, 759. 220 4-1 “Lord Wolseley Favoring Conscription in Birmingham,” Penny Illustrated Paper 2 February 1889, 73 . 276 5-1 Engraving of Lady Butler’s “Floreat Etona” . 284 5-2 Engraving of Lady Butler’s “The Remnant of an Army” . 285 5-3 “ABC’s for Baby Patriots” . 286 5-4 “Pattison’s Whisky” Graphic, 10 July 1897, 87 . 289 5-5 “The British Realm,” British Realm, January 1898, 1. 290 5-6. “Master Hugh Trevor Dawson as the ‘Handy Man,’” British Realm February 1902 . 290 1 INTRODUCTION Beginning on the evening of 19 May 1900 and lasting over a period of several days, the streets and squares of British cities, towns, and villages were awash with merriment as the British public responded to the news that the town of Mafeking in South Africa which had been besieged by Boer forces for 217 days had finally been relieved by the British army. In London, the “unparalleled demonstrations” included spontaneous parades of men, women and children marching throughout the city.1 In the city of Bristol, thousands turned out for a formal parade led by the Lord Mayor of the city, and in Kirkaldy, the event was marked by parading, setting out decorations, the ringing of town and church bells, and the setting off of fireworks.2 Elsewhere, in East Peckham, a village of 2,000 people in Kent, the residents likewise took part in celebrations such as spontaneous parading, setting out decorations, ringing the town and church bells, setting off fireworks, and cancelling school.3 Assessing the events surrounding Mafeking Night, numerous scholars have contended that those activities were an isolated event and that the British public was detached from and relatively disinterested in the empire. For instance, in examining Britain’s small wars of the Victorian era, Byron Farwell asserted that the “long peace” associated with the Pax Britannica left the British public largely unaware that from Waterloo to the end of the nineteenth century the nation was almost constantly at war 1 Times (London), 21 May 1900, 12. 2 Bristol Mercury, 21 May 1900, 5; Fife Free Press (Kirkaldy), 26 May 1900, 2. 3 Donald Hodge, interview April 1995, Imperial War Museum (IWM), catalogue #11341; Census of England and Wales, 1901. County of Kent. Area, Houses and Population, Cd. 1171 (1902), 27. 2 some place on the globe.4 Focusing on economic matters, Lance Davis and Robert Huttenback have argued that the empire comprised only a small part of the British economy, and that for the most part the British public was not concerned with imperial markets.5 More recently, Bernard Porter’s inquiry into the Victorian culture and social awareness has boldly characterized the British public at that time as being largely “absent-minded” about imperial concerns.6 Even so, while the British Isles were certainly detached from the peripheral empire due to the delay in communication during the first part of the nineteenth century, it is untenable to believe that the British public was oblivious to and unconcerned about the imperial wars, that the mere frequency of those wars did not leave indelible marks or impressions upon British society, and that the occurrences of Mafeking Night emerged spontaneously without a pre-existing cultural foundation. Muriel Chamberlain has suggested that, instead of reflecting Britain’s indifference to the imperial wars, the idea of a Pax Britannica recognized that those wars posed little threat to the British homeland.7 In that way, the effectuation of a Pax Britannica coincided with interests in extending a British hegemony, which was often ensured at the point of the sword.8 Other scholarship, such as that offered by John M. MacKenzie and Andrew Thompson, has done much to 4 Byron Farwell, Queen Victoria’s Little Wars (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 339. Farwell’s interpretation of the meaning of long-peace is to say the least remarkable, given that earlier in the same work he contended that in the second half of Queen Victoria’s reign the British public was increasingly aware and concerned about the imperial wars. Farwell accounted for this apparent contradiction by contending that by the early 1890s the constant imperial wars caused Britain to become numb to such developments. Ibid., 218, 295. 5 Lance E. Davis and Robert Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860-1912 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 6 Bernard Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Oxford: University Press, 2004). 7 Muriel Chamberlain, ‘Pax Britannica’? British Foreign Policy, 1789-1914 (London: Longman, 1989), 9. 8 Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher, Pax Britannica in South Africa (London: Archibald Constable and Co., 1905), x-xi; H. Whates, “A Year of Lord Lansdowne,” Fortnightly Review 70 (1901): 593; Bill Nasson, Britannia’s Empire: Making a British World (Stroud, UK: Tempus Publishing Ltd., 2004), 135-36. 3 show that, to varying degrees, the British public was engaged in imperial concerns and that the empire did exert some influence upon British culture.9 Additionally, Paul Ward has specifically contended that public support for imperialism formed a key element of British identity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.