Elizabeth L. Riedi Phd Thesis
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IMPERIALIST WOMEN IN EDWARDIAN BRITAIN: THE VICTORIA LEAGUE 1899-1914 Elizabeth L. Riedi A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 1998 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2820 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License IMPERIALIST WOMEN IN EDWARDIAN BRITAIN: THE VICTORIA LEAGUE 1899-1914 ELIZABETH L. RIEDI Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews. Abstract This thesis, based on private papers, society records, autobiographies and memoirs, newspapers and periodicals, examines one mainly female imperialist organisation - the Victoria League - and the women who ran it. It considers two related questions - what made Edwardian women imperialist, and how, within the limits of Edwardian society, could they express their imperialism? The thesis shows that several of the League's founders and executive had visited South Africa during or shortly before the Boer War, and that this experience, particularly for those who came into close contact with Milner, was pivotal in stimulating them to active imperialism. The Victoria League, founded April 1901, aimed to promote imperial unity and a British South Africa in a variety of suitably `womanly' ways: Boer War charities, imperial education, exporting literature and art to the white dominions (particularly the Transvaal), welcoming colonial visitors to Britain, arranging for the welcome of British settlers in the colonies, and promoting social reform as an imperial issue. It worked overseas through a number of independent Victoria Leagues in Australasia, the Imperial Order, Daughters of the Empire in Canada, and the Guild of Loyal Women in South Africa; and at home with a number of similar (though largely male) imperial propaganda societies. The thesis also considers the Victoria League's attitude to race, particularly through its debate over entertaining Indian students. It ends with a discussion of the options available to imperialist women; and of the obstacles they faced in questions of authority (how far and Awhat ways a woman could pronounce on imperial subjects) and of ideology (as expressed through the anti- suffrage campaign). It concludes that the Victoria League, by transferring areas of activity long acknowledged as 'feminine' to the imperial stage, redefined areas of female competence and enlarged woman's 'separate sphere' to include the active propagation of imperialism. Acknowledgements I have to thank the Victoria League in London for permission to read the Victoria League minutes; the late Rt. Hon. Lord Amery of Lustleigh for access to the Violet Markham-Leo Amery correspondence; the Victoria League in Scotland for information about its early days; Dr Julia Bush of Nene College, Northampton, for a copy of her paper from the 1995 Women's History Network Conference; and Hamish Scott, Chris Sclunitz, Deborah Thom, Catriona Burness and James Bothwell for help with various aspects of this thesis. Contents Preface i Chapter 1: Prelude in South Africa 1894-1900 pl Chapter 2: The Victoria League p29 Chapter 3: Philanthropy & Politics: Early Work in South Africa p52 Chapter 4: Imperial Education p75 Chapter 5: Culture to the Colonies P96 Chapter 6: From Home to Home: Hospitality & Settlers' Welcome p112 Chapter 7: Imperialism & Social Reform p133 Chapter 8: Sister Societies Overseas p151 Chapter 9: Allies & Rivals p174 Chapter 10: Dangerous Proposals: the Victoria League & Questions of Race p192 Conclusion: Gender & Empire p207 Bibliography p216 i Preface Recent years have seen an expansion of interest in two related areas: popular imperialism and imperial propaganda; and the relationship between British women and the British Empire. This thesis, a history of a mainly female imperial propaganda society, the Victoria League, examines both of these issues from the inside and in doing so shines new light on Edwardian imperialist women, as individuals and as a group. In particular it aims to answer two questions: what made women active imperialists? and what were the options available to an imperialist woman in the Edwardian era? Women and girls anxious to do their bit for the Empire were usually referred back to motherhood and the home. Even the feminist Lady Frances Balfour suggested that `women's imperial work' was to rectify the 'diminishing birth-rate'. 'The nation needs men; are they not, then, in supplying them, doing their share of Empire-building?" Baden-Powell's Girl Guides, eager to combine patriotism and adventure, were restricted to 'training in domestic duties, including sewing, cooking, first-aid and nursing, together with moral training to enable girls to become the 'guides' of men'. 2 Women were also encouraged to 'teach the story of Empire to the next generation and ... awake in each childish breast a feeling of patriotism'. Better still, they could increase the range of 'imperial motherhood' by emigration to the white dominions.3 But this ideology, though widespread and often commented upon by historians, did not preclude a more active and directly political female imperialism. After examining the roots of Edwardian women's imperialism in Chapter 1, the thesis examines the areas and ways in which an active female imperialism could be expressed in Chapters 2-7; contrasts the Victoria League with other imperial propaganda societies, both colonial and London-based, male and female, in Chapters 8 and 9; explores the implications of race differences for the League in Chapter 10; and concludes with a discussion of British women and imperialism. 1Lady Frances Balfour, Women's Imperial Work', Spectator 10 March 1906 p380. 2Jane Mackay and Pat Thane, 'The Englishwoman' in Robert Coils and Philip Dodds (eds.), Englishness: Politics and Culture 1880-1920 (London: Croom Helm: 1986) p214. 3Mrs Archibald (Ethel) Colquhoun, 'Women and the Colonies', Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute =CV 1903-4 pp326-344, p337. 1 Chapter 1. Prelude in South Africa 1894-1900 Despite a revival of interest in imperial propaganda societies and female emigration schemes in recent years, very little work has been done on the individuals who ran them. This is the more surprising as their lives are generally well documented. In the case of the women who founded and ran the Victoria League, a common thread is quickly observed: many had visited South Africa either shortly before or during the Boer War and developed there an interest in imperial and South African politics. For some this was reinforced by intimacy with Milner, who inspired in them the kind of devotion he was later to inspire in his 'kindergarten'. This chapter explores the backgrounds and South African experiences of six women later to be active in the League - Alice Balfour, Violet Markham, Violet Cecil, Alicia Cecil, Edith Lyttelton and Mary Arnold-Forster - in chronological order of their arrival in Africa. (1) Alice Balfour Alice Balfour (1850-1936) was the daughter of James Balfour of Whittingehame and Lady Blanche Cecil, daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury. Her sisters were Eleanor Sidgwick (an able mathematician, one of the founders of Newnham College, Cambridge, and the wife of Henry Sidgwick) and Evelyn Rayleigh, wife of the physicist Lord Rayleigh. Arthur Balfour was her most famous brother. Though she provided her daughters with an education limited even by the standard of the 1860s, Lady Blanche Balfour was unusual among Victorian mothers in teaching them that `no marriage was far better than marriage with the wrong person ... there was plenty of interesting work to do apart from marriage'.' Moreover, she gave this sentiment practical effect by arranging for the financial independence of her spinster daughters, so that in 1872 Alice and Eleanor (not yet married) were each worth 'not far from f30,000'.2 Alice Balfour devoted most of her life to acting as housekeeper for her bachelor brother Arthur. Balfour's biographers agree in describing her as one of the family 'casualties', permanently scarred by the strength of their mother's personality. 'Preoccupied with petty domestic economies, apologising often for herself and her 1Janet Oppenheim, 'A Mother's Role, a Daughter's Duty: Lady Blanche Balfour, Eleanor Sidgwick and Feminist Perspectives', Journal of British Studies 34 (2) April 1995 pp 196-232, p216. 2Oppenheim, 'A Mother's Role' p217-218. 2 chronic shyness' which 'gradually led to unusual introversion', 3 engaged in a feud of devotion to Arthur with her sister-in-law Frances, Alice was not 'entirely well- oriented. She never married and hated men; she was full of repressed grudges and secret sorrows; she was a hoarder and had an over-weening jealousy of Arthur's friends'.4 Beatrice Webb, visiting Whittingehame in 1906, painted a more sympathetic portrait. Caustically noting how all the Balfour women paid homage to 'Prince Arthur' 5 she described Alice as 'one of those sweet tempered, gentle-natured beings who are made to be oppressed - the slave of everyone but the devoted slave of her great brother' .6 It is a sad picture, but there was another side to Alice. Webb thought her 'neither brilliant nor very capable, but singularly loving, direct and refined, with talents both artistic and scientific wholly sacrificed to the endless detail entailed by her brother's political career and patriarchal establishment'. 7 Even her less analytical contemporaries recognised that, by her devotion to Arthur, Alice had 'to some extent thwarted the development of her powers'. She founded a pioneer nursing association in East Lothian. Her interest in natural history was passionate and informed: she left a collection of lepidoptera to the Edinburgh Natural History Museum. Despite her preference for nature over humanity, 'her interest in politics was ... perfectly genuine'.8 The founder of the Young Conservatives Union wrote after Alice's death that she 'was privileged to be associated with [Alice] in London through much political work, and eventually it was ..