Royal Tourists, Colonial Subjects and the Making of a British World, 1860–1911
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THE MAKING OF A STUDIES IN IMPERIALISM TOU ROYAL GENERAL EDITOR: Andrew S. Thompson FOUNDING EDITOR: John M. MacKenzie ROYAL TOURISTS, COLONIAL ROYAL TOURISTS, SUBJECTS AND THE MAKING OF A BRITISH WORLD, 1860–1911 COLONIAL SUBJECTS This book examines the ritual space of nineteenth-century royal tours of empire and the diverse array of historical actors who R AND THE MAKING participated in them. It is a tale of royals who were ambivalent and ISTS, COLONIAL SUBJECTS AND ISTS, COLONIAL bored partners in the project of empire; colonial administrators who used royal ceremonies to pursue a multiplicity of projects and interests or to imagine themselves as African chiefs or heirs to the Mughal OF A BRITISH WORLD, BR emperors; local princes and chiefs who were bullied and bruised by the politics of the royal tour, even as some of them used the tour to ITISH WO symbolically appropriate or resist British cultural power; and settlers 1860–1911 of European descent and people of colour in the empire who made claims on the rights and responsibilities of imperial citizenship and as co-owners of Britain’s global empire. Royal tourists, colonial subjects and the making of a British world suggests that the diverse responses to the royal tours of the nineteenth century demonstrate how a multi- centred British imperial culture was forged in the empire and was R LD, 1860–1911 constantly made and remade, appropriated and contested. In this context, subjects of empire provincialised the British Isles, centring the colonies in their political and cultural constructions of empire, Britishness, citizenship, and loyalty. The book will be read by scholars and postgraduate students of Britain, empire, and royalty as well as lay readers interested in the history of royalty and the British Empire. Charles V. Reed is an Assistant Professor of History at Elizabeth City State University REED Cover image: Vintage World Map, 2015 © ISBN 978-0-7190-9701-0 Michal Bednarek, bednarek-art.com Cover design: riverdesign.co.uk 9 780719 097010 www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk CHARLES V. REED General editor: Andrew S. Thompson Founding editor: John M. MacKenzie When the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series was founded by Professor John M. MacKenzie more than thirty years ago, emphasis was laid upon the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as signifi cant an effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies’. With well over a hundred titles now published, this remains the prime concern of the series. Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and much else. Moreover, the series has always wished to present comparative work on European and American imperialism, and particularly welcomes the submission of books in these areas. The fascination with imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating, and this series will continue to lead the way in encouraging the widest possible range of studies in the fi eld. ‘Studies in Imperialism’ is fully organic in its development, always seeking to be at the cutting edge, responding to the latest interests of scholars and the needs of this ever-expanding area of scholarship. Royal tourists, colonial subjects and the making of a British world, 1860–1911 SELECTED TITLES AVAILABLE IN THE SERIES WRITING IMPERIAL HISTORIES ed. Andrew S. Thompson EMPIRE OF SCHOLARS Tamson Pietsch HISTORY, HERITAGE AND COLONIALISM Kynan Gentry COUNTRY HOUSES AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE Stephanie Barczewski THE RELIC STATE Pamila Gupta WE ARE NO LONGER IN FRANCE Allison Drew THE SUPPRESSION OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE ed. Robert Burroughs and Richard Huzzey HEROIC IMPERIALISTS IN AFRICA Berny Sèbe Royal tourists, colonial subjects and the making of a British world, 1860–1911 Charles V. Reed MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © Charles V. Reed 2016 The right of Charles V. Reed to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 0 7190 9701 0 hardback First published 2016 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Out of House Publishing Printed by Lightning Source To Jude and Oliver CONTENTS Acknowledgements — viii List of abbreviations — x Prologue: Chief Sandile encounters the British Empire — xi Introduction — xvii 1 British royals at home with the empire 1 2 Naturalising British rule 35 3 Building new Jerusalems: global Britishness and settler cultures in South Africa and New Zealand 77 4 ‘Positively cosmopolitan’: Britishness, respectability, and imperial citizenship 124 5 The empire comes home: colonial subjects and the appeal for imperial justice 162 Postscript and conclusion 191 Bibliography — 197 Index — 218 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing a book is both a profoundly collective project and an intensely individual (and lonely) one. As goes the usual caveat, the strengths of this work can be attributed to the former and its weaknesses only to the latter. It has been produced with the assistance and support of countless people. These acknowledgements cannot fully express my gratitude to them, but I will do my best. Richard Price was a patient and able adviser, who has shared his enormous knowledge, insight, and experience while allowing me to intellectually venture out on my own and to develop my own world- view as a historian (occasionally intervening, pulling me out of the conceptual quicksand). He personifi es the kind of academic humanism that inspired me to become a historian in the fi rst place. Paul Landau encouraged me to pursue my interest in African history. He has treated me, as a student and as a teaching assistant, with generosity and gra- ciousness. I can only hope that this work can engage with Africanist scholars in a thoughtful and productive way that honours his intellec- tual infl uence. I must also thank the many archivists and librarians who have helped make this dissertation possible: Pamela Clark at the Royal Archives at Windsor; the staff of the British Library, the National Archives at Kew, the Special Collections at the University of Nottingham, the University of Cape Town Archives, and Bodleian Library at Oxford University, the Queensland Women’s Historical Association; Ruth Gibson at the University of Birmingham; Ian Sharpe at the Auckland Public Library; and the staff of McKeldin Library at the University of Maryland and the staff of the G.R. Little Library at Elizabeth City State University. I also thank Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for permission to use materials from the Royal Archives; the Department of History and the Graduate School at the University of Maryland, the US Department of Education, Elizabeth City State University, and the National Maritime Museum for funding my research and conference travel; my parents and Mary Jane Jackson for supplementing these grants; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Susan Pedersen, and my fellow seminarians for their support during the 2010 Modern British History seminar at Columbia University; and the team at Manchester University Press. The work has also been informed by the advice and insights of Dane Kennedy, Anne Rush, Peter Hoffenberg, Vince O’Malley, Andrew Kellett, Julie Mancine, Chris Saunders, Hilary Green, Beccie Seaman and Jill Bender. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Finally, and most importantly, I must express my love and devo- tion to my family, who have supported their fi rst college graduate in an enterprise that sacrifi ced fi nancial benefi ts for personal fulfi lment. This book is for my grandfather, who was raised on a farm during the Great Depression, served as a medic in the Pacifi c theatre during the Second World War, and toiled in the coalfi elds and steel mills of south- western Pennsylvania. He had an insatiable interest in the world, read- ing the local newspaper every day from cover to cover, and it was he who fi rst inspired and continually nurtured my interest in the past. This work is also for my parents and grandmother, who encouraged me to pursue my dreams, no matter how unreasonable they seemed to be; for my wife and friend, Tracy, who has offered more love and support than I ever could have asked for; and, for Jude, my best boy ever, and Oliver, my best kid ever. It could not have been written without them. [ ix ] ABBREVIATIONS ANZ Archives New Zealand BL British Library, London CO Colonial Office Records, National Archives JC Correspondence, Diaries and Papers of Joseph Chamberlain, University of Birmingham JICH Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History MSS Eur European manuscripts, British Library NA National Archives (formerly Public Records Office), Kew OHBE Oxford History of the British Empire , 5 vols (1998–99) Oxford DNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , 22 vols (Oxford, 2004) RA Royal Archives, Windsor PROLOGUE: CHIEF SANDILE ENCOUNTERS THE BRITISH EMPIRE In the winter of 1860, Queen Victoria’s second son Prince Alfred embarked on a grand tour of British South Africa. When Sir George Grey, the Governor of the Cape Colony, invited Alfred to the Cape earlier in the year, his parents Victoria and Albert saw an opportunity to combine ‘his professional studies as an Officer in H.M. Fleet’ with the ‘acquirement of such knowledge of Foreign Countries as he may have opportunities of obtaining’.