New Zealand Families, Duty, and the First World War
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AN UNBROKEN CONNECTION? NEW ZEALAND FAMILIES, DUTY, AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR BY RACHEL PATRICK A thesis submitted to Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Victoria University of Wellington 2014. ii iii In loving memory of my father Ross Alexander Patrick, 6 May 1946 – 3 December 2013 iv v ABSTRACT This thesis explores the topic of families during the First World War through a single New Zealand family and its social networks. The family at the core of the thesis, the Stewarts, were a well-to-do Dunedin family who moved in the most exclusive circles of colonial society. As members of the elite, and as prominent figures in the leadership of wartime patriotic organisations, they conceived of their wartime role as one of public benevolence and modelling patriotic virtue for others. Yet, like countless other families, their personal lives were shattered by the war. Drawing upon the extensive records left behind by the Stewart family, as well as associated archives, the thesis advances a number of larger arguments. It is the overarching claim of this study that families – in their emotional, material and symbolic manifestations – formed an integral part of the war experience and provide a significant way of understanding this global event and its devastating human consequences. The Stewart family’s extensive surviving archive of personal correspondence provides a window into the innermost emotions, beliefs and values of the family’s individual members. Episodes in their wartime lives shape the wider thesis themes: the impact of family separations, grief and bereavement, religious faith, duty and patriotism, philanthropy, the lingering shadow of war disability – and the inflection of all of these by gender and class. Analysing the letters that the family exchanged with other correspondents demonstrates the embeddedness of family in larger networks of association, as well as identifying the aspects of their world view they shared with others in their predominantly middle- and upper-class circles. The records of patriotic organisations members of the family were associated with provide a means of examining how they translated their private beliefs into public influence. The continual interplay between mobility and distance forms another of the study’s substantive themes. The distance created by the geographical separation between battlefronts and homefronts was a defining feature of the war for families in far-flung dominions such as New Zealand. But distance could be overcome by mobility: through the flow of things, money and people. Such movements, the thesis argues, blurred the boundaries between home and front. Thus, the correspondence members of the Stewart vi family exchanged during the war enabled them to sustain intimate ties across distance and helped them to mediate their own particular experience of wartime bereavement. The informal personal and kinship networks sustained by the female members of the family formed an important constituent of wartime benevolence, providing a conduit for the flow of information, goods and financial aid across national boundaries. During the war, the leadership of women’s patriotic organisations promoted an essentialised vision of feminine nature to justify their organisations’ separate existence and to stake a claim for women’s wider participation in the war effort. In doing so, they drew upon enlarged notions of kinship to argue that their female volunteers were uniquely qualified to bridge the distances of war, and to bring the emotional and practical comforts of home to frontline soldiers. An alternative perspective to the Stewart family’s story of war is provided in this thesis through counterpoints from casefiles of the Otago Soldiers’ and Dependents’ Welfare Committee, with which the Stewarts were involved. Here, the economic interdependence and mutual reliance of working-class families is laid bare in ways that differ markedly from the experience of the Stewarts, but which nevertheless underscores the centrality of the family as an institution for people of all social backgrounds. For some families the geographical separation imposed by the exigencies of war proved insurmountable. The very different kinds of families in this thesis illustrate that whether through their successes, or the sometimes dire consequences of their failures, families are nonetheless indispensable to understanding the First World War. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My first thanks go to my supervisors, Kate Hunter and Jim McAloon, and to Geoff Troughton who generously agreed to step into that role to fill staff leave over 2012. Over the four years since I began this project, they have patiently followed the research on its various tangents and offered valuable advice and encouragement at critical junctures. The finished product has greatly benefited from their critical feedback. My knowledge of the wider historical scholarship on the First World War has been enhanced by the opportunity to teach Kate’s 300-level course on the social and cultural history of the war over the past three years. Various grants and scholarships have made this research possible. First, I would like to thank Victoria University for the award of a Vice-Chancellor’s Strategic Research PhD Scholarship which covered course fees and a living stipend. A Victoria University PhD Submission scholarship provided vital financial assistance in the months leading up to the completion of this thesis. In addition, I would like to thank the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences for several grants to support travel for research. A Postgraduate Excellence Award funded by the Postgraduate Students’ Association covered additional research costs and overseas conference attendance. My next debt of gratitude is to the various librarians and archivists who have assisted me over the duration of my research. I would like to thank all the staff of the Hocken Library for their help, particularly Anna Blackman who granted access to the restricted First World War casefiles of the Otago Soldiers’ and Dependents’ Welfare Committee. Staff at Toitū Otago Settlers’ Museum generously accommodated me during the museum’s closure for refurbishment. Archives New Zealand staff fast- tracked the digitisation of the personnel files of overseas volunteer workers at my request. My thanks also go to the descendants of the Stewart family, particularly Rachel- Mary Perry, who assisted with family information as well as granting me access to the family papers held by the Macmillan Brown Library. The Victoria University History Programme has provided supportive and collegial surroundings for research and my experience of postgraduate life has been viii greatly enhanced by the support and friendship of the various members of the ‘thesis group’ over the years: Carl, Catherine, Charlotte, Coralie, David, Grace, James, Jo, Liz, Owen, Richard and Susann. Grace Millar, Rebecca Lenihan and Susann Liebich all read and offered feedback on chapters, and I am grateful for their input. Susann, with whom I shared an office for most of my PhD candidature, provided valuable advice on the research and writing process as well as friendship and welcome diversions from the thesis. In recent months, it has been a pleasure to share the first chicken-theme decorated office I have ever encountered with Janine Cook and Ambalika Guha. Finally I would like to thank my friends and family for their support over what has been a difficult year for our family. Greg Martin has sustained me in so many ways over this final stretch of completing my thesis, as well as single-handledly keeping the chaos at bay at home. For your patience, love and support, thank you. This thesis is dedicated to my father, who did not live to see it completed, but who would have been proud. ix CONTENTS Abstract v Acknowledgements vii List of Figures xi List of Abbreviations xiii The Stewart Family xv Introduction 1 Chapter One ‘Each Battling in their Respective Spheres’: Gender, Duty, and Patriotic Performance 29 Chapter Two Connecting Home and Front: Patriotic Women Travellers 59 Chapter Three Speaking Across the Borderline: Intimate Connections and Distance in the Letters of Elizabeth Stewart 87 Chapter Four Words of Comfort and Sorrow: Grief and Remembrance in the Death of George Stewart 111 Chapter Five ‘Keeping the Homes Going’: Families and the Otago Soldiers’ and Dependants’ Welfare Committee 141 Chapter Six ‘Our Great Search for Health’: William Downie Stewart’s Disability 171 Conclusion 201 Bibliography 211 x xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 0.1 Stewart Siblings xvi Figure 1.1 Otago Queen Carnival Coronation Ceremony, 1915 30 Figure 1.2 Otago Queen Carnival Brochure 30 Figure 1.3 N.Z. Dominion Gift Parcels post card 49 Figure 2.1 Occupations of New Zealand Women War Workers 68 Figure 2.2 Elizabeth Stewart in VAD uniform, 1916 75 Figure 2.3 Elizabeth Stewart and group at Brockenhurst dining hall 83 Figure 3.1 Studio Portrait of George and Elizabeth Stewart, 1915 89 Figure 3.2 George Stewart’s grave , Mudros, Lemnos 93 Figure 3.3 George and Elizabeth Stewart at Westwood, c. 1912 105 Figure 4.1 Total items of condolence by recipient 116 Figure 4.2 Items of condolence by sex of correspondent 116 Figure 4.3 Senders of telegrams, sympathy cards and letters by sex of correspondent. 117 Figure 4.4 Westwood, Crookston 118 Figure 4.5 Title page, G. H. Stewart Memorial Album 119 Figure 4.6 Map of West Otago District 121 Figure 4.7 Tapanui Farmers’ Club Committee, c. 1902 124 Figure 4.8 George Stewart in military uniform 125 Figure 5.1 Applications for OSDWC relief 153 Figure 6.1 The Maheno at Port Chalmers 171 Figure 6.2 William Downie Stewart carried ashore, December 1916 172 xii Figure 6.3 William and Mary Downie Stewart, Rotorua, 1917 177 Figure 6.4 Government Baths, Rotorua 178 Figure 6.5 William Downie Stewart, London, 1932 183 Figure 6.6 Cabinet Ministers of 1932 184 Figure 6.7 William and Mary Downie Stewart, c.