Sport and Imperialism 1900-1907
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ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Playing the man: sport and imperialism 1900-1907 https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40085/ Version: Full Version Citation: Levett, Geoffrey James (2014) Playing the man: sport and imperialism 1900-1907. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Playing the Man: Sport and Imperialism 1900-1907 Geoffrey James Levett Department of History, Classics and Archaeology Birkbeck College, University of London Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy February 2014 1 I declare that the following thesis is my own work. 2 Abstract This thesis explores the relationship between sport, manliness and imperial identity in the years between 1900 and 1907. In the second half of the nineteenth century, driven by the public school ideology of muscular Christianity, participation in team sports, principally football and cricket, came to be viewed by social commentators as a central characteristic of the ideal English man. The ideology of muscular Christianity then spread throughout the rest of Britain and its Empire via schools and imperial institutions such as the army and civil service. By the end of the century the practice of sport was central to the conception of the manly imperial Briton. At the same time subjects of British rule began to participate in British sports in increasing numbers, leading to a public debate on their ability to embody imperial manliness. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries there was a rapid growth in the playing of international sport, fuelled by faster means of communication between the metropole and the colonies, the development of a global media and the exploitation of sport as a commercial enterprise. This thesis argues that imperial sport was developed by a group of sports administrators, journalists, colonial officials and businessmen to foster a feeling of imperialism in the public at large. The matches they organised provoked a complex debate on imperial manliness. Defeat to colonial teams stirred anxieties about racial degeneration in the mother country, while debate surrounding the selection and performance of players from non-white communities in the empires of both Britain and France revealed competing visions of who could represent their empires in the public arena of sport. 3 Table of Contents List of figures 6 Abbreviations 7 Acknowledgements 8 Introduction: The Golden Age? 10 Sport in the Edwardian Era 11 Methodology and Sources 30 A Note on Terminology 38 Chapter Outline 39 Conclusion 41 Chapter 1: Colonial Tours and British Manliness 42 Degenerate Days 42 The 1905 All Blacks: ‘A Lesson in the Game of Life’ 48 ‘Squalor, Poverty, Degredation’: The New Zealander Returns to London 52 Rugby and Imperial Display: New Zealand 65 Rugby and Imperial Display: South Africa 76 Conclusion: Middle-Class Values and Middle-Class Fears 84 Chapter 2: Constructing Imperial Identity: The 1907 South 87 African Cricket Tour of England The Anglification of South Africa 87 Playing the English Man 93 Anglicising the South Africans 96 Defining the Sporting South African 106 ‘British or Boer’: Making South Africa British 112 Conclusion: The Sporting Triumph of Afrikaner Nationalism 121 Chapter 3: Jouez le Jeu! Black Champions and French Rugby 124 Why are the Anglo-Saxons Superior? 124 Vivent les Boers! Anglophobia and the South African War 130 Rugby and Modernity in Paris 134 Rugby and Race in Paris 139 The Creole Elite in France 144 Conclusion: Two Conceptions of Imperial Manliness 157 4 Chapter 4: Empire, Sport and Race in the British World 160 Imperial Cricket 160 ‘Ranji’, the ‘Brown Englishman’ and Indian Cricket 163 West Indian Cricket at the End of the Nineteenth Century 170 1900: ‘Englishmen Who Happen to Reside in the West Indies’ 176 1906: The Rejection of Mixed Cricket 184 Conclusion: The Triumph of the Rand 201 Chapter 5: ‘Gaelic Manhood’ versus ‘Anglican Athletics’: Two 203 Models of Manliness in Irish Sport Irish Rugby’s Forgotten Man 203 Gaelic Manhood 206 Rugby Football and the ‘Condumnium’ 214 All-Ireland Rugby 217 The Idol of Cork: Basil Maclear and the Forging of a West Briton 223 The Imperial Idea: ‘Celts vs Boers’ 236 Conclusion: The Triumph of Nationalism 240 Conclusion 243 Bibliography 251 Appendix A: Fixtures and Results of Colonial Tours 1905-1907 283 New Zealand Rugby Union 1905-6 284 West Indies Cricket 1906 286 South Africa Rugby Union 1906-7 287 South Africa Cricket 1907 288 5 List of Figures 1. ‘The Worship of C. B. Fry’ 44 2. England v New Zealand at Crystal Palace 69 3. The 1905 New Zealand team performs the haka 73 4. ‘Our Invaders’ 75 5. The Imperial Hotel 101 6. Abe Bailey 117 7. ‘Noirs contre blancs’ 141 8. ‘Nègres contre Blancs’ 142 9. Georges Jérôme before the match against New Zealand 150 10. The two captains, Roos and Jérôme shake hands 154 11. ‘Ranji’ 166 12. ‘Patiala’ 169 13. ‘Members of the West Indian cricket team’ 182 14. ‘Youthful cricketers’ 187 15. W. G. Grace gives the ‘West Indians’ a ‘whacking’ 191 16. ‘Shamrock v Rose’ 222 17. Royal Dublin Fusiliers in 1902 225 18. The famous Maclear hand-off 235 6 Abbreviations GAA Gaelic Athletic Association MCC Marylebone Cricket Club RFU Rugby Football Union 7 Acknowledgements There are two things in life of which you can never have enough: good friends and wise counsel. I could not have completed this thesis without the assistance and advice of a great many people. Foremost amongst the wise is my supervisor, Dr. Hilary Sapire, who has been a constant source of advice throughout the writing process. I hope that I can now count her among my good friends. Someone who was already a good friend when I started writing, but who has also provided plenty of wisdom, is Dr. John Law, a good listener and a fine lunch companion. Birkbeck College is, in my experience, a unique institution and many of its scholars have given me sound advice over the years. In particular Dr. Sean Brady and Dr. Sarah Howard were kind enough to read through drafts of the chapters that dealt with the history of Ireland and France respectively. I should also acknowledge the generosity of time shown to me by Prof. Bruce Murray at the outset of this project, and by my fellow authors of Empire and Cricket. I am grateful as well to Prof. David Gilbert, who first encouraged me to publish in the London Journal. I would also like to thank Prof. John Nauright, Dr. Chris Bolsmann and Dion Giorgiou for their companionship and listening skills at various conferences and seminars. Dr. Heather Mendick deserves special credit for reading through the first draft and giving me excellent feedback. I have been fortunate to have travelled extensively while researching and writing this thesis and would like to thank the staff of libraries and institutions in London, Kent, Yorkshire, Dublin, Belfast, Paris, Roubaix, Stellenbosch and Colindale for their assistance. Above all I would like to commend the London Library for providing the ideal space for writing up. Finally I thank my wife, Denize, and our children, James and Gregory. They have been patient beyond belief. Boys when I started this work my sons are now men. This thesis is dedicated to them. 8 — But do you know what a nation means? Says John Wyse. — Yes, says Bloom — What is it? Says John Wyse. — A nation? Says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same place. — By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that’s so I’m a nation for I’m living in the same place for the past five years. So of course everyone had a laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck out of it: — Or living in many different places.1 1 James Joyce, Ulysses (London, 1997), pp. 496-7 9 Introduction: The Golden Age? The popular image of sport in the Edwardian era is that of a golden age, ‘a time of complacency, security and opulent pride for Britain and her splendid Empire.’2 Such an image is one that could only be formed with the benefit of hindsight, nostalgia even, in which the catastrophic events of 1914-18 loom large. This view of the Edwardian period as one of calm security avant le deluge of World War 1 was debunked a long time ago; Edwardian Britain was in turmoil. Samuel Hynes, in The Edwardian Turn of Mind, described how in society, politics, and culture, new ideas were in conflict with the ossified authority of the Victorian era.3 While the Empire was expanded across southern Africa, with Jingoes cheering each bitterly won campaign, anti-imperialists like J. A. Hobson thought British values corrupted by capitalist conspirators in London and Johannesburg.4 At home, the issues of women’s suffrage and Irish home rule caused deep division between classes and political parties, in the streets of London and Dublin.5 Across the channel, ‘Belle Epoque’ France was also in the grip of social schism. Dreyfusards and Anti- Dreyfusards clashed, sometimes violently, over their differing conceptions of who had the right to be French.6 Clashes on the sports field were less violent and more ritualised than those of the politics of the street. Yet there was just as much ideology invested in an Irish fifteen taking on South Africa at rugby in 1906 as there had been in an Irish Republican battalion facing down the Royal Dublin 2 David Frith, The Golden Age of Cricket (London, 1983), p.