Imperialism, the Native New Zealand Rugby Tour of 1888-89, and English Identity Formation

University of Nevada, Reno “An English Game Against English Players”: Imperialism, the Native New Zealand Rugby Tour of 1888-89, and English Identity Formation A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History by Megan E. Wurm Dr. Emily Hobson/Thesis Advisor May, 2018 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL We recommend that the thesis prepared under our supervision by MEGAN E. WURM Entitled "An English Game Against English Players": Imperialism, The Native New Zealand Rugby Tour Of 1888-89, And English Identity Formation be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Emily Hobson, Phd, Advisor Meredith Oda, Phd, Committee Member Dennis Dworkin, Phd, Committee Member Jennifer Hill, Phd, Graduate School Representative David W. Zeh, Ph.D., Dean, Graduate School May, 2018 i Abstract English newspaper coverage of the Native New Zealand rugby tour of 1888-89 provides insight into the tensions, inherent ambivalence, and instability involved in English identity formation of the late nineteenth century. Namely, this coverage exposes the contradictions inherent to the civilizing mission of the late nineteenth century British Empire. As the English pursued their imperial mission they sought to imbue those countries and their indigenous populations with English characteristics. Sport was used as a tool in imbuing men in the colonies with self-discipline, the ability to work well with fellow players, and loyalty to both the team and, by extension, the Empire as a whole – qualities that were considered distinctly English. For nonwhite men in particular, sport was one of the most realistic ways to prove one’s ability to conform to English standards of behavior and “civilize,” thus allowing them to earn societal inclusion and socio- economic mobility in the Empire. However, the way imperialism functioned ensured this process could never be complete: if indigenous populations were able to achieve civilization, and the civilizing mission succeeded, English white racial superiority would be threatened, as would the very existence of the Empire. Thus, in order to ensure the maintenance of the Empire, the civilizing mission always had to be presented as a goal that could never be completed. The Native New Zealand Tour of 1888-89 serves as a lens through which these ideologies and processes can be observed. ii Table of Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………...... i Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………….......... ii List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………….. iii Introduction ………………………………………………………………...…………… 1 Chapter One: English to the Backbone ……………….....……...…....………....…........ 16 Chapter Two: The Grown-Up Game of Rugby ………………………………………... 39 Chapter Three: Friendly Combat ………………………………………………………. 61 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………....... 84 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………… 93 iii List of Figures Figure One: “The Maori Football Team.” Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (London, England), 6 October 1888. ………………………………………………. page 5 Figure Two: Hall, Catherine, Keith McClelland, and Jane Rendall. Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. …………………………………………………………… page 36 Figure Three: White, David. “Masculinity, Public Schools and British Imperial Rule.” Open History Society, accessed 2 April 2018, https://www.openhistorysociety.org/ members-articles/masculinity-and-british-imperial-rule. ………………………… page 44 Figure Four: “Joseph Warbrick, New Zealand Natives' rugby player.” New Zealand History, accessed 2 April 2018, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/joseph-warbrick- rugby-player. ……………………………………………………………………... page 71 Figure Five: Bech, Duncan. “England to face New Zealand for first time in four years as Eddie Jones looks to develop 'bulletproof' side.” Independent, 13 September 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/international/england-vs-new- zealand-twickenham-2018-tickets-schedule-when-where-a7944326.html. ……… page 87 1 Introduction In 1888, a Maori rugby player named Joe Warbrick and a New Zealand native of European descent named Thomas Eyton organized a rugby tour of New Zealand, Australia, Britain, and Ireland. The two men wanted to develop a team of Maori rugby players to represent New Zealand in international competition. Eventually a team of 26 men, 21 of Maori descent and 5 of European descent, was compiled, and their tour began. They played eleven games in New Zealand and Australia before setting sail for Britain, arriving on the twenty sixth of September and playing their first match in the metropole against Surrey on the third of October. The team played seventy four games in Britain – sixty six in England, four in Wales, three in Ireland, and one in Scotland. Eyton noted that part of his rationale for wanting to tour an all-Maori team was their exotic appeal – the Maoris’ brown skin and unfamiliar customs would draw crowds of British men and women eager to catch a glimpse of the indigenous New Zealanders. Indeed, Britons came in droves to watch their local and national teams play the Native New Zealand team. A wealth of newspaper coverage reveals consistent coverage of the tour and deep interest in information about the Maori people. In their coverage of the tour, many newspaper articles evaluated the Maori team’s ability to play rugby – not only their general skill, but also their ability to play a particular kind of English rugby. Indeed, the ability of indigenous populations of England’s colonies to play English sports became an important litmus test of the success of the imperial mission. English newspaper coverage of the Native New Zealand rugby tour provides insight into the tensions, inherent ambivalence, and instability involved in English identity formation of the late nineteenth century. The Maori tour developed at 2 the intersection of Empire, race, and sport.1 Given how important these three things were in helping to define English identity, English reactions to the tour can help determine the extent to which the English considered their imperial mission successful. These reactions show that, while sport was used as an element of the civilizing mission meant to spread Englishness to the colonies, the ideology of English white supremacy meant that the civilizing mission could never be complete. Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper’s ideas about ambivalence and empire are valuable. In Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Stoler and Cooper note that colonialism’s effects were not one-sided. Indeed, according to them, “Europe was made by its imperial projects as much as colonial encounters were shaped by conflicts within Europe itself.”2 Rather than conflict and contradiction being characteristic of certain crisis points in imperial history, they were in fact “at the center of the colonial state’s operatic mode,” which impacted both colonizer and colonized.3 Stoler and Cooper argue that the rhetoric of empire was opportunistic – “harnessed and mobilized for particular political projects by colonial elites” as they saw fit, especially with regards to race.4 As a result, the colonial experience for both colonizer and colonized was, at its heart, “ambivalent.”5 The idea that ambivalence was not the exception but the rule with regards to imperial ideology is crucial to this project. 1 Throughout this thesis, “Empire” will be capitalized when referring to the British Empire specifically. 2 Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, “Between Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research Agenda,” in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper (University of California Press, 1997), 1. 3 Stoler and Cooper 20. 4 Stoler and Cooper 12-13. 5 Stoler and Cooper 34. 3 The timeline of the tour was significant in that the late nineteenth century was a period of particularly heightened imperial anxiety for the English. Though the British Empire was expanding, the late 1800s also saw the expansion (or attempted expansion) of the empires of the United States, Germany, and France. In some cases, these countries’ empires threatened to unseat or destabilize parts of the British Empire. The British relied on the Empire both materially, to provide goods such as sugar and tea, and ideologically. Key to the justification of imperial expansion was the idea of the civilizing mission – the notion that the British were meant to go forth into the world and spread their culture, ideology, and religion to uncivilized indigenous populations in the areas they colonized. This created an ideology that relied on circular logic but was nonetheless crucial in defining English racial identity: they spread English values to other populations because Englishness was the pinnacle of civilization; Englishness was the pinnacle of civilization because it had been adopted by so many other populations. Paradoxically, the civilizing mission was meant to be forever incomplete. If colonized populations actually achieved English levels of civilization, this would question English racial supremacy and thus their ability to maintain an Empire. Thus, the English were ambivalent with regards to the civilizing mission, forever “moving the goal posts” – as soon as indigenous populations looked to be successful, the standards changed to ensure they fell short.6 One area that served as a microcosm for the imperial project was sport. Sport was used as a sort of multi-purpose

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