Violent Trajectories A Cultural History of the Enfield Rifle in the British Empire Daniel M. Thompson A Thesis Submitted to Victoria University of Wellington in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History Victoria University of Wellington 2017 ii To my family, for their love and intelligence, and of course, to Olivia. iii Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ v Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... vi Glossary ................................................................................................................................... vii Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One Men Making Guns, Guns Making Men: The Invention and Ideology of the Enfield Rifle .... 13 Chapter Two “The King of Weapons”: The Enfield at War .......................................................................... 33 Chapter Three “The Great Pacificator”: The Enfield Rifle in New Zealand ................................................... 60 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 89 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 94 iv Abstract This thesis explores the material, cultural, and political significance of the Enfield rifle in the British Empire from c. 1850 to 1870. Unravelling the weapon’s links with imperial ideology and violence, it argues that the Enfield helped to produce discourses of race, gender, and civilisation during this era. Furthermore, it contends that these discourses shaped the ways in which Britons viewed the Enfield and influenced how they saw themselves. The rifle is best known for its well-chronicled role in the 1857 Indian Rebellion, where it was central to British narratives of the conflict. While acknowledging the Indian context, this thesis aims to draw the Enfield deeper into debates about British imperial culture, comparing the rifle’s physical and discursive influence across a range of imperial spaces. The Enfield rifle was one of the most important weapons of the nineteenth century. The product of a revolution in rifle technology, it amazed the British public and military with its accuracy and range. The weapon’s invention prompted the introduction of large scale factory production techniques in Britain. It also stimulated a massive rethinking of military tactics and was a central component of the militarisation of British society during the 1850s and 1860s. The Enfield then had extensive use in conflicts including the Crimean War, the Indian Rebellion, the New Zealand Wars, and the American Civil War. It also found a home in the burgeoning Volunteer Movement in Britain and New Zealand. Through its use in these arenas, the Enfield had a considerable physical impact on the British Empire, but it had even greater discursive significance. During the 1850s and 1860s, discussions about the Enfield’s invention, production, and usage promoted ideas of rationality, modern science, and individualism. After the 1857 Indian Rebellion, the rifle came to epitomise British technological might and racial ‘superiority’ in the minds of Victorians. The Volunteer Force, established in 1859, embraced the Enfield as its weapon of choice and conceived of it as a weapon that embodied the Force’s values of skill, education and respectability. In the New Zealand Wars however, the rifle failed to bring the decisive victories many settlers expected, and they began to disparage the weapon as a result. Nevertheless, the Enfield was still deeply implicated in the contested process of colonisation in New Zealand. Ultimately, the Enfield’s role in these events transformed the weapon into a deeply raced and gendered object. v List of Figures Figure 1 Flintlock musket, circa 1800, London, by Tower Armouries. Gift 16 of the Wellington City Council, 1929. CC BY-NC-ND licence. Te Papa (DM000109). Figure 2 Enfield Pattern 1856 Rifle Musket., circa 1860, England, maker 17 unknown. Gift of Kenneth Huffam, date unknown.CC BY-NC- ND licence. Te Papa (DM000376). Figure 3 Single shot bolt action rifle, "needle gun", 1858, Berlin, by Royal 30 Prussian Arsenal. Gift of the Defence Department, 1940.CC BY- NC-ND licence. Te Papa (DM000194). Figure 4 Robert Gibb, The Thin Red Line, 1881, National War Museum, 35 Edinburgh. Figure 5 Roger Fenton, The Whitworth rifle, fired by The Queen at 46 Wimbledon, 2 July 1860, Albumen print: RCIN 2941854, Royal Collection Trust. Figure 6 Breech-loading rifle, Snider action, U.S.A., 1864., 1864, 58 Watertown, by Watertown Arsenal. Gift of the New Zealand Army, 1951. CC BY-NC-ND licence. Te Papa (DM000283). Figure 7 Mr C Cobb, with a rifle. Harding, William James, 1826-1899: 64 Negatives of Wanganui district. Ref: 1/4-004258-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23045255. Figure 8 Private of the New Zealand Militia in campaign dress. Harding, 74 William James, 1826-1899: Negatives of Wanganui district. Ref: 1/4-006785-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22807152. Figure 9 Kinder, John, 1819-1903. Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi Te 81 Waharoa with a double barreled shot-gun. Ref: 1/2-019840-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22869781. Figure 10 Repeating carbine, Spencer model 1865., 1865, Boston, by 84 Spencer Repeating Rifle Company. Exchanged date unknown. CC BY-NC-ND licence. Te Papa (DM000346). vi Acknowledgements There are many people who helped to guide this thesis. First of all, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Charlotte Macdonald, whose guidance and incisive feedback has been invaluable. Many thanks also to Michael Fitzgerald for his wealth of knowledge on firearms. I am exceedingly grateful to Rebecca Lenihan, Catherine Abou-Nemeh, Katie Cooper, Adrienne Thompson, Olivia Benton-Guy, and my classmates for their perceptive comments on various drafts and also to my sisters for a last-minute proof read. Finally, thank you to my fellow master’s students whose company, humour and discussion helped immeasurably. vii Glossary Breech-loader: a firearm loaded from a breech at the base of the barrel. Brown Bess: a musket used by the British military for much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Calisher and Terry Carbine: a breech-loading rifle invented in 1855, used by some colonial forces in New Zealand during the 1860s. Enfield Rifle: a muzzle-loading rifle invented in 1853, standard issue in the British military until 1866, though it remained in use for several years afterwards and was also used by colonial forces. Muzzle-loader: a firearm loaded from the muzzle of the barrel. Rifling: spiral grooves along the inside of a barrel that cause a bullet to spin, making it faster and more accurate. Snider Rifle: invented in 1866, it was created by converting the muzzle-loading Enfield rifle into a breech-loader. Also known as the Snider-Enfield rifle. Spencer Rifle: a repeating weapon invented in the United States in 1860. Te Kooti famously acquired a Spencer rifle in the late 1860s. Whitworth Rifle: a highly accurate rifle invented by British industrialist Josiah Whitworth during the 1850s. Being much more expensive than other weapons, it was never standard-issue in the military. viii Abbreviations AJHR Appendix to the Journal of the House of Representatives ATL Alexander Turnbull Library EIC East India Company NRA National Rifle Association 1 Introduction The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was an event of catastrophic proportions in the collective Victorian imagination. Breaking out in May that year, it created enormous outrage across the British Empire and its repercussions echoed around the world. While the event had complex causes, almost all Britons saw it as a mutiny, grounded in the superstitious rejection of a new weapon which the British East India Company had tried to introduce to its Indian soldiers: the Enfield rifle. One of those caught up in the Rebellion was a former Cantabrian settler in Murree, a hill station in what is now Pakistan. Writing pseudonymously as “Pahari”, he penned an account of the conflict for the Lyttelton Times that reveals something of how Britons thought about the Enfield and its role in their Empire. The author began with the outbreak of the “mutiny”, emphasising the Enfield’s role and lamenting stories of attacks on British women and children. He then described the rifle’s shocking power in the hands of British soldiers in defeating the rebels. “Pahari” went on to compare the state of India to that of New Zealand, predicting an outbreak of fighting between Māori and settlers in the colony. Yet he was confident that the Enfield rifle would resolve any conflict in Britain’s favour, just as it had in India, writing The Maori has never heard the rush of the conical bullet past his ear, nor seen this eccentric missile turning a summersault through his comrade’s body…. Nothing