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Air Empire: British Imperial Civil Aviation 1919–1939
252
Reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 244e262
Fiona Wilmot Texas A&M University, USA doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2011.02.022
Gordon Pirie, Air Empire: British Imperial Civil Aviation 1919e1939. Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2009, 272 pages, £60.00 hardcover. A 1931 advertisement advised British newspaper readers to ‘Think imperially, act imperially, travel imperially’ (p. 139). A generation earlier, travelling imperially might have meant taking a Cunard steamer to South Africa or a Canadian Pacific Railway sleeper. A generation later, the idea had little meaning as the British empire was by then melting away. But between the world wars when the empire was at its greatest extent, travelling imperially meant flying by Imperial Airways, powerfully uniting modernity and empire in symbol and in fact. Or so it might have done, if Imperial’s aircraft had not been lumbering, antiquated machines, patronised mainly by a few wealthy, airminded tourists and harassed colonial officials. Alternative schemes for harnessing civil aviation to draw the empire closer together fared even more poorly: the Imperial Airship Scheme died with the R101 at Beauvais in 1930, the expensive mooring mast and hangar at Karachi never to be used. Given the emotional, political, and financial investments in Imperial Airways, the successes and (perhaps, rather more commonly) failures of Britain’s interwar civil aviation industry have been oddly neglected by historians. Until now, the only full length treatment available was Robin Hingham’s Britain’s Imperial Air Routes (London, 1960), published half a century ago. That in itself would justify the publication of Air Empire. But its value is much more than that. Pirie’s book will be of interest to scholars of imperialism and race as well as to aviation historians. He skilfully interweaves a narrative history of imperial civil aviation with a fascinating exploration of less obvious topics, such as the spread of geographical knowledge through Imperial Airways’ promotional literature, or the miniature Great Game played between Britain, France, and the Netherlands for control of air routes across Persia to the Far East. Drawing upon extensive research in relevant government and business archives, as well as on contemporary published reports and periodicals, Pirie provides a solid overview of the relevant events, figures, and institutions comprising the small world of civil aviation between the wars. During the First World War visionary politicians attempted to map out the postwar order in the air; afterwards, geographers, civil servants, and airmen began to map out the air routes themselves. The most notable of these last was Sir Alan Cobham, a former Royal Flying Corps pilot who, among other feats, became the first to circumnavigate Africa by air, making use of British dependencies the whole way and doing much to sell the idea of imperial aviation to the imperial public. The commercial arrangements took longer to come to fruition. Imperial Airways was formed in 1924 from a number of small, mostly unprofitable airlines in the hope of creating a company which could ‘fly by itself’ (p. 31). But it always depended on government subsidies for its existence; in return it carried airmail to the colonies and dominions. This arrangement was criticised by those who felt that carrying mail and passengers on the same flights meant that important business communications were held up for the sake of a few tourists who needed to spend each night on the ground in relative comfort. Though relatively fast by contemporary standards, overseas air travel between the wars still took days, at best, and schedules were often no more than weekly: something difficult to imagine for today’s travellers lost in the vast labyrinth of connecting flights and departure lounges.
The spread of aviation through the empire was itself slower than many visionaries expected. The dominions had their own aviation interests to look after; even colonial possessions such as Kenya often took an independent line in relation to London’s desire for uniformity, trying to preserve their own nascent civil aviation industries. Other sovereign states were even more difficult to negotiate with. As a consequence, in its early years Imperial Airways was largely a European airline, flying to destinations such as Paris and Amsterdam; passengers to its Egyptian hub had to travel almost a thousand miles by rail through France and Italy before again boarding a British aeroplane. It was only able truly to justify its name from 1929, when it inaugurated its Indian route; by 1938, in partnership with Qantas Empire Airways it was able to offer through flights to Sydney, using modern Empire flying boats. One of the virtues of Pirie’s book is the attention he pays to race. Not only was Imperial Airways designed to strengthen the bonds of empire, and by extension, keep subject peoples in their place; it also depended on their labour to clear airstrips. Perhaps surprisingly, race was also an issue in the air: the Indian government demanded, and won, the right for Indian pilots to fly Imperial’s routes over its territory. This agreement turned out to mean less in practice than in theory, but it is still a testament to the fact that empire no longer meant the right to rule as the centre pleased. There are some problems with Air Empire, none of them major. It is odd to read that we do not know how Lady Cobham ‘regarded her presence’ alongside her husband’s African flight (p. 93), as she wrote a number of articles on her experience for the Daily Mail: she was clearly quite happy with her combined role of cook, stenographer and social secretary. H. G. Wells was not director of the Ministry of Propaganda during the First World War but only, briefly, of one part of it. The popular response to imperial aviation receives some attention, but Empire Air Day does not, perhaps because of its increasingly military connotations as the 1930s progressed. Pirie without explanation introduces the noun ‘airshipping’, evidently derived from ‘shipping’ but without contemporary precedent. By the time Imperial Airways ended its separate existence by merging with the smaller but nimbler British Airways, the world had changed. It was again at war and aeroplanes now flew vast distances primarily for destructive purposes. The new airline was called BOAC, the British Overseas Airways Corporation. The grimly utilitarian name lacked the resonances of its predecessor but was perhaps better suited the new era, where the fight against fascism required the rhetorical recasting of empire into a more democratic, or at least less overtly colonial, mode. In its day Imperial Airways was a carrier not just of letters and travellers but also of dreams of a new age of imperial unity. That these dreams were never fulfilled is no reflection of their importance as an index of their age, and I hope Air Empire will inspire others to follow Pirie’s lead in exploring this neglected topic. Brett Holman University of Melbourne, Australia doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2011.02.007
Deana Heath, Purifying Empire: Obscenity and the Politics of Moral Regulation in Britain, India, and Australia. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010, vi þ 238 pages, US$95 hardback. This study of the politics of moral regulation profitably conceives of obscenity as a central biopolitical problem for British
Reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 244e262
Fiona Wilmot Texas A&M University, USA doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2011.02.022
Gordon Pirie, Air Empire: British Imperial Civil Aviation 1919e1939. Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2009, 272 pages, £60.00 hardcover. A 1931 advertisement advised British newspaper readers to ‘Think imperially, act imperially, travel imperially’ (p. 139). A generation earlier, travelling imperially might have meant taking a Cunard steamer to South Africa or a Canadian Pacific Railway sleeper. A generation later, the idea had little meaning as the British empire was by then melting away. But between the world wars when the empire was at its greatest extent, travelling imperially meant flying by Imperial Airways, powerfully uniting modernity and empire in symbol and in fact. Or so it might have done, if Imperial’s aircraft had not been lumbering, antiquated machines, patronised mainly by a few wealthy, airminded tourists and harassed colonial officials. Alternative schemes for harnessing civil aviation to draw the empire closer together fared even more poorly: the Imperial Airship Scheme died with the R101 at Beauvais in 1930, the expensive mooring mast and hangar at Karachi never to be used. Given the emotional, political, and financial investments in Imperial Airways, the successes and (perhaps, rather more commonly) failures of Britain’s interwar civil aviation industry have been oddly neglected by historians. Until now, the only full length treatment available was Robin Hingham’s Britain’s Imperial Air Routes (London, 1960), published half a century ago. That in itself would justify the publication of Air Empire. But its value is much more than that. Pirie’s book will be of interest to scholars of imperialism and race as well as to aviation historians. He skilfully interweaves a narrative history of imperial civil aviation with a fascinating exploration of less obvious topics, such as the spread of geographical knowledge through Imperial Airways’ promotional literature, or the miniature Great Game played between Britain, France, and the Netherlands for control of air routes across Persia to the Far East. Drawing upon extensive research in relevant government and business archives, as well as on contemporary published reports and periodicals, Pirie provides a solid overview of the relevant events, figures, and institutions comprising the small world of civil aviation between the wars. During the First World War visionary politicians attempted to map out the postwar order in the air; afterwards, geographers, civil servants, and airmen began to map out the air routes themselves. The most notable of these last was Sir Alan Cobham, a former Royal Flying Corps pilot who, among other feats, became the first to circumnavigate Africa by air, making use of British dependencies the whole way and doing much to sell the idea of imperial aviation to the imperial public. The commercial arrangements took longer to come to fruition. Imperial Airways was formed in 1924 from a number of small, mostly unprofitable airlines in the hope of creating a company which could ‘fly by itself’ (p. 31). But it always depended on government subsidies for its existence; in return it carried airmail to the colonies and dominions. This arrangement was criticised by those who felt that carrying mail and passengers on the same flights meant that important business communications were held up for the sake of a few tourists who needed to spend each night on the ground in relative comfort. Though relatively fast by contemporary standards, overseas air travel between the wars still took days, at best, and schedules were often no more than weekly: something difficult to imagine for today’s travellers lost in the vast labyrinth of connecting flights and departure lounges.
The spread of aviation through the empire was itself slower than many visionaries expected. The dominions had their own aviation interests to look after; even colonial possessions such as Kenya often took an independent line in relation to London’s desire for uniformity, trying to preserve their own nascent civil aviation industries. Other sovereign states were even more difficult to negotiate with. As a consequence, in its early years Imperial Airways was largely a European airline, flying to destinations such as Paris and Amsterdam; passengers to its Egyptian hub had to travel almost a thousand miles by rail through France and Italy before again boarding a British aeroplane. It was only able truly to justify its name from 1929, when it inaugurated its Indian route; by 1938, in partnership with Qantas Empire Airways it was able to offer through flights to Sydney, using modern Empire flying boats. One of the virtues of Pirie’s book is the attention he pays to race. Not only was Imperial Airways designed to strengthen the bonds of empire, and by extension, keep subject peoples in their place; it also depended on their labour to clear airstrips. Perhaps surprisingly, race was also an issue in the air: the Indian government demanded, and won, the right for Indian pilots to fly Imperial’s routes over its territory. This agreement turned out to mean less in practice than in theory, but it is still a testament to the fact that empire no longer meant the right to rule as the centre pleased. There are some problems with Air Empire, none of them major. It is odd to read that we do not know how Lady Cobham ‘regarded her presence’ alongside her husband’s African flight (p. 93), as she wrote a number of articles on her experience for the Daily Mail: she was clearly quite happy with her combined role of cook, stenographer and social secretary. H. G. Wells was not director of the Ministry of Propaganda during the First World War but only, briefly, of one part of it. The popular response to imperial aviation receives some attention, but Empire Air Day does not, perhaps because of its increasingly military connotations as the 1930s progressed. Pirie without explanation introduces the noun ‘airshipping’, evidently derived from ‘shipping’ but without contemporary precedent. By the time Imperial Airways ended its separate existence by merging with the smaller but nimbler British Airways, the world had changed. It was again at war and aeroplanes now flew vast distances primarily for destructive purposes. The new airline was called BOAC, the British Overseas Airways Corporation. The grimly utilitarian name lacked the resonances of its predecessor but was perhaps better suited the new era, where the fight against fascism required the rhetorical recasting of empire into a more democratic, or at least less overtly colonial, mode. In its day Imperial Airways was a carrier not just of letters and travellers but also of dreams of a new age of imperial unity. That these dreams were never fulfilled is no reflection of their importance as an index of their age, and I hope Air Empire will inspire others to follow Pirie’s lead in exploring this neglected topic. Brett Holman University of Melbourne, Australia doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2011.02.007
Deana Heath, Purifying Empire: Obscenity and the Politics of Moral Regulation in Britain, India, and Australia. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010, vi þ 238 pages, US$95 hardback. This study of the politics of moral regulation profitably conceives of obscenity as a central biopolitical problem for British