Edwardian ladies1 and the “race” dimensions of british imperialism

Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 277–289, 1998 Copyright  1998 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0277-5395/98 $19.00 1 .00

PII S0277-5395(98)00024-7

EDWARDIAN LADIES1 AND THE ‘‘RACE’’ DIMENSIONS OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM Julia Bush Nene University College Northampton, Boughton Green Road, Northampton NN2 7AL, UK

Synopsis — In the early 20th century, Edwardian ladies offered gender-conscious (if not overtly feminist) leadership in the development of imperialist organisations and propaganda in Britain. The ‘‘race’’ dimensions of imperialism were keenly fostered within associations which focused on the ‘‘white settler colonies,’’ and on women’s uniquely important role in perpetuating their whiteness, moral strength and political permanence within the Empire. The article examines the convergence in upper-class leadership, and in ideas and policies concerning ‘‘race,’’ between the Girls Friendly Society, the Primrose League, the British Women’s Emigration Association, and the Victoria League. Sources include the private papers of leading ladies, as well as organisational records and contemporary published works.  1998 Elsevier Science Ltd

In July 1912, the Hon. Mrs. Ellen Joyce addressed the Girls Friendly Society Imperial Conference in York. A thousand ‘‘respectable’’ young Members, shepherded by large-hatted lady Associates, applauded her ringing assertion of woman’s role: There is no bigger attitude or higher aspiration than to be one of the Daughters of a Christian Empire. The GFS has done the very best Imperial work that has been done, in sending women who have been under the highest influences from cultural, refined, religious women; to become the mothers of a race, not dwarfed by poverty; or cramped by pressure as in the Nest and Nursery of the Mother-Land; but free, contented, God-fearing women in the Great Garden of the British Empire . . . (p. 1). Let us enthuse ourselves and then enthuse others with the idea that the Empire and not the island is women’s sphere, that under the guidance of Societies with thirty years experience they may find . . . openings for employments, for industries, for professions . . . (p. 4). Let us help women of every grade to stand for all woman is worth, in Empire building, in evangelising, in going where women are prayed for to make homes for good-living men, where women can be mothers, mothers of quivers full, without fear

of there ever being one too many . . . Empire building ought not to be left to accident. It is the finest, most interesting, the most satisfactory bit of work an English woman can lay her hands to do. (Joyce, 1912, p. 5) Both in tone and in content, this speech nicely summarises the Empire’s allure for Edwardian lady imperialists. As emigrants, women were promised freedom, employment, home-building, and unrestricted motherhood (something for everyone?), as well as the chance to contribute to the mighty religious, national, and racial cause of Empire. Even as ‘‘stay-at-homes,’’ their contribution was needed. For Empirebuilding could not be left to chance, nor to male auspices alone. It required organisation by ‘‘cultured, refined, religious women’’ (Joyce, 1912, p. 1) Thousands of leisured British ladies stood ready to answer this call, and were taking up imperial propaganda, education and emigration work as a congenial extension of existing philanthropic and missionary activities. Alongside the Girls Friendly Society stood the Primrose League, the British Women’s Emigration Association and the Victoria League as the leading imperialist organisations that provided ladies with a platform and a proving ground for the powers of womanly imperialism. Did such associations merely echo the ideas

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of male imperialists, or was womanly imperialism of some independent significance? Though lady imperialists can only rarely be proved to have influenced government policy, their activities were taken seriously by such leading figures as Cecil Rhodes (South African millionaire politician), Joseph Chamberlain (British Colonial Secretary), and Alfred Milner (British High Commissioner in South Africa). The ladies undertook time-consuming practical work linked to education and colonial hospitality, and were also, usually, ardent enthusiasts for what Milner termed Race Patriotism. This mystical faith assumed particular meanings in the context of female imperialism. It linked women’s biological destiny as mothers with their wider feminine capabilities as nurturers and civilisers. Both were consecrated to the service of an Empire that (as Mrs. Joyce’s speech illustrates) was itself increasingly symbolised as maternal. Social Darwinism dictated both the inevitability of a hierarchy of racial difference, manifested in biological and cultural forms, and the inevitability of evolution from ‘‘lower’’ to ‘‘higher’’ levels of civilisation. Inevitability did not imply passivity. Rather, the ‘‘higher’’ civilisations could only triumph as such through an active, competitive striving that extended from the battlefields and marketplaces of Empire to the schoolrooms and domestic settings in which imperial mothers held sway. Thus British statesmen offered flattering approval to a female imperialism that extended from public platforms into the intimacies of child-rearing and home-building. Late Victorian and Edwardian imperial rhetoric drew heavily upon motherhood, both as biological and racial actuality (the need for healthy white soldiers and settlers) and as a symbol of the nurturing, civilising tasks of Empire. Queen Victoria, of course, represented the ultimate maternal icon, the ‘‘Great White Queen’’ and ‘‘Mother of the Empire’’ whose loving care for her colonised subjects was as deeply imbued with superiority and controlling power as it was with a sense of Christian duty. Without exception, the ladies’ imperialist associations were devoted to the Queen, and then to her memory, perpetuated through her daughters’ patronage of their activities. For Victoria embodied maternal imperialism at its most authoritative, and through her royal status resolved the paradoxes implied by strong female rule accompanied by a conservative outlook on gender roles. Many highly conservative ladies of the

upper middle class and the aristocracy were attracted to organised female imperialism as a socially acceptable means of political selfassertion. Womanly imperialism was therefore undoubtedly significant as part of the history of the British women’s movement, as well as the history of Empire. Edwardian ladies, of both pro-suffrage and adamantly anti-suffrage persuasion, chose to organise actively in the Empire’s cause. They did so by emphasizing women’s distinctiveness and women’s importance, rather than merely by following in male imperialism’s train. ‘‘Race,’’ and British racial superiority, was a central organising principle within Edwardian imperialism generally, providing the ultimate Darwinian justification for the entire project. It was eagerly appropriated by female imperialists, and translated into terms that served women’s gendered and class-bound outlook. This article analyses the process of appropriation with reference to ‘‘race thinking’’ and to specific examples of policy-making in the Girls Friendly Society, the British Women’s Emigration Society and the Victoria League. Female imperialism is an uncomfortable addition to white women historians’ understanding of Edwardian women’s politics, especially in its racist aspects. However, its importance can no longer be underestimated in the wake of groundbreaking research by Catherine Hall (1992), Margaret Strobel (1991), Antoinette Burton (1994), Vron Ware (1992), Clare Midgley (1992) and Chaudhuri and Strobel (1992). The research presented here is part of a much larger project, being jointly and variously pursued, to demonstrate and explain the inseparability of gender, ‘‘race,’’ and class, and thence to prompt revision of established British history. Standard liberal, progressive histories of British feminism are particularly implicated. However, the existence of a feminised British imperialism now also demands acknowledgement and evaluation by the serried ranks of male historians of the Empire. As with most other areas of women’s history, my research into female imperialism is based on a wide range of new and underused historical sources. Organisational records are the traditional hunting ground of political historians, and all the leading women’s imperialist associations produced abundant quantities of minute books, annual reports, and journals. Primrose League papers are to be found in the national archive of

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the Conservative Party (Bodleian library); emigration records were deposited at the Fawcett Library after government financial support was withdrawn from the Women’s Migration and Overseas Appointments Society in 1964; while the Victoria League and the Girls Friendly Society still exist (interestingly enough), and retain their records at their London headquarters. A tremendous amount of detailed evidence can be gleaned from such formal records. Their very conventionality, as male-devised instruments of collective organisation, reveals the aspiration of politically inexperienced women to ‘‘do things properly,’’ and to be taken seriously by the Establishment. But inexperience sometimes shows through, for example, in variable standards of minute-taking, and in a tendency (sometimes resisted) to want to call in male experts to deal with legal, financial, and governmental aspects of each association’s work. Formal records obviously prioritised formal (and London-based) organisation. However, it is clear enough even from these sources that the wheels of the ladies’ committees were set in motion by informal social contacts which, in turn, depended upon the established customs and expectations of upperclass Society. Drawing rooms were preferred to public meetings; funds were raised through invitation-only events; and both male and female networking supplied speakers, venues and political influence. Leonore Davidoff (1973) and (more recently) Kim Reynolds (1995) have researched women’s social and political roles in Victorian High Society.2 Their conclusions on the gendered differentiation and significance of ladies’ activities, in both town and country, draw heavily upon local and personal records. Upper-class women were no strangers to the indirect exercise of political power, and the direct exercise of organisational skills centred on their families, landed estates and the seasonal cycle of Society entertainments. The transition of such established skills and attitudes into the context of Edwardian female imperialism can be studied through the correspondence, diaries, and autobiographies of many leading ladies.3 There is no straightforward contrast between the ‘‘public’’ world of committees and the ‘‘private’’ world of such personal records. Published autobiographies are predictably reticent on political self-assertion and the development of feminised ideals of Empire, though extraordinarily valuable as evidence of social context, and of what was and

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was not (retrospectively) regarded as acceptably ladylike self-expression. Correspondence and even diaries were written with an audience in mind. The historical interpretation of the lady imperialists’ developing ideas and of their interaction with intended audiences (including each other, and male politicians) must proceed simultaneously. Such was the reality of political organisation at the time. It was fairly rare for a leading female imperialist to make a public or private pronouncement of her political faith. Rather, her thoughts on class, ‘‘race,’’ gender, and Empire were evidenced by the activities she engaged in, by whom she chose to associate (and correspond) with, and in the fragmented diachronic narrative of her letters and diary. The analysis that follows, therefore, draws as heavily upon such sources as upon the organisational records and journalism of the ladies’ associations.

THE LADIES IMPERIALIST ASSOCIATIONS The Girls Friendly Society (GFS) was the oldest of the Edwardian ladies imperialist associations. Formed in 1874, its original objective was to unite young women of unblemished moral character for the purposes of mutual help, both religious and secular. Educated middle- or upperclass Associates took responsibility for guiding mainly working-class Members along the paths of virtue and Anglican Christianity, purity, and duty being the watchwords, and ‘‘improving’’ entertainments and practical support for working girls the main activities. A majority of the members were domestic servants, especially in the early years. However, by the 1900s the impulse toward domestic mission amongst factory workers and even slum-dwellers had encouraged Associates to aim for a more varied and more urban recruitment, extending northward from the GFS heartland of English shire counties. Colonial off-shoots began to spring up in the so-called ‘‘white settler colonies’’ in the 1880s. In 1882, the GFS Central Council drew up a formal Treaty that was designed to unite overseas branches with the Mother Country. The Canadian and New Zealand branches signed the Treaty in 1883, to be followed soon after by the six Australian states and South Africa (Heath-Stubbs, 1926, pp. 153–159). It was a logical enough step for the GFS to establish

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an emigration department in 1885, so extending on to a global scale the Society’s schemes for supervised travel and commendation of travelling Members to new guardian Associates at the point of arrival. During the 1890s, imperialism became a centrepiece of the GFS faith, linked not merely to the practicalities of emigration, but to a wider vision of British greatness secured through the Christianising powers of missionary work, female settlement, and worldwide organisation along GFS lines. A GFS Colonial Committee linked colonists to the Mother Country from 1896 onward. In 1909, the grander title of ‘‘Imperial Committee’’ was adopted from a list of suggested names that included ‘‘For Home and Empire,’’ ‘‘Greater Britain,’’ and ‘‘Work for Girls Under the Flag’’ (Colonial Committee minutes, 14 November 1909). By this date the GFS had more than a quarter of a million British members and was preaching imperialism to every one of them through its journals, its prayers, its branch activities, and such major national gatherings as the Pan-Anglican Congress of 1908 and the 1912 imperial conference (see Annual Reports). The Society’s Christian emphasis remained distinctive; so did its large size and the stratified social composition of its all-female membership. It seems likely that the Empire remained a somewhat abstract ideal for a majority of the GFS’s younger, poorer members who valued its entertainments and practical services, but had little money or leisure for events such as large-scale national (even international) conferences. However, the Associates attended in force, and at leadership level the upper class ladies of the GFS Imperial Committee became increasingly involved in other, parallel endeavours to promote a more universal womanly imperialist cause. The Primrose League (1885) and the British Women’s Emigration Association (BWEA) (1884) drew many of their keenest members from among the GFS activists. For many years Mrs. Joyce simultaneously headed the GFS emigration department and presided over the BWEA. Lady Louisa Knightley was a leading figure in GFS imperial affairs, a founding member of the Primrose League, and editor of the BWEA’s journal The Imperial Colonist. She chaired the most active branch of BWEA emigration work in the early 1900s, the South Africa Colonisation Society (SACS), whilst also finding time for the council and executive committee of the Victoria League from 1901

onward. Not surprisingly, voices within and beyond these various committees were occasionally raised in protest against ‘‘overlap.’’ But on the whole the four societies coexisted amiably enough, drawing strength from shared experience and joint campaigning, whilst retreating tactically to separate corners when different emphases dictated. Like the GFS, the Primrose League was a large and self-consciously hierarchical organisation. Its mixed-sex membership had reached an impressive 1.75 million by 1914, and was grouped into quaintly titled ‘‘habitations’’ of the lower social classes, presided over by superior (preferably blue-blooded) ‘‘Knights’’ or ‘‘Dames.’’ From a leadership point of view, the general aim of the Primrose League remained what it had always been: to provide a socially agreeable and socially consolidating route into Conservative party politics (Pugh, 1985, Chapter 2). Imperialist ideas were an important lubricant to this process, and upper-class ladies continued, into the twentieth century, to bear a disproportionate share of the local workload. On this basis, the Primrose League deserves analysis alongside more exclusively female imperialist associations. However, a study of these throws into relief the failure of Primrose League Dames to capture authority at the top of their organisation. After some early assertion of independent authority, the Ladies Grand Council relapsed into political subservience; the Primrose League Gazette retained a stoutly masculine tone; and it seems reasonable to hypothesise that the leading dames who flooded into female emigration work and the Victoria League were in search of greener political pastures. Multiple memberships were the rule, rather than the exception. When Lady Jersey, for example, presided over the Victoria League’s formation in 1901 she brought with her intact the connections and experience derived from the Ladies Grand Council, and maintained her Primrose League and GFS subscriptions. The Victoria League and the British Women’s Emigration Association were scrupulously nonparty organisations. Unlike the other two associations, they made little attempt to cultivate a mass membership. Each based its strength upon the political influence and organising abilities of an elite group of like-minded women who were imperialists and members of a common social circle, rather than party politicians. Both organisations lobbied intensively for government

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support; the success of their work depended upon fostering strong political alliances with rich and influential men, as well as upon the resources and resourcefulness of lady imperialists (see Executive Commmittee Minutes and Annual Reports). Some interesting compromises were reached, which maintained the political powers of female leaders, but countered criticisms of ‘‘sex-exclusiveness’’ (for details, see Bush, in press) Suffragette militancy climaxed alongside the growth of female imperialism, and though imperialism and suffrage support were by no means incompatible, it was essential to maintain a safe distance between the two. Female imperialism based itself firmly upon the differences, rather than the equalities, between men and women. Though assertions of ‘‘difference,’’ and particularly of female moral superiority, were used in support of suffragism, they could equally be harnessed to the less sexually threatening and divisive cause of Empire. The BWEA was a direct descendant of earlier allfemale societies, which specialised in the selection, preparation, and support of women emigrants. Maria Rye, founder of the Female Middle Class Emigration Society of the 1860s, was a close associate of the liberal feminists of Langham Place (Lacey, 1987, p. 321). She was a leading member of their Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, and took up emigration work as a means of improving women’s life opportunities under the direction of fellow women who understood their true needs and aspirations. Her successors perpetuated her commitment to assisting impoverished gentlewomen and to doing so as an extension of ‘‘women’s work,’’ along the lines both of traditional philanthropy and of systematic, professionalised female self-help. It was not until the early 1900s that the BWEA and the linked South African Colonisation Society began to admit a small minority of male ‘‘experts’’ to their committees, for example, in connection with governmentapproved female emigration in the aftermath of the Boer War (1899–1901). By this date as we shall see below, it was increasingly perceived as expedient to achieve a star-studded cast of male soldiers, politicians, and churchmen on the platform at major meetings. At the 1904 Annual General Meeting of SACS, for example, the Duke of Marlborough (Under-Secretary for the Colonies) took the chair and speakers included General the Honourable Sir Neville Lyttelton (former Commander-in-Chief in South Africa)

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and Sir Henry McCallum (Governor of Natal) (reported in The Imperial Colonist, 3/30, June 1904). Such speakers obliged with a ‘‘womenfriendly’’ version of standard imperialist rhetoric, and had deep pockets and useful friends besides. The Victoria League faced up to the quandary of gendered politics in its own way. It was explicitly founded as a ‘‘Women’s Association,’’ named ‘‘in memory of our late Gracious Queen, and with the desire to continue the great work of closer union throughout the Empire for which she did so much’’ (Executive Committee minutes, 2 April 1901). However, this society, more than any other, relied upon its top-drawer social and political connections to achieve results. The founding meeting was held at 10 Downing Street (at the invitation of Alice Balfour, the prime minister’s sister) in May 1901. Lady Jersey recorded in her autobiography that the executive committee ‘‘was composed of the wives and sister of Cabinet Ministers, of wives of leaders of the Opposition, and other representative ladies’’ (Jersey, 1922, p. 380). The daughter of a famous imperial governor (Georgina Frere) became Honorary Treasurer, and the wife of a future Colonial Secretary (Edith Lyttelton) took up the post of Honorary Secretary. Within a few months it seemed sensible to begin drawing upon a wealth of influential connections by appointing distinguished men first as Honorary Vice-Presidents, then from 1903 onward, as members of the council and executive committee. The Victoria League was apparently judged useful, but was rarely a high priority for such male supporters. Women retained a substantial majority on all committees and held the society’s key offices (see Victoria League Annual Report). Their practical work for imperial unity focused on areas that were acknowledged ‘‘women’s work’’—colonial hospitality and education (especially of children)—so that the male presence within the League’s leadership could be painlessly and inconspicuously harnessed to serve the female imperialist cause. Both the BWEA and the Victorian League proved adept in seeing off any threat of a genuine male ‘‘take-over.’’ The South African Colonialisation Society firmly rejected what its chairman, Lady Knightley, called the ‘‘horrible idea’’ of a male secretary (Diary, 1 July 1903). The Victoria League set up a formal link to the Royal Colonial Institute, the longest established and most prestigious male imperialist association, on

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terms that preserved its full independence of action (Executive Committe minutes, 20 February 1912; minutes of the RCI Joint Committee with the Victoria League, Royal Commonwealth Society Archives, Cambridge University Library). But it repeatedly rejected the friendly overtures of the Navy League, the British Empire League, and the League of the Empire, which were all seen as more direct and more predatory rivals in the Victoria League’s sphere of influence (Executive Committee minutes, 21 June 1901, 3 May 1906, 12 February 1909).

‘‘RACE-THINKING’’ AND FEMALE IMPERIALISM From this sketch of separate and merging identities, it is now necessary to return to the female imperialists’ articles of faith, and in particular their views on ‘‘race.’’ Here, unity is far more striking than diversity. Divisions over party politics, and even over the suffrage issue, were peripheral to the central task of carrying out a distinctive and necessary role for British women in the building of ‘‘the greatest Empire the world has ever seen.’’ As we have seen, both distinctiveness and necessity rested upon a combination of Social Darwinism and maternalism. ‘‘Race-thinking,’’ as contemporaries called it, was integral to the female imperial project. It was implicit in the Edwardian ladies’ focus upon the so-called ‘‘white settler colonies,’’ and the promotion of British settlement there. At a deeper level it was also implicit in a good deal of the organisational and propaganda work of the ladies’ associations. Postcolonial theorists have tellingly demonstrated that the construction of generalised, inferior colonial ‘‘others’’ is at the heart of imperial rule. Antoinette Burton’s (1994) work on British feminists’ constructions of India, and Indian women, carries this theorisation into the core of white women’s history. There are important differences between her ‘‘imperial feminists’’ and the ‘‘female imperialists’’ (often anxious to disassociate themselves from feminism) with whom this article is concerned. Nevertheless, there is sufficient evidence to justify inclusion of the latter within a very broadly defined British women’s movement. They were organising for Empire upon a gendered basis, and thus publicly and privately asserting both women’s ability to self-organise, and their entitlement (indeed,

duty) to contribute to national greatness. On this basis, the ladies’ imperialist associations were engaged in a process of self-reinforcement and redefinition of gender roles that had much in common with ‘‘imperial feminism.’’ The definition of imperial duty and the redefinition of womanhood went hand-in-hand. Through their actions and their discourse, female imperialists appropriated those aspects of ‘‘male’’ imperialist theory that best served their gendered cause. Racial superiority was particularly necessary to them, not only as imperialists but as imperialist women. The South African war gave both male and female imperialists a powerful new incentive to develop racialised imperialism. Cecil Rhodes had been asserting since the 1880s that ‘‘we are the first race in the world and the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race’’ (quoted in Marlowe, 1976, p. 5). By the turn of the century, one of his disciples, Joseph Chamberlain, was Colonial Secretary, whilst another, Alfred Milner, was British High Commissioner in South Africa. Close personal and political ties developed between Britain’s most forthright race theorists and the lady imperialists. The Victoria League was founded by women who had shared the Cape Town social circle with Rhodes and Milner, and been flattered by their commitment to women’s imperial role. ‘‘It is the British race which built the Empire, and it is the undivided British race which can alone uphold it,’’ wrote Milner: ‘‘Deeper, stronger, more primordial than . . . material ties is the bond of common blood, a common language, common history and traditions’’ (Milner, 1913, p. xxxv). Such statements, eventually summarised by Milner into his semireligious ‘‘Credo’’ on British Race Patriotism, provided every female imperialist with a platform from which to embellish white women’s role as Empire Mothers. Child-bearing formed only one part of that role. Women were also the repository of the British cultural values upon which the racial future depended. The female imperialists did not produce theorists of any great originality. They tended to ‘‘borrow’’ theory as they ‘‘borrowed’’ male platform speakers. New emphases and reinterpretations, such as there were, emerged in a fragmentary form through varied records of lives lived and activities undertaken. As has been indicated, this makes the ladies’ correspondence and diaries a particularly important source

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of evidence. Within the journals of the ladies’ associations, where one might look for more extensive statements of ideas and policy, the correspondence columns and short, anecdotal news stories are as revealing of political outlook as longer, more theoretically self-conscious articles (often by male ‘‘guests’’). I have also noted the preponderance of distinguished male speakers at Annual General Meetings. One leading female imperialist, however, did provide an exception to the general ladylike reluctance to expound political ideals at length and in detail. This was Violet Markham, author of South Africa, Past and Present (1900) and The New Era in South Africa (1904). Daughter of a Midlands mine-owner, and heiress to an independent fortune, Miss Markham had qualified for entry to Society through money rather than birth, but her entry to the inner circles of female imperialism was the outcome of her intellectual abilities and political enthusiasm. A South African visit on the eve of the Boer war converted her into an ardent supporter of Milner and Rhodes. Her diary of this visit captures the intensity of her personal admiration, and formed the basis for many passages in her first 450-page tome in defence of Britain’s right to rule South Africa. Her entire argument was infused with ‘‘race-thinking’’ along Social Darwinist lines. Despite the military conflict, British and Dutch were ‘‘two closely allied branches of the great Teutonic family. . . . By every natural law, two peoples so akin should long since have been fused into one race with common aims and ideals’’ (Markham, 1900, p. 227). There was, therefore, every prospect that ‘‘when we have proved our strength, and the balance has been restored between the two nationalities, racial animosity will subside’’ (Markham, 1900, p. 227). A far more threatening long-term prospect was the fact that (as she curiously explained it) ‘‘the blacks largely out number the whites in the very portions of Africa constituting a white man’s country’’ (Markham, 1900, p. 239). ‘‘Native affairs’’ preoccupied Violet Markham even more than they did Lord Milner. ‘‘The African Colour Problem’’ was ‘‘the great rock which looms ahead in the path of Africa’’ (Markham, 1900, p. 231) yet was the subject of immense ignorance and misunderstanding. In both her books she regards her primary responsibility as to dispel this ignorance. She made a determined effort to conduct a masculine-style analysis of facts and figures, yet (in the absence

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of reliable information) many of the most striking passages in her work consisted of apocalyptic speculation on the incompatibility of black and white, and the dangers of attempting to apply European theories of human equality and natural rights to innately inferior races. A troubled liberal conscience lingered behind her uncompromising conclusions, and resurfaced to soften those conclusions in later years. But the Violet Markham of the 1900s, and of the Victoria League Executive Committee, was a firm believer in the ‘‘inevitable’’ and (she hoped) permanent subordination of black to white. Her diary, letters, and books reveal how her subjective experiences as a white woman visitor in Africa contributed to this conclusion, alongside more ‘‘scientific’’ research. ‘‘People who have never been brought into personal contact with natives entirely fail to grasp the meaning of the words racial feeling,’’ she wrote, ‘‘. . . It is sometimes supposed that racial hatred goes hand in hand with a wish to oppress. This is by no means the case, for the feeling often springs more from a sense of physical repulsion than any other impulse. At the same time an element of intolerance for the limitations and stupidity of the Kaffir undoubtedly enters into the matter’’ (Markham, 1900, p. 244). Her diary recounts the loathsomeness of physical contact with ‘‘natives’’ who jostled among white people on the streets of Cape Town; the ‘‘unpleasant’’ details of black appearance; and, at the Lovedale missionary school that represented a high-point of black education and Christianisation, the sense of incongruity (and fear?) experienced by a white woman eating her evening meal ‘‘surrounded by savages’’ (Diary, 5 September 1899). It is from comments such as these, as much as from the measured and purportedly genderneutral text of her books, that we can deduce Violet Markham’s contribution to Milnerism, and the particularities of her female imperialism. She was the Victoria League’s leading theorist, but like most of her fellow members chose to present herself within that organisation as an activist and organiser, a devotee of ‘‘practical’’ and ‘‘person-to-person’’ imperial work. Research into the race-thinking of the ladies’ associations needs to delve deeply into the minutiae of their day-to-day business, as well as drawing upon evidence of individual life histories and upon the few more developed statements of political principle. The final part of this article,

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therefore, consists of an attempt to do so in relation to three particular examples of policy-making in three different associations. In each case, a collective decision needed to be taken concerning the racial ‘‘other’’; political debate on gender, race, class, and Empire were intrinsic to these decision-making processes.

‘‘RACE-THINKING’’ IN ACTION First, I will look at the Girls Friendly Society’s reactions to the prospect of a mixed-race membership. This was a prospect that arose from the Society’s Anglican origins and ongoing commitment to Christian as well as British imperialism. For the most part, Christianity, and the structures of Anglicanism, provided a convenient support to the work of the lady imperialists. GFS work in the colonies, as in Britain, was diocesan and parochial, and heavily dependent upon clerical approval. Typical founders of colonial branches were the female relatives of resident bishops, most of whom fully shared the Motherland society’s faith in British Race Patriotism. From 1882 onward, formal treaties were established that bound overseas bodies using the GFS name and monogram to respect its founding principles and to cooperate closely with the British Society. Later imperial work strengthened these ties. At branch level, funds were raised to support ‘‘Our Missionary’’ somewhere in the Empire; Associates educated Members into due appreciation of imperial greatness; and ‘‘twinning’’ arrangements linked members through gifts and correspondence in Thirsk and Johannesburg, Bournemouth and Toronto, Newbury and Woolloongabba, Queensland. A list published in the GFS journal, Friendly Words (July 1908), records nearly a 100 such linked branches. Among them were 12 in the Indian Chain, and 6 in the Ceylon Chain. But should the Christian sisterhood of the Girls Friendly Society extend across racial boundaries? There is no doubt that this issue posed a dilemma for a minority of earnest GFS imperialists, though the majority shared the Society’s generally unquestioned assumptions about racial equality and the duties this imposed upon white Christian womanhood. The direction of debate can be inferred from the brief formal records of correspondence and decisions made in the GFS minute books, and from the published GFS histories of 1913 and

1926. Mrs. Joyce’s views on ‘‘race’’ were straightforwardly Milnerite. She was, of course, a power to be reckoned with on the GFS Colonial Committee, so it is not surprising to find that body supporting the creation of whites-only Jamaican branches in 1905. The Committee had granted Miss Brewin £10 toward her Jamaican work several months earlier and readily accepted her recommendation that the work should progress through Sister Madeleine and selected girls’ day schools since ‘‘You could not start the GFS amongst the natives’’ and ‘‘there are not enough of the quite upper white class to keep the GFS flourishing’’ outside the schoolroom. This was no mere half-hearted endorsement of racial exclusion, for the Colonial Committee’s secretary ‘‘wrote at once to Sister Madeleine saying that the way she suggested was the very way we should most wish to begin’’ (Colonial Committee minutes, 20 November 1905). An even more exclusive white branch was formed in Bridgetown, Barbados, ‘‘practically composed of ‘‘leisured’’ Members for there it was deemed advisable to begin in this way. . . . They are doing much good and selfdenying work, visiting the alms houses and hospitals and cheering the inmates. They have an Annual Sale for Missions held at the Church House, and this year they sent the proceeds (£10) to the GFS medical Mission at Cawnpore’’ (Money, 1913, pp. 81–82). By this date the Jamaican Spanish Town branch was also donating £3.10s each year toward the upkeep of an orphan girl in Tokyo, further illustrating the point that charity toward (distant) sisters of different ‘‘race’’ was considered commendable when racial mingling within GFS branches was definitely not (Money, 1913, pp. 81–82). Even in the 1920s, a photograph of the GFS holiday home, Barbados, shows a group of ‘‘quite upper white class’’ girls (seated) accompanied by three black maids in caps and aprons (standing and kneeling) (Heath-Stubbs, 1926, p. 156). But not all colonial branches remained oblivious to possible sisterhood in relation to ‘‘natives’’ nearer home. It is recorded in the GFS journals, though not debated by its London committees, that Indian branches significantly compromised by admitting Eurasian members during the 1900s. The 1913 GFS history applauded this decision: ‘‘We rejoice to welcome them to our Society which is for girls for the English Empire everywhere’’ (Money, 1913, p. 44) But the author carefully emphasised their impecca-

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ble ‘‘English’’ credentials of Christianity, English speech, dress, and education: ‘‘They have the greatest love for England and for all that belongs to it, and will speak of England as ‘‘home,’’ though they have never seen it and many can never expect to do so’’; and concluded by implying that Eurasian girls were particularly in need of education from childhood onward toward a purer lifestyle. Eurasian girls were described euphemistically to the GFS readership as ‘‘the children of marriages in times past between Europeans and natives, such marriages being much less frequent now than they used to be’’ (Money, 1913, p. 44). No doubt the new members were used to such distancing statements, but one wonders what they made of Mrs. Joyce’s speeches, reported in the same year, on the indissoluble union of British culture with British heredity. Meanwhile, an even more daring experiment was attempted by Mrs. Townend, the GFS Vice President, when she made a ‘‘deputation tour’’ of India in 1904. ‘‘Native Christians’’ were admitted to membership in Delhi, the very first of these being a ‘‘daughter of a high-class Mohammedan.’’ Class status and Christianity helped, but the barriers to integration remained formidable. Separate ‘‘native’’ branches are implied by the 1926 GFS history’s report of ‘‘Branches for Singhalese girls’’ in Ceylon. The same history, titled Friendships Highway, wrote of India’s ‘‘three spheres of work . . . each has its own importance and its own claims.’’ These were ‘‘first, the work among the European communities. . . . Secondly, there are the Anglo-Indians. . . . Lastly, there is the native population itself, with whom the Society has chiefly come into touch through Mission work’’ (Heath-Stubbs, 1926, pp. 146–147). Mixed-race GFS branches were never even contemplated in South Africa, where female imperialists believed white women’s racial duty was all too plain. The Mother’s Union might recruit (separate) black branches in missionary spirit, but the GFS stood emphatically for purity, especially racial purity. This attitude coincided with the efforts of the South African Colonisation Society to put Milner’s settlement policy into practice. SACS committee minutes show its devotion to this ‘‘practical’’ task, whilst the private papers of many adherents reveal that they shared Violet Markham’s devotion to the man and his ideals, and to the revered memory of Cecil Rhodes. Lady Knightley had a profound

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spiritual experience when she stood at Rhodes’ hill-top grave during her 1905 South African tour: it was ‘‘one of the most wonderful if not the most wonderful day in this marvellous tour’’ (Diary, 10 September 1905). Her diary presents an interesting picture of her education in racial matters up to that point, showing it to have been the outcome of a wide range of experiences and encounters rather than of straightforward study or coherent explanation. Though a tireless imperial worker, she had no previous first-hand experience of ‘‘Greater Britain,’’ or of any non-European society. Her conversion to imperialism, and to the racial outlook that it entailed, coincided with the splendours of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, her funeral, and the coronation of her successor. Lady Knightley admired ‘‘wonderful dark faces’’ in processions, and exotic Indian troops who were a ‘‘picture book alive. . . . One longed to able to talk to them’’ (Diary, 7 August 1902). At the same time the Boer War was bringing the African experiences of soldiers and settlers to London dining tables. Alongside tales of military heroism, she heard ‘‘some queer views . . . he approves of polygamy for the natives and thinks they need not be Christianised!!’’ (Diary, 6 August 1902). She also began to wrestle with the practicalities of emigrating British girls for domestic service in South Africa: ‘‘it is all so complicated by the Kaffir question. I wonder if it is true, as Mrs. Phillips says, it is impossible to treat Kaffirs otherwise than very strictly. All white people seem to concur in disliking them so much. These ‘‘race’’ questions are so frightfully difficult’’ (Diary, 19 June 1901). ‘‘Race’’ was high on her investigative agenda as she set sail for South Africa. Unsurprisingly, she completed her trip with a standard set of imperialist race beliefs fully confirmed. Natives who disappointed and even alarmed her in urban or europeanised settings became pleasingly ‘‘picturesque’’ on a ‘‘native reserve,’’ or at ‘‘a real native dance’’ before the Governor of Natal (Diary, 25 August 1905). Visits to Chinese and Kaffir mine compounds led to the comfortable conclusion that ‘‘it is all a question of management. Where the management is at once fair and kind—all goes well’’ (Diary, 28 August 1905). Tourists’ lessons in African history merely strengthened this view. In Bulawayo ‘‘we were shown the tree under which Lobengula used to sit and order the indiscriminate slaughter of his subjects’’ (Diary, 9 September 1905); the same evening an archaeol-

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ogist failed to interest or convince her with an unlikely new theory that ‘‘natives’’ (rather than Phoenicians) had constructed the ruined city of Zimbabwe. The importance of such views is, of course, that they were not merely personal. They encapsulated the ‘‘Race Patriot’’ ideology, which underpinned the entire female emigration effort in this period. Racial segregation could not be as tidily organised in domestic service as it was in the mines. So female imperialists were driven to careful thinking about ‘‘race,’’ gender, and class issues with respect to emigrating British servants. Evidently servants were entitled (even, required) to assert their racial superiority by assuming supervisory responsibility for the work of black ‘‘boys.’’ Advice along these lines was dished out to departing emigrants. As Mrs. Chapin told a party of 40 at a London hostel, on the eve of their journey to the Transvaal, ‘‘the Kaffir ‘boys’ were like children, who could only do a thing well if they were shown how to do it. If shown, for instance, how to peel a potato they would patiently and cheerfully peel a bucketful’’ (The Imperial Colonist, 2/1, January 1903). The complications of such ‘‘management’’ are hinted at in other articles and letters that warn, on the one hand, of the dangers of ‘‘any familiarity,’’ and on the other of the ill consequences of ‘‘imperiousness’’ toward black male servants. South African mistresses who supported emigration were looking, first and foremost, for affordable and reliable hard workers. Some protested to the South African Colonisation Society (SACS) about servants’ excessive racial pretensions, and the wage demands and idleness which went with them. Correspondence reveals the Society’s delicate balancing act between the interests of servants and mistresses. By and large, the emigrators’ imperial mission was kept firmly to the fore. The Society was no mere employment agency. Its work was a central plank in Lord Milner’s reconstruction policy, so that emphasis remained upon the importance of selecting ‘‘the right sort of women’’ to build an Empire. Gentlewomen were the Society’s preferred emigrants. But when it became apparent that domestic servants were what South Africa wanted and needed, these were chosen and trained to uphold imperial female morality. Even servants, after all, were likely future mothers of the ‘‘Race.’’ My last example of female imperialism in action is drawn from the Victoria League. As

a later organisation, founded under Milner’s direct influence, the League assumed a more openly ideological stance than its predecessors. Its purpose was to spread faith in the British Empire by word and deed, and its success should be measured by its closeness to the British establishment as much as any other achievement. One marker is the active participation of two royal princesses in its affairs; another is its success in obtaining by 1912 the personal patronage of the Queen, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the leaders of both main political parties, not to mention the headmasters of Eton, Harrow, and Westminster schools, Lord Tennyson, Mr. Rudyard Kipling and the Viscount Milner himself (see Victoria League Executive Committee minutes and Annual Reports). It is reasonable to conclude that this organisation, more than any other, acted as a direct mouthpiece for Milner’s views. Yet, as we have seen from Violet Markham’s writings, it would be inadequate to characterise the Victoria League purely in those terms. Like the other female imperialist associations, the League found its way toward an accommodation with current imperialist theory, but one that was inflected with the gendered values and experiences of its leading members, and expressed through ‘‘practical’’ activity and decision-making. First-hand experience of the South African war was the spur to organisation not only for Violet Markham but also for Edith Lyttelton, wife of a future Colonial secretary, and for Violet Cecil, married to a soldiering son of the Tory Prime Minister but devoted to Milner, and much later to become his wife. An exceptionally rich historical source exists in these women’s diaries and correspondence. Each felt honoured by Milner’s frankness in private political discussions, and duty-bound to transmit his wisdom to blinkered politicians and a somewhat recalcitrant public in Britain. The Victoria League was their chosen vehicle. But alongside the public or semi-public campaigning, imperialist women worked hard on fostering behindthe-scenes channels of information and influence. Much of their most important work was not of the sort that reached the formal written record. The first objective of the Victoria League was ‘‘to encourage and develop relations of close sympathy between fellow-Britons at Home and Overseas’’ (Victoria League Notes, April 1912). It did so through a range of educational propaganda funded generously by the

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Rhodes Trust, and also through what became known as ‘‘colonial hospitality.’’ Here was a branch of work that most appropriately combined womanliness and imperialism, and slotted conveniently into the seasonal London round of upper-class entertainments. The 1902 coronation prompted the Victoria League’s first invitations to colonial visitors. A Hospitality Committee was set up, offers of hospitality rolled in, and before long hundreds of private visits were on offer to delighted ‘‘Fellow Britons.’’ As the Victoria League Notes reported in January 1912, such work ‘‘needed special and individual care’’; it was just the type of patient, personto-person Empire-building upon which female imperialists most prided themselves. But in 1908 the smooth process received a set-back. The minutes of the Victoria League Executive Committee, supplemented by some private correspondence, record details of a major row over ‘‘hospitality for Asiatics.’’ Had the issue been African visitors, it would never have reached as far as this committee. But we have already seen some evidence of the hierarchical style of ‘‘race-thinking’’ prevalent within Edwardian imperialism. The GFS had opened its membership to Eurasians, and even to certain elite Indians. Violet Markham, in her books, had indicated the higher place on the scale of civilisation of Asians as compared to Africans. Asian gentlemen, and even Indian princes, were far from uncommon in London drawing rooms, and had sometimes found favour with Queen Victoria. Should such people receive private introductions to Victoria League ladies? When this proposal came before the committee in June 1907 it was linked to Lord Ampthill’s plea for help in relieving the loneliness of Indian students, and met with some sympathy. However, there were already perceptions of sexualised racial threat in the air. The committee agreed cautiously that ‘‘they would be willing to offer personal hospitality through their members to Indian girls and ladies coming to England’’; but ‘‘Lady Edward Cecil wished it to be recorded that she greatly deprecates the Victoria League taking up this Indian work’’ (Executive Committee minutes, 27 June 1907). A special all-male consultative committee was set up to look into the issue of ‘‘Indian men students.’’ A month later it had failed to agree on safetyproof procedures for introducing Indian males to British homes. Meanwhile, Violet Cecil had conducted a private canvas of certain leading

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imperialist men. Her estranged husband, by then a senior administrator in Egypt, received a straightforward request in a letter written on 10 November 1907: I wonder whether you would be so good as to send me your unvarnished opinion of the desirability of mixing Eastern men with English families. I know your views. They are mine, but I want them in writing. Never mind mincing language and put in all spades by their proper names and tell as many illustrative anecdotes as you can. I should like to be able to send your letter to Lady Jersey and one or two others . . . the dear, nice, innocent women all think that Mohammedan men have only got to see them to become Westernised. (Violet Milner correspondence, VM60, C705/23) A similar request, in milder terms, clearly went to Lord Curzon, British Viceroy in India, for his lengthy reply (dated 11 November 1907) survives among Violet Cecil’s papers. ‘‘Your question is not an easy one to answer,’’ he began, then proceeded to an analysis of the relative dangers of long and short visits, and of Moslems and Hindus: The question whether the latter should be allowed to mix with English ladies is one of the most difficult that arises in India. It is a question mainly of age and education. A high born young Indian of the noble class who has had a sound European upbringing is all the better for such contact. . . . The average Indian student of 17 to 20 is much more likely to misjudge the position and to acquire contempt for a social freedom which suggests to him moral laxity or worse . . . the experiment should not be undertaken except with great caution and the most stringent guarantees. (Violet Milner correspondence, VM 38/ C251/9) The Executive Committee was divided and unhappy. The views of all the ladies present at its next meeting were canvassed by Lady Jersey and recorded individually, with Violet Markham predictably lending her support to the opposition. Violet Cecil threatened to resign if the Asiatics were admitted. Conflicting proposals were tabled, on the one hand holding open the option of entertaining Indians who had been vetted by

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two Anglo-Indian societies as well as by the League itself; on the other, closing down even that option by a formal decision that ‘‘the proposal to offer hospitality as suggested was distinctly dangerous, and would lead to the League being involved in serious difficulties.’’ It was noted that ‘‘Mr Rudyard Kipling, having been invited to become a Vice-President, had written to say that should the League undertake to offer hospitality to young Asiatics residing in England he could not accept any connection with the League.’’ Whether this clinched the matter, we shall never know. The meeting concluded with a decision to drop the whole proposal ‘‘owing to the widespread feeling against it which exists among friends and well-wishers of the Victoria League’’ (Executive Committee minutes, 5 December 1907). A sad little postscript is added 2 years later by the decision to ban pen friendships, under the League’s auspices, between British and Eurasian children (Executive Committee minutes, 20 January 1910).

British racial superiority is evident from their somewhat scarce public pronouncements on the subject, and still more so from their committee work. Probably most revealing of all are the personal papers of key protagonists, for these illustrate belief systems built securely into comfortable, privileged lifestyles. The underlying assumptions leading women in British society would not be easily shifted. Female imperialism raises problematic issues for today’s white liberal feminist historians, bringing home unwelcome truths about the British women’s movement that have cast long shadows into the later 20th century. I hope my research contributes to a fuller understanding of the diversity of Edwardian women’s history, and helps lay to rest any lingering assumptions that women’s politics, the women’s movement, women’s suffrage and liberal feminism have ever been one and the same.

ENDNOTES CONCLUSION It is easy enough to demonstrate that imperialist women held racist views. But a far more interesting and important project is to investigate where these views came from, how they were constructed within contemporary discourses of class, ‘‘race,’’ gender, and Empire, and how in turn they contributed to the exercise of Britain’s imperial power. It is apparent that an influential minority of Edwardian women sought to increase their share in both the opportunities and the duties of Empire. They chose to do so by grouping together on a gendered basis for collective action, as well as by exercising prerogatives of private political influence already well established among female members of the social elite. Lady imperialists imparted into their leagues certain political ideas and styles of activism that have been more commonly associated with the liberal and progressive causes of women’s rights. But outspoken anti-suffragists (such as Lady Jersey and Violet Markham) could make common cause with imperialist suffrage supporters (such as Lady Knightley, Edith Lyttelton, and Millicent and Philippa Fawcett) when the platform rested upon Britain’s entitlement to rule the world, and British women’s ability to share that task. The extent and importance of Edwardian women’s shared belief in

1. The term lady/ladies is used throughout this article to signify upper or upper middle class women for whom social class, racial, and gender identities were inseparable. Such women engaged in discourse that attributed universal qualities to all British (English) women. However, their choice of work and organisational methods reveals their heavy dependence upon gentility, and preferably nobility. Nearly 40% of the Victoria League’s Council members in 1902 held aristocratic titles. It is clear that the organised female imperialists believed that their social rank had helped to equip them to serve the Empire. 2. High Society, or simply Society, is a term used to describe the London-centred social setting of upper class politics and entertainment in the Victorian and Edwardian era (c. 1840–1914). Around 4,000 families participated in an annual cycle of ruling class life, divided between a spring and summer London season of parliamentary sittings, court presentations, parties and cultural events and a quieter autumn and winter of country house living. 3. The diaries and letters used in this article are as follows: Louisa Knightley, MS Diary in Northamptonshire Record Office, Violet Markham, MS Diary at London School of Economics; correspondence of Violet Cecil (later, Milner) and George Curzon are to be found in the Violet Milner correspondence, Bodleian Library.

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Chaudhuri, Nurpur, & Strobel, Margaret. (Eds.). (1992). Western women and imperialism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Davidoff, Leonore. (1973). The best circles. Society etiquette and the season. London: Croom Helm. Hall, Catherine. (1992). White, male and middle class. Explorations in feminism and history. Cambridge: Polity Press. Heath-Stubbs, Mary. (1926). Friendship’s highway. London: Girls Friendly Society. Jersey, Margaret. (1922). Fifty-one years of Victorian life. London: John Murray. Joyce, Ellen. (1912). Thirty years of Girls Friendly Society work. London: GFS. Lacey, Candida. (1987). (Ed.). Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and the Langham Place Group. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Markham, Violet. (1900). South Africa, past and present. London: Smith, Elder and Co.

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Markham, Violet. (1904). The new era in South Africa. London: Smith, Elder and Co. Marlowe, John. (1976). Milner. Apostle of Empire. London: Hamish Hamilton. Midgley, Clare. (1992). Women against slavery. The British campaigns, 1780–1870. London: Routledge. Milner, Alfred. (1913). The Nation and the Empire. London: Constable. Money, Agnes. (1913). The story of the Girls Friendly Society. London: Girls Friendly Society. Pugh, Martin. (1985). The Tories and the people 1880– 1935. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Reynolds, Kim. (1995). Aristocratic women and political society in early and mid-Victorian Britain. Oxford: D.Phil thesis. Strobel, Margaret. (1991). European women and the Second British Empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ware, Vron. (1992). Beyond the pale. White women, racism and history. London: Verso.