How Was the British Empire Represented in Popular Culture?

  • Advertisers frequently used imperial connotations to sell goods, suggesting British were favourably disposed to Empire.
  • Empire represented in cartoon’s like the Punch Cartoon in 1894.
  • Architecture was a way to represent Empire. Works of Herbert Baker and Edwin Lutyens. Lutyens responsible for Johannesburg Art Gallery and British Pavilion from 1911. Helped design New Delhi in 1912 as home for Government of India. Buildings he designed fused Mughal and neoclassical elements.
  • Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897 was a great representation of Empire. ‘full of sentiment and extravagance’ as Jan Morris describes it in Pax Britannica.

King George V’s coronation celebrated with a Festival of Empire at Crystal Palace in London 1911. Intra-empire sports championship held as part of festival and later led to British Empire and Commonwealth games. Three-quarter-size models of parliamentary buildings around Empire erected in London. Souvenir books and postcards as well as media reports helped convey value of empire to public.

Challenges to British Rule:

  1. What were the challenges in India? How much of a threat were they?
  • Varied and complex challenges to British rule in Indian subcontinent. In 1890s, political opposition to British rule grew amongst educated Indian professional classes and outlet for protest was found in growth of nationalist newspapers. Bal Tilak, editor of Kesari, and Shivram Paranjape who founded Kaal in 1898 were sentenced to imprisonment for stirring hostility.
    • Hostility sometimes violent. British administrators like Governor of Bengal often targeted though British thought these were initially uncoordinated and desperate. However, in April 1908, when two British women killed by a bomb intended for district judge, a terrorist organization was uncovered.
    • Tilak accused of inciting murder of medical officer while popularity of Kaal led to Paranjape’s arrest for sedition in 1908. Kaal was banned.

Abhinav Bharat (Young India) organisation established in 1903 became home for revolutionaries and political activists. Carried out assassinations of British officials, including a district magistrate and a military advisor.

  • Viceroy Curzon’s partition of Bengal prompted most vociferous opposition to Raj. Tilak was at forefront of a swadeshi/self-sufficiency campaign designed to undermine British rule. Public boycott of British goods took place led by leaders like Tilak. The campaign lasted till 1911 and managed to reverse the decision to partition Bengal → clearly a threat in some cases.
  1. What were the challenges in Africa? How much of a threat were they?
  • British Somaliland
    • Sayyid Hassan, known as ‘Mad Mullah’ was typical of those resisting British authority: aim was to halt Ethiopian, Italian and British gains in Somalia with intention of driving all Christians into sea. Built up a force of 20,000 Dervish forces, armed with weapons from the Ottoman Empire.
    • From 1900, forces mounted raids on British Somaliland, antagonising the local communities. In counterattack, British conducted join military action with Ethiopia’s Emperor without conclusive success.
    • Dervishes secured hollow victory over British ‘Camel Constabulary’ in August 1913 and weren’t ever fully suppressed until after WWI.
  • Zanzibar
    • British control challenged briefly by Khalid bin Barghash who assumed power in August 1896, following death of pro-British Sultan Hamoud.
    • 38 minute war → shortest war in history and not a threat.
  • West Africa
    • In 1898, British Governor of Sierra Leone, Colonel Cardew, introduced a new, severe tax on dwellings, known as the ‘hut tax’ and insisted that local chiefs organise followers to maintain roads.
    • Demands were met with resistance. Cardew responded militarily and deployed a ‘scorched earth’ approach, involving setting fire to entire villages, farms and crops.
    • Secured surrender from primary adversary, Chief Bai Bureh in November 1898. Though 100’s killed in process, Cardew had 96 of chief warriors hanged despite British government plea for leniency.
  1. What were the challenges in the Sudan? How much of a threat were they? What had to be done?
  • After Battle of Omdurman, settling Mahdist regime in Khartoum, Sudanese economy was destroyed and around 50% of population was eradicated through famine, disease, persecution and warfare. British took more than 30 years to subdue tribes in south of Sudan. British attempts to create modern government, introduce new penal codes, establish land tenure rules and establish system of taxation for first time in history met with resistance.

Tribes refused to renounce customs and pay taxation, inter-tribal feuds persisted. 33 punitive expeditions mounted to force tribesmen to accept new order and rebellious natives brutally treated. Mahdist uprisings continued in 1900, 1902-3, 1904 and 1908. Public hangings accompanied these and people weren’t afforded trial. 

The Boer War:

  1. What were the causes?
  • POLITICAL:
    • Cecil Rhodes had aim of establishing South African Federation with Transvaal, Orange Free State and Southern Africa, Britain dominating. First Boer War tried this but eventually Boers turned on British after defeating Xhoi and Bantu.
    • British man, Tom Edgar, shot by a Transvaal police man in December 1898, prompting Uitlander outrage and pressure of British government.
    • Transvaal extending control overs Swaziland by establishing independent rail network to Portuguese-controlled part of Lourenco Marques incited fear in Britain over annexation of Southern Africa.
  • SOCIAL:
    • Uitlanders had voting rights suppressed. Uitlanders were British settlers who’d flocked to Transvaal in search of gold. Though they paid taxes, denied right to vote: 50,000 Britons excluded from political rights. Led to British support of Jameson raid.
    • Boers had strong nationalist sentiment and resentment towards British since First Boer War and fuelled by the Jameson raid, shown by reelection of Kruger in his 4th term.
  • ECONOMIC:
    • Transvaal prestige and power had grown with discovery of gold on Rand in 1886 near Witwatersrand.
  • INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS:
    • Tensions between Joseph Chamberlain, Cecil Rhodes and Paul Kruger which prompted Jameson raid in 1895 ultimately led to resentment, prompting mistreatment of Uitlanders.
    • Alfred Milner demanded reform of Transvaal or war. Demanded full citizenship rights from Uitlanders in Bloemfontein Conference of 1899. Refusal of Kruger to do so ultimately caused the war.
  1. What were the consequences?
  • Through utilising a ‘scorched earth’ throughout the war which ended in 1902, Boer families and Black Africans had to be put in concentration camps and suffered horrendous conditions.
    • By the end of the war, around 115,000 people living in these camps and more – primarily women and children – had died. Epidemics spread easily, though not only as a result of British negligence but contemporary medical and sanitary ignorance. More than 16,000 British soldiers were killed by disease, nearly 3 times as many died from enemy action.
  • The Boer War shook Britain’s confidence and the moral and military shortcomings displayed by Britain in name of Empire were evident.
    • Conflict anticipated to last 3 to 4 months, involving 75k troops and costing no more than £10 million. Instead, it dragged on for almost 3 years, involved 400k troops and cost £230 million. 22,000 British military killed > 6000 Boer military killed.
    • Vulnerability of British troops became evident, especially as the British had to call on troops from India and other parts of Empire. In South Africa, the British couldn’t rely on sea power.
    • Promoted talks about ‘national efficiency’
    • Treaty of Vereenignig granted Boers £3 million in compensation to restore farms. Milner had to work hard to integrate economies of British and Boer colonies, establishing single customs union and amalgamating railways. Transvaal granted self-governing status in 1906 as part of Treaty and in 1907, Orange River Colony received same and in 1910, parliaments of Cape Colony, Transvaal, Orange River Colony and Natal voted to be part of Union of South Africa in 1910.