Changing Conceptualisations of the British Empire in the Twentieth Century

Changing Conceptualisations ofthe British Empire in the

Twentieth Century

Frederik Seidelin

26 May 2014

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Contents

1 Introduction 31.1 Terminological and Methodological Considerations . . . . . . . . . . 51.2 Empirical Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 British Conceptions of Empire Before the First World War 92.1 The Representation of the British Empire in Academia . . . . . . . . 9

2.1.1 Britain’s Place in the Empire and the World . . . . . . . . . 102.1.2 Different Types of Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.1.3 The Future of Britain and the Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2.2 The Representation of the British Empire in Juvenile Literature . . 132.2.1 Britain’s Place in the Empire and the World . . . . . . . . . 152.2.2 The Portrayal of the Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162.2.3 The Future of the Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2.3 Comparisons and Contrasts of Representations Before the First WorldWar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3 British Representations of the Empire after the Second World War 213.1 Courage in Natal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223.2 Allegorical Adventure in Kafiristan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223.3 The Imperial Legacy in Political Satire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233.4 Comparisons and Contrasts of Representations After the SecondWorld

War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4 Concluding Remarks 26

5 Bibliography 28

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Chapter 1

Introduction

At the beginning of academic works about the British Empire, it is customary forscholars to remind their readers that the Empire was not one uniform expanse. Ash-ley Jackson’s The British Empire: A Very Short Introduction, for instance, explainsthat ‘[w]hilst there was a uniformity at the highest levels of imperial rule, prag-matism dictated the “shape” of imperial rule on the ground, and this meant thatlocal variety was an important part of the picture.’1 Indeed, it is one of AndrewThompson’s central points that we fail to recognise both ‘how diverse and pluralisticthe empire was’ and ‘how diverse and pluralistic Britain was’. Consequently, ‘theeffects of empire on [Britain] . . . were complex and (at times) contradictory’, andthere ‘was never likely to be any single or monolithic “imperial culture” in Britain’.2

But were Britons at the beginning of the twentieth century oblivious to themultifarious nature of the British Empire? David Cannadine seems to doubt this;indeed, the central question of Ornamentalism is ‘How did [Britons] try to organizeand to arrange their heterogeneous imperial society . . . ?’3 In other words, Cannadinebelieves that Britons were aware of differences between the several parts of theEmpire.

However, some contemporary sources certainly give the impression of a mono-lithic British Empire. An example of this could be the iconic map by Walter Crane4

published in The Graphic in 1886 at the behest of the Imperial Federation League.The map conveys the sense that the British Empire is one political territory, sepa-rated by the seas but unified by trade routes, most of which spring from a centralhub, Britain.5 This map was far from unique; many later cartographic represen-

1Jackson, p. 17. 2Thompson, Empire Strikes Back?, pp. 4-5.3Cannadine, p. 3. Emphasis added. It is noteworthy that Cannadine refers to the British

Empire as one whole society, however heterogeneous.4Biltcliffe, pp. 63-69. 5[Crane] and Colomb.

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‘Changing Conceptualisations of the British Empire in the Twentieth Century’.Frederik Seidelin. University of Copenhagen. 26 May 2014.

tations of the Empire have also employed the style of colouring the entirety of theimperial territory, including Britain, uniformly pink. Indeed, so prevalent is thistype of cartographic representation of the British Empire that the very first illus-tration in Jackson’s introduction is a map of the Empire in the 1920s. Althoughmonochrome, rather than pink, the entire British Empire is marked in the samefashion with the exception of Egypt,6 which is hatched because it gained formalindependence in 1922.7 These maps, then, continue to shape the way that we todayconceive the Empire, and it would therefore seem an act of prudence when scholarsremind us of its complexity.

Yet we should take care not to impose our relative ignorance of the Empireon previous generations. Pink maps were not the only medium through which theEmpire was presented to the British population, and other sources give voice to amore varied representation. For instance, the oft-quoted J. R. Seeley contends thatGreater Britain consists of

the Dominion of Canada, the West Indian Islands . . . , the mass of South Africanpossessions of which Cape Colony is the most considerable, and fourthly theAustralian group [including] New Zealand. The dependency is India.8

His reason why India is listed as a dependency and not the fifth constituent of GreaterBritain is that its ‘enormous Indian population does not make part of Greater Britainin the same sense as those ten millions of Englishmen [sic] who live outside of theBritish Islands.’9 Conversely, Seeley explains that what he calls the ‘Colonial Empire’is made up of the United Kingdom and the four other constituents of Greater Britain.Given a community of race, of religion, and of interest—the two first of which werealready present—their populations could be held together in federal union despitethe distances involved.10 It is Seeley’s general thrust that in future, ‘we ought tothink much more of our Colonial than of our Indian Empire.’11

Far from portraying the Empire as a monolithic concept, as Walter Crane’s pinkmap suggests, Seeley asserts that it is divided into two very different categories,namely the Indian empire on the one hand, and the colonies settled mainly bypeople from the British Isles on the other. This suggests that Cannadine is right inassuming that Britons were at some level aware of the fact that the British Empirewas diverse and pluralistic, to use Thompson’s turn of phrase.

This paper will survey the ways in which different parts of the British Empire6Jackson, p. xi. 7Palmer, p. 112. 8Seeley, p. 12.9Ibid., p. 13. Presumably, Seeley does not mention the large tracts of territory in Africa because

the lectures were originally published in 1883, when the Scramble for Africa was only just beginning.10Ibid., pp. 13-19 (p. 13). 11Ibid., p. 13.

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were represented to the British public before the First World War, as well as towhat extent these representations changed after the Second World War. A narrowrange of source material has been selected for this survey to allow for a more detailedqualitative examination of the individual artefacts.

1.1 Terminological and Methodological Considerations

Because of the contention within the field of imperial studies, which will be addressedbelow, a number considerations concerning terminology and methodology must bemade. The first consideration pertains to the meaning of empire and colony. Wehave seen how Seeley referred to India as a dependency, whereas the territories whichin 1907 became the Dominions as well as the West Indies were referred to as theColonial Empire. After the publication of Seeley’s work, the nomenclature shiftedas the Empire grew in size. Colonial(ism) became a much broader term whichcould include all territories under formal rule by Britain;12 empire, imperialism, andcolonies were notoriously elusive concepts to contemporaries.13 Still later, the termsbecame even broader in scope to accommodate the expanding empire, includingmandates and condominiums.14 It is therefore uncertain precisely what empire,colony, and imperialism denote in contemporary sources.

In order to avoid introducing presentist assumptions and verdicts about colo-nialism, empires, and imperialism into our analyses of the representations of theBritish Empire and Britain’s place in it, we must first introduce a taxonomy to de-scribe the matter at hand. As Jürgen Osterhammel has developed one of the mostcomprehensive taxonomies of the field, I shall briefly paraphrase his main categorieshere.

Osterhammel defines a colony (‘Kolonie’) as a sociopolitical polity dependenton an imperial centre. It is established by either a foreign population’s peacefulcolonisation, or their invasion and the subjugation of the pre-colonial population.Colonies can take different forms and serve different purposes. Colonies of domina-tion (‘Beherrschungskolonien’) rarely involve permanent settlement and are insteadused to create trade monopolies, exploit resources, and/or receive tribute. Coloniesof settlement (‘Siedlungskolonien’) are an extension of the territory of the mothercountry, but also offer a place for settlers to practice lifestyles outlawed in theirland of origin. Settlements may be created by displacing the indigenous popula-tion (as in Australia) or by exploiting their labour (as in Southern Rhodesia), or

12Howe, Empire, pp. 26-27. 13Thompson, ‘Language of Imperialism’, p. 147.14Jackson, pp. 18-25.

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by importing (slave) labour (as in Jamaica). A colony can also act as a militaryor maritime base (‘Stützpunktkolonie’) for geostrategic advantages and/or tradingwith the hinterland. An empire is a collection of several colonies which have links tothe same centre; they may additionally have links to one another. Imperialism is apolitical ideology which propels a government into actively building and maintaininga (colonial) empire.15

The field of imperial studies is fraught with contention over the extent to whichthe Empire influenced British culture. Maximalists are proponents of the view thatthe Empire thoroughly influenced British society, basing this on the prevalence ofimperial content in a broad swathe of cultural manifestations. Minimalists are thesceptics, concluding on the basis of empirical data, ‘viewed in situ and against thebackground of other kinds of evidence’,16 that the Empire had precious little impacton Britain.17

Let us dwell briefly on what constitutes an imperial culture. Bernard Porterhas contended that Britons, especially the working class, ‘had far too much on theirplates at home’ (the domestic changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution)to take an interest in the Empire: ‘you do not have the time or need to look tothe margins, unless they relate specifically to your concerns at home.’18 KrishanKumar is less final in his judgement when he points out that identities can belatently present and may come to the fore under certain circumstances: people‘have many other identities than national ones’ and even those ‘are not particularly“salient” to individuals in the business of getting on with their lives.’19 MichaelBillig has argued that banal nationalism comprises the ‘ideological habits whichenable the established nations of the West to be reproduced.. . . Nationalism . . . isthe endemic condition.’20 Similarly, Kumar employs the term banal imperialism asa way of meaningfully identifying the ‘multiplicity of ways—public and private—inwhich the empire impacted on the lives of individuals and shaped their sense ofthemselves.’21

Indeed, the impact of the Empire on Britain cannot be fully ascertained fromany single source.22 Cannadine has proposed that ‘the British Empire was not onlya geopolitical entity: it was also a culturally created and imaginatively constructedartifact.’23 If we approach the notion of identity pragmatically, allowing for multi-ple and shifting alignments, we can delineate ‘the “field of meaning” within which

15Osterhammel, pp. 7-28. All translations into English are mine. 16Porter, p. 13.17For brief introductions to the present scholarly debate, see for instance Kumar, pp. 299-300

and Thompson Empire Strikes Back?, pp. 1-8.18Porter, p. 21. 19Kumar, p. 301. 20Billig, pp. 5-9 (p. 6) 21Kumar, p. 301. 22Ibid., p. 301.23Cannadine, p. 3.

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individuals in Britain were able to understand themselves’.24 In other words, animperial identity is one among many such identity constructs, including national,local, and class identities. An imperial culture, then, consists of many quotidianutterances, events, and objects; together, they formed a more or less coherent setof ideals and norms that Britons could subscribe to, and which could be invoked asand when needed.

Exploring representations of the Empire through these kinds of banal instancesof imperial culture will inevitably take us into the realm of discourse analysis. It istherefore necessary to have a clear-cut definition of this. I have chosen Peter Harder’sprototype for discourse analysis because it stresses empirical demonstrability whilerecognising that a discourse ‘lies behind or beneath the whole body of texts, ratherthan as a feature that inheres in the individual texts or authors.’25 Harder states thata particular discourse ‘is constituted by a series of actual utterances that collectivelyshape the options for what can be said and done.’ A discourse must be ‘linguisticallyidentifiable’ through certain keywords which construct the world in a particularway, reflecting an ideology. Discourses have ‘specific historical anchoring and areconceived as agents of impersonal social power: when you do discourse(s) analysis . . .you are trying to find a controlling pattern that works behind individual awareness.’26

1.2 Empirical Deliberations

For the study of how the Empire was structurally or conceptually presented to theBritish population before the First World War, a few works have been chosen fromtwo very different genres. Specifically, we shall explore how the Empire was presentedin scholarly literature and in juvenile literature. This may at first seem an odd pick-and-mix: the two genres are obviously read by very different parts of the population.However, Alan Lester has pointed out that to gain a more complete picture of theEmpire, we must cover both different geographies and look at different ‘constructedbut effective scales’. In other words, we must challenge our present conceptionsof the world, and of the nation-state as the scalar norm.27 Moreover, if similarconceptualisations can be found in these otherwise dissimilar genres, it would tosome extent show just how prevalent the perceptions underpinning them were.

Scholarly works seek—or purport to seek—to describe the world precisely anddisinterestedly, and for that reason we might expect that they present a keen insightinto the way in which the élite conceived the Empire. We shall explore juvenile

24Kumar, pp. 301-02. 25Harder, p. 357. 26Ibid., pp. 355-57. 27Lester, pp. 129-34 (p. 134).

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literature because of its potential to impart knowledge and the values of societyto its readers.28 The genre ‘has a particularly formative function.. . . it provideschildren with the vocabularies . . . and the maps they need to negotiate the specificculture(s) of which they are a part.’29 This was a recognised trait of the genre in thelate nineteenth century, when a scholar asserted that ‘it was impossible to “overratethe importance of juvenile literature” on the national character and culture’.30 Assuch, juvenile literature seems tailored for communicating the ‘dominant morals,values and ideals of their time and culture.’31

For the study of academic literature, we shall explore an essay by Charles Lucasfrom The Oxford Survey of the British Empire from 1914, and Britain and the BritishSeas from 1907 by Halford Mackinder. To cover juvenile literature, we shall use H.E. Marshall’s Our Island Story: A History of England for Girls and Boys from 1905,and the issue of The Boy’s Own Paper32 from 19 October 1912.

The ways in which the representation of the British Empire changed after theSecondWorldWar will be explored primarily through the use of audiovisual material.The role of the Dominions and the rest of the Empire as presented to Britons willbe explored in Zulu from 1964, The Man Who Would Be King from 1975, and twoepisodes of Yes, Prime Minister from the late 1980s.

28Reynolds, Children’s Literature, pp. 112-13. 29Beller and Leerssen, p. 290.30Quoted in Reynolds, Children’s Literature, p.40. 31Beller and Leerssen, p. 290.32Hereafter abbreviated ‘BOP’.

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Chapter 2

British Conceptions of EmpireBefore the First World War

2.1 The Representation of the British Empire in Academia

Let us first turn to the way the Empire was conceptualised in academic literaturebefore the First World War. Mackinder’s Britain and the British Seas is a geograph-ical survey of the British Isles of 350-odd pages, published in two editions, in 1902and 1907. The book is divided roughly into two parts, the first dealing with thegeological geography of Britain, and the second dealing with the economical, strate-gical, and demographic geographies of the country. In the preface, Mackinder statesthat his reason for having written the book is that it was ‘suggested to me by theneeds of some foreign students visiting Britain.’33 More than a textbook, however,the work can also be seen as a political treatise favouring imperial federation. Thisis perhaps not entirely unsurprising, as Mackinder consistently supported imperialunion throughout his active career in academia as well as in the House of Commonsfrom 1910. He was also immensely influential in the field of geography and wascentral to its establishment as a credible science and school subject in Britain.34

The general preface of The Oxford Survey of the British Empire states thatthe ‘object of this series is to furnish a survey of the British Empire and its con-stituent parts in their geographical and allied aspects, together with their economic,administrative, and social conditions’.35 Lucas’ essay is about the constitutionaland administrative arrangements in Whitehall for the colonies since the beginningof the seventeenth century. During his entire academic career, Lucas wrote and

33Mackinder, p. [v]. 34Blouet. 35The Oxford Survey vi: General Survey, p. [v].

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edited many historical works on the Empire, and he ‘was a major advocate of thestudy of imperial history and geography in schools and universities’. He worked inthe Colonial Office from 1877 until 1911, and he was for a time jointly assistantunder-secretary to both the West Indian Department and, after its creation in 1907,the Dominions Department.36 It is therefore difficult to imagine an author moreknowledgeable about the field of colonial administration.

2.1.1 Britain’s Place in the Empire and the World

Britain’s position in the Empire and the world is portrayed similarly in the twoacademic works, and the Empire forms the basic premise of Britain and its futurein both. Mackinder emphasises the fact that the ‘unity of the ocean is the sim-ple physical fact underlying the dominant value of sea-power in the modern globe-wide world’.37 Britain is ‘no longer a self-sufficing organism’;38 it is a great-powermetropole whose resource base of raw materials lies beyond the seas.39 Thereby, hedraws a comparison between the British Empire and the territorial empires of theUnited States, Russia, and Germany.40 Although Mackinder briefly mentions thatthe Empire has multiple centres,41 London is represented both in text and on mapsas the centre of the Empire and the world.42

Lucas’ text traces the administration of the Empire from Whitehall, and conse-quently also centres on London. However, he does state that the white settlementshave always inevitably moved from the control of London administration and to-wards responsible self-government,43 while the administration of the Crown colonieshas followed an opposing trend of increasing centralisation.44 The moorings of theDominions to Britain and each other are therefore not Governors-General recom-mended by the Colonial Office and despatched by the monarch, but rather the newtechnologies of steamships and electrical telegraphs.45

2.1.2 Different Types of Empire

The British Empire is described in quite different terms but ultimately similarlyin Mackinder’s and Lucas’ texts. For Mackinder, the Empire takes two differentshapes. On the one hand, there is a Roman type, alluded to by the comparison thatthe Romans ‘valued Britain chiefly for its metals, and thought of it much as we to-day think of South Africa’.46 This type of empire is based on trade monopolies47 andinvestment of capital and technology in return for tribute in the form of ‘a share ofthe harvests and minerals’.48 Additionally, the Roman-style empire comprises several

36Butlin. 37Mackinder, p. 12. 38Ibid., p. 341. 39Ibid., pp. 324 and 341. 40Ibid., pp. 350-51.41Ibid., e.g. p. 253. 42Ibid., pp. 4 and 356. 43Lucas, pp. 26-28. 44Ibid., pp. 21 and 2445Ibid., pp. 22-24. 46Mackinder, p. 324. 47Ibid., p. 341. 48Ibid., pp. 341 and 343-44 (p. 343).

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‘diminutive territories’—such as Gibraltar, Malta, and the Falklands—which serveas maritime strongholds to preserve British naval supremacy, in defence of Britain’simperial possessions as well as Britain itself.49 The passages about these parts ofthe Empire are primarily couched in terms pertaining to trade, raw materials, andindustry,50 and they fit Osterhammel’s descriptions of colonies of domination as wellas maritime bases.51

On the other hand, Mackinder describes a Greek type of colonies, ‘independentnations tied to the mother country only by a sense of common ideals.’ This categoryapplies to the ‘new Britains across the ocean’ of Canada and Australasia.52 TheseBritains share the ideal of the privilege of British liberty, anchored in the libertynatural to metropolitan Britain.53 They are represented in familial metaphors: theyare daughter states/nations and bound by common sentiment to the ‘mother coun-try’, a term used exclusively for Britain’s relationship with the ‘Britains’.54 Thisrepresentation of the Dominions is very much that of Osterhammel’s settler colonywithout indigenous peoples.55 Notably, Mackinder excludes South Africa from thiscategory, perhaps because its purpose to Britain was as a resource base.56

The trope of Britain’s colonies being akin to either those of the Roman Empireor the Delian League will have been particularly apt for students in Britain, whereClassical studies were previously central to the educational system. The Roman-styleempire is a concern for few people in Britain,57, whereas ‘[m]ost British families . . .have relatives in the colonies, and a widened outlook is the consequence.’58

Concerned primarily with Whitehall’s administration of the colonies, Lucas’ textis inevitably more detailed than Mackinder’s. He recognises that the complexity ofthe British Empire makes categorisation difficult, and that exceptions are neces-sary.59 In his attempt at an overview of the Empire, he distinguishes between fivedifferent types of empire: the self-governing Dominions with responsible government‘dealing with the mother country on the footing of partnership and constantly in-creasing equality’;60 the tropical empire peopled by ‘coloured races’ and ruled bythe British from London; the Crown Colonies not situated in the tropics, which ‘arerather outposts than colonies’ for the most part;61 India;62 and finally the ‘“British

49Ibid., pp. 349-50. 50Ibid., pp. 341-44 and 346-48. 51Osterhammel, p. 17.52Mackinder, p. 345. 53Ibid., pp. 11, 12, 15, and 345. 54Ibid., pp. 345, 350, and 358.55Osterhammel, pp. 17-18. 56Mackinder, p. 324. 57Ibid., p. 342. 58Ibid., p. 348.59Lucas, pp. 64-67. 60Ibid., p. 64. 61Ibid., p. 64.62Lucas describes India variously throughout his text. Being controlled from the separate India

Office, it is different from the other possessions (p. 20). At other times, however, it is described asa Crown colony (p. 64), and at yet others as almost a Dominion (p. 55). This is indicative of howhard-pushed Lucas was in categorising the various possessions.

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sphere of influence” . . . not even indicating control, but only exclusive right of inter-vention against any other European Power.’63 Furthermore, Lucas recognises thatthough the Colonial Office has lumped them in one group, the Dominions are in factdifferent from one another, as well as internally.64 In Lucas’ text, then, we have acontemporary account of the Empire which attempts a precarious categorisation ofwhat is acknowledged as a highly composite political unit.

The Empire is primarily couched in terms of metaphors involving life stages inLucas’ text. The Dominions ‘have been taking final shape as nations’ and havereached ‘adult nationhood’.65 Conversely, the Protectorates are described as ‘notbeing adult British dependencies . . . and they have been transferred to the ColonialOffice according [sic] as they have matured in British keeping’.66 It might then beexpected that all British possessions can aspire to come of age and achieve ‘adultnationhood’ alongside the other Dominions. Underlying Lucas’ text, however, isthe understanding that the Dominion category is finite. The explicit criterion bywhich dominionhood might be bestowed is ‘responsible government’, as opposed tosimply ‘representative institutions’, which were already present in many Caribbeancolonies.67 The places suitable for responsible government—‘denoting the systemwhich prevails in England’68—are the ‘communities, wholly or partly British’ liv-ing in ‘lands suitable for British settlement, and not merely areas to be ruled andadministered by Great Britain’.69 The Imperial Conference of 1911 had representa-tions from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Newfoundland, and,thus, ‘it may be taken that finality in the representation of the dominions has atlength been reached.’70 Familial metaphors are not used explicitly as they were inMackinder’s text, but we clearly see that dominionhood is represented as a categoryof the Empire defined primarily by its racial ties to Britain and not relationship ofdependence.

The finite nature of dominionhood makes that category very different from theothers in that the category can be clearly delineated by Lucas. The discourse sur-rounding the Crown Colonies is unstable precisely because of the variegated natureof the group, which resists a catch-all classification. Lucas describes some of thecolonies as military outposts, although he concedes that these outposts are so differ-ent that categorisation might make little sense. What is important to note, however,is how candid Lucas’ representation of the categories is, stating their rough-and-

63Lucas, p. 34. 64Ibid., pp. 49 and 56. 65Ibid., pp. 6 and 59. Emphases added.66Ibid., p. 35. Emphases added. 67Ibid., pp. 64-65. 68Ibid., p. 27. ‘England’ is used as a

synechdoche for Britain throughout the text. 69Ibid., p. 26. 70Ibid., p. 60. Emphasis added.

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ready nature: the ‘military outposts . . . differ widely among themselves’, and hedistinguishes between the ‘sugar colonies’, West African colonies ‘with their palm-oiland rubber’, and colonies providing mineral products.71

2.1.3 The Future of Britain and the Empire

Neither text considers a future for Britain outside the Empire, and the future of theEmpire rests specifically on the British communities. David Reynolds has describedthe period from 1899 to 1914 as a cold war in which the Britain had shifting diplo-matic relations with Russia, France, Germany, and Japan.72 Written during thisperiod of uneasy geopolitical stability leading up to the First World War, both textssee the Empire as the safe moorings in a turbulent international climate.

Ultimately, both texts see the Empires as threatened from outside. Mackindercontends that territorial empires, such as the United States, Germany, and Rus-sia, are eclipsing maritime empires because of their ‘greater natural potentialities’.73

The future of Britain and the Empire depends on the British communities’ abilityto combine forces against these threats according to Mackinder. Britain may yetmaintain the ‘lead won under earlier conditions’,74 but this is contingent on com-mand of the seas, the expense of which Britain can only hope to muster in leaguewith the Dominions: ‘All the Britains are threatened . . . and may in the end beready to share in the support of a single fleet’.75 Similarly, Lucas emphasises thatthe topic of imperial defence as well as sharing the burden of defending the Empirehave been of the utmost importance at the Imperial Conferences.76

The contemporary academic literature explored here clearly states internal dif-ferences between different parts of the Empire. Britain is regarded as part of abigger political and cultural entity, and especially the white settlement colonies areforegrounded as important to Britain in terms of trade and familial attachments.

2.2 The Representation of the British Empire in JuvenileLiterature

Michael Paris has argued that British juvenile literature since 1850 taught ‘youngreaders that war was inevitable if the empire, the greatest force for civilization inthe world, was to be preserved and extended’.77 However, that tells us very littleabout the way in which the Empire was presented to Britain’s youth. Having lookedat academic literature, we shall now look at the conceptualisation of the Empire in

71Ibid., pp. 65-66. 72Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, pp. 80-81. 73Mackinder, p. 351.74Ibid., p. 358. 75Ibid., p. 351. 76Lucas, pp. 59 and 62. 77Paris, p. 9.

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juvenile literature during and just after the Edwardian period.Our Island Story was published simultaneously in London and Edinburgh by

T.C. & E.C. Jack, but the preface of the book states that it originated as a storytold by the Scottish Marshall for children in ‘the big island’ of Australia about‘home’—Britain, ‘the little island in the west’—which ‘belong to each other’.78 Thebook follows a chronological plot, which narrates a whiggish version of history inwhich Britons come to form a great civic culture and national identity spanning theglobe. As such, the work should be understood in the context of Greater Britain.79

Marshall’s works became immensely popular and penetrated deeply into British so-ciety. Not only was Our Island Story in print continuously for over half a century80,but it was also used as a textbook in British primary schools during the interwaryears.81 It is therefore a significant work to include because it reached many Britishchildren. Although an embellished version, the book presents a somewhat accu-rate outline of the history of the British Isles. This simplification allows Marshallto present it as a teleological plot, narrating the advance of the inevitable unifica-tion of the islands into one polity, and the advancement of liberty and responsiblegovernment.

Quite different from Marshall’s book is BOP, a serial publication in print con-tinuously from 1879 to 1967. It had the format of the penny dreadful—the namedenoting its price and content—which became increasingly popular throughout the1860s and 1870s.82 Many of these periodicals were published for the purposes ofeducating children and preventing delinquency.83 Although it is difficult to deter-mine precisely which parts of British society read BOP, tentative figures for BOPalone suggest a weekly readership of at least one million, and possibly more,84 whichsuggests that the portrayals in such papers were disseminated widely. In terms ofcontent, the penny dreadfuls ‘created powerful myths about the nature of war andthe British solder’.85 Moreover, war was the way of extending the Empire, which ‘of-fered the means for the British to prosper,’86 and ‘Robert MacDonald has suggested[that] they translated imperial ideology into an accessible code.’87 Though BOP didnot sanction contemporary wars as other periodicals did,88 many of its stories were

78Marshall, pp. v-vii. 79See, for instance, Belich for an introduction to this historical ‘polity’.80Paris, p. 79. 81Mitchell. 82Paris, pp. 57-58.83Ibid., pp. 57-58; Thompson, Empire Strikes Back?, pp. 101-02.84Thompson, Empire Strikes Back?, pp. 103-04; also see MacKenzie p. 222 for a more general

discussion of periodical readerships.85Paris, p. 62. 86Ibid., pp. 60-64 (p. 63). 87Ibid., p. 69. 88Ibid., p. 58.

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still based on historical wars and colonial adventures.89 In the issue released on 19October 1912, there are some features, several poems, chess problems, letters to theeditor, and a short piece on animals. Most prominent, however, are three adventurestories: ‘Tricked by a Baboon’ taking place in South Africa, ‘The Fiery Totem’ inthe northwest of Canada, and ‘Between the Two’ in Scotland. Put together, thethree stories take up more than half the magazine.

2.2.1 Britain’s Place in the Empire and the World

Marshall portrays a Britain which is at a distance from Continental Europe. Duringthe Napoleonic Wars, the ‘little ribbon of water between France and England wasenough to keep her safe from the threats of the master of half Europe.’90 However,the narrator acknowledges that the history of Britain is happening in tandem withthat of Europe. Thus, Britain’s involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, althoughthe country was not directly affected by it in the form of an invasion, averted thespreading of Napoleon’s empire, and ‘Europe was saved from tyranny’.91 Britishliberty and responsible government follow Britons abroad, and most of the historyof the nineteenth century is narrated with the Empire as the centre of gravity.

In the BOP issue, Britain is in a sense the source of all action, but the Empireis central to two of the three adventure stories, and at the very least referred tocasually in the third. The protagonists in ‘The Fiery Totem’ have spent their youthsin Canada but went ‘home to college in England.’92 It could therefore be said thatthey are Canadians, but it is also significant that they view England as ‘home’.In addition to being Canadian, then, they are also Greater Britons, and they arepresented to British juvenile readers as characters of identification. In ‘Tricked bya Baboon’, the protagonist has recently arrived from England.93

‘Tricked by a Baboon’ represents South Africa’s nature as a threat to settlers’way of life, as the protagonist successfully defends a child who has been abductedand left for dead by a troop of baboons.94 Both stories take place in the wilderness,where nature is the most dangerous enemy. The general thrust of the two storiesis that stout and brave English-speaking boys seek to tame nature and disseminatecivilisation to the furthest reaches of the globe.

Even in ‘Between the Two’, though set in Scotland, there is a passing reference89Ibid., p. 69; Thompson, Empire Strikes Back?, pp. 102-03. 90Marshall, p. 457. 91Ibid., p. 461.92This is not mentioned explicitly in the chapter in the BOP issue. It is, however, stated in the

full book. See Saxby, p. 7. Emphasis added.93BOP, p. 41. 94Ibid., pp. 40-42.

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to the Empire: one of the parents of the missing children is especially troubled bythe disappearance of her son since ‘Death had robbed her of her husband . . . whohad been killed in a frontier raid in Northern India.’95 This comment is indeedperipheral, but it is also significant that no explanation for why her husband wasin India is necessary. The author has clearly presumed that British juveniles wouldhave sufficient knowledge of Britain’s presence in India, military or otherwise, tonot be confused by an offhand remark about a family member having worked andperished there.

2.2.2 The Portrayal of the Empire

In Our Island Story, two different types of empire are presented: an empire ofcommerce, and an empire of settlement. The commercial part of the Empire isbuttressed by feats of engineering—such as Richard Arkwright’s spinning frame,James Watt and George Stephenson’s contributions to the steam locomotive, andthe steamship—making Britain ‘more than ever mistress of the waves, and she wasalso the workshop and the market of the world.’96 Moreover, Marshall tells her readerthat in ‘India, Britain had also possessions, and trade with India had become of greatimportance’.97 However, India is not portrayed as home. Indeed, the Indians areportrayed as capable of great malice. Especially the Indians’ behaviour during theIndian Mutiny is described as duplicitous and barbaric. For instance, the narratortells of a siege at Cawnpore, where a supposed ally of the British, the Nana Sahib,turned his soldiers on the British civilians after gaining entry to the town, andmassacred men, women, and children after having called a truce: ‘so the NanaSahib kept faith!’, the narrator laments.98

Noticeably, aside from unruly India, none of the remaining colonies are mentionedin Marshall’s account, with the exception of a brief mention of Gibraltar. It isdescribed as a stronghold and a possession.99 In other words, while it might be aBritish possession, Gibraltar is not part of the British narrative, according to thenarrator.

The second category of empire comprises what Marshall calls ‘colonies’; theyare explained by Marshall as ‘countries which are peopled by an old country’, andthey are ‘part of Great Britain’.100 As such, they seem to be synonymous withthe Dominions created in 1907. The British colonies share with Britain a commonmonarch, but the colonies are described as countries separate from Britain, and it is

95Ibid., p. [33]. 96Marshall, pp. 448-52. 97Ibid., p. 434. 98Ibid., pp. 492-95 (p. 495).99Ibid., p. 415. Emphases added. 100Ibid., p. 434.

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stressed that they have their own parliaments and responsible government, as is thecase of Australia and New Zealand for instance.101 However, the book characterisesparliamentary rule and responsible government as quintessentially British values,which developed in Britain and are the natural rights of colonists. Indeed, self-rule is decidedly not a sign of not being British: ‘although it is now called theCommonwealth of Australia, and has a Parliament of its own, it is still part of theEmpire of Greater Britain.’102 The odd country in the category is South Africa.Despite the fact that ‘thousands of British settled there’,103 the country is not quiteBritish yet, according to the narrator. Be that as it may, the British in South Africastill have a universal right to liberty.

What all these British people overseas have in common is a shared identityand their shared ideals of the right of representation and responsible government.Indeed, Marshall represents the Boer War as a conflict which evinces this pan-Britishcommunity:

The British in South Africa appealed at last to the mother country for help.. . .It was a dreadful war . . . But in the darkest hour, one thing became certain.The little island was not fighting alone.. . . From all sides, from New Zealand,Australia, Canada, from every province of Greater Britain, . . . came offers ofhelp. Britain was fighting, not for herself, but for her colony, and in the struggleher colonies stood by her, side by side, and shoulder to shoulder.104

Greater Britain in Our Island Story is couched in metaphors of family and fra-ternity. This imagined imperial community is perhaps most clearly seen in thedescription of Queen Victoria’s death: ‘the news was flashed through all the greatempire . . . from east to west, wherever the flag of red, white, and blue floats, heartswere sad.’105 This perceived moment of concurrent sorrow was, of course, impracti-cable due to time zones and the technological limitation preventing the simultaneousdiffusion of the message of somebody’s death across the globe in 1901. However,the notion of an emotion imagined as concurrent resembles to a great extent whatBenedict Anderson has called the ‘conception of simultaneity’.106 Mass-ceremoniessuch as this create ‘remarkable confidence of community in anonymity’.107 A senseof imperial communion is further enhanced by the fact that the last three chap-ters of the Britons’ ‘island story’ takes place in Greater Britain, the new frontier ofBritishness.

Contrary to Marshall’s book, the BOP issue does not explicitly distinguish be-tween different parts of the Empire. In fact, Scotland, South Africa, and Canadaare all portrayed as environs of adventure and danger. To this, it could be added

101Ibid., pp. 503 and 508. 102Ibid., p. 503. 103Ibid., p. 509. 104Ibid., p. 511105Ibid., p. 513. Emphasis added. 106Anderson, p. 24. 107Ibid., p. 36.

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that the danger of the Indian frontier is read into the predicament in the ScottishHighlands through the mention of the dead husband, as discussed above.

However, the magazine does acknowledge the existence of a bond between peoplein Britain and people overseas. We have already touched on the fact that theprotagonists in the Canadian story refer to England as ‘home’. Additionally, itis noteworthy that one of the letters to the editor mentions that a forthcomingBOP membership club would ‘have the effect of uniting our home readers, andalso of reminding our Colonial friends that they are not so far from the MotherCountry after all.’108 Drawing once again on Anderson’s seminal work, this ‘BOP-ite’ sentiment is significant because it shows that there is a perceived communityaround the magazine. BOP could perhaps be likened to newspapers in that thestories in the magazine were the subject of a weekly mass ceremony of the ‘almostprecisely simultaneous consumption (“imagining”)’ by the large readership, to useAnderson’s turn of phrase.109 That ‘Colonial friends’ were seen as part of this issignificant because the intended recipient of the magazine is expected to be foundall over the British World.

2.2.3 The Future of the Empire

Despite the Second Boer War and the death of Queen Victoria, Marshall’s book endson a hopeful note of what the future might have in store for the Empire. Specifically,in the case of South Africa, the hope is that ‘it will be as loyal, as happy, and asprosperous as any other British colony.’110 It is noteworthy that South Africa isregarded as different from the other white colonies in that it is neither homogeneous(as in Australia) nor multi-ethnic but harmonious (as in New Zealand); however, it isa possible future for South Africa to be elevated to a British community. This makesMarshall’s text stand out from both Mackinder, who only recognises Australasia andCanada as Britains,111 and Lucas, who asserts that the category of Dominions isfinite.112

In Marshall’s work, the future of the Empire more generally is regarded as inthe hands of the readers: ‘Day by day we are making history, which those who comeafter us will read.’ The final sentence rather whiggishly exhorts that British ‘Loyaltyand Liberty be woven through the story’113 as loyalty and liberty have suffused therest of Marshall’s story. In other words: Britain should persevere in its civilisingmission.

As mentioned above, two of the three the adventure stories in the BOP issue108BOP, p. 43. 109Anderson, p. 35. 110Marshall, p. 512. 111Mackinder, p. 345.112Lucas, p. 60. 113Marshall, p. 514.

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are about (Greater) Britons living at the fringes of civilisation, attempting to tamenature. Unlike Marshall’s book, however, the magazine does not explicitly statewhat the future has in store for the Empire.

2.3 Comparisons and Contrasts of Representations Beforethe First World War

John M. MacKenzie has emphasised that the British Empire came to Britons intwo ways: through cultural manifestations and through personal experience. In thefirst category, literature, posters, ephemera, and an increasing amount of imperialexhibitions and events were but a few of the quotidian manifestations of the Empirein Britain,114 and these could be said to be examples of what Kumar calls banalimperialism. Moreover, many Britons had either first- or second-hand experienceof the Empire through emigration by friends or family, or serving in one of theimperial civil services or the British Army.115 In the works explored above, we haveseen examples of how instances of the Empire, and especially familiarity with theDominions, were described as the norm in academic works, and that this state ofaffairs was encouraged through juvenile literature.

The academic literature prior to the First World War advocated greater unionbetween Britain and the Dominions, particularly with regard to defence policy butalso in other areas of policy. Meanwhile, the rest of the Empire—the empire ofdomination—was represented as valuable to Britain but not fundamentally part ofthe country.

This is also reflected in Marshall’s Our Island Story, where the Dominions arerepresented as extensions of metropolitan Britain. India is a place of adventurebut also of uncivilised barbarians unfamiliar with British institutions and notionsof fair play, and the rest of the Empire hardly receives any mention. In both OurIsland Story and BOP, we saw that Dominion citizens were regarded as overseasBritons, and that they provided characters of identification. In BOP, however, wedid see that there was little difference in stories, whether they take place on theIndian frontier, the veldt of South Africa, in a Canadian forest, or the Highlandsof Scotland. They are all places of adventure and danger, so it is also importantnot to overestimate how much juvenile literature was used to inculcate a specificconceptualisation of the Empire.

Broadly speaking, however, the colonies of settlement—the Dominions—tookcentre stage in representations of the British Empire to a large extent. The two

114MacKenzie, pp. 213-17. 115Ibid., pp. 212-13.

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genres examined demonstrate the age-span and societal breadth of readers to whoma variegated empire was presented: children and adults, scholars and youths, allwere presented with the different types of British imperial possessions. That theconceptualisation of the Empire as internally different was present in both scholarlyand juvenile literature also shows that the discourse(s) surrounding the types ofempire was quite prevalent.

We shall now turn to representations of the Empire in some examples of filmafter the Second World War to see whether the primacy of the colonies of settlementendured.

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Chapter 3

British Representations of theEmpire after the Second WorldWar

According to Jeffrey Richards, films about the British Empire have a long tradi-tion. He has identified two cycles of imperial movies before the 1960s, both ofwhich primarily presented the Empire in a positive light.116 Many of the memorableproductions revolve around settlements on the frontier, native insurrections, and ex-ploitation of resources. Moreover, during the 1950s, the Dominions were the settingof a series of ‘Western’-style films, ‘featuring the exploits of settlers’.117 Richardshighlights three films set in Australia, showing ‘Australians, Englishmen and Scotsworking and fighting side by side and the clear idea that these are “our kith andkin”’.118 These positive portrayals are very close to the one we saw in Marshall andto a certain extent BOP, and they also reflect both Lucas’ and Mackinder’s focus onthe Dominions as overseas Britains and the tropical part of the empire as a frontier.

However, two factors served to eclipse not only the orthodox of imperial posses-sions but also the archetypal imperial hero, and combined, the two factors conspiredto make positive representations of the British Empire untenable for Hollywood.First, the world regime of empires was undermined by the Atlantic Charter andthe establishment of the principles of the nation-state and self-government as thenorm.119 The second factor was the undermining of the (imperial) gentleman in the1960s and his being replaced by ‘the working-class individualist’ and ‘the classless

116Richards, ‘Towards a Definition’, pp. 2-6. 117Richards, ‘Imperial Heroes’, p. 131.118Ibid., pp. 131-32 (p. 131). 119Ibid., pp. 129-30.

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meritocratic professional’.120 What follows is a brief overview of how the formerimperial possessions are conceived in three films made after what Richards identifiesas the bankruptcy of the imperial ideal by the mid-1960s.

3.1 Courage in Natal

Zulu from 1964 is a film portraying the historical battle at Rorke’s Drift, Natal, in1879. The historicity of the film lends it the same air as Marshall’s Our Island Story,giving the audience a sense of the imperial ethos of the Victorian era. The plot ofthe film is ‘stripped of any imperial significance’, not least because of the ludicrousmissionary.121 This is also evident in the witty or even playful mood of the first halfof the film. Many of the soldiers in the infirmary are not actually wounded but aresimply there to avoid duty. Moreover, when Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead firstmeet, Chard explains that ‘They want a bridge across the river’; who exactly thepronoun ‘they’ refers to remains obscure, and no reason is given for why there is needfor a bridge over a fordable river in the middle of nowhere. Bromhead leaves Chardwith the denigrating ‘Do carry on with your mud-pies.’ Last, despite the fact thattrouble is brewing, Corporal Allen asks Chard to leave six riflemen behind because‘We ain’t finished the bridge, sir’. In all, these characters seem to unquestioninglyfollow orders in a slightly whimsical fashion.122

However, when the situation deteriorates, the two lieutenants bury the hatchetin the face of the overwhelming Zulu forces, and the soldiers in the infirmary dotake part in the valiant fight against the Zulus. The accomplishment of the redcoatsfighting ‘noble savages’ is taken very seriously despite the light-hearted first half ofthe film. This serious mood is evinced by the deferential listing of the earners ofthe Victoria Cross at the real Battle of Rorke’s Drift at the end of the film by anauthoritative voice-over, after which ‘Men of Harlech’ is played to the credit roll.123

The Empire is represented in Zulu as awe-inspiring daring-do of soldiers fromBritain, although they are fighting for no evident or explicit purpose at the veryfrontiers of civilisation. To the audience, the Empire is presented as a place ofadventure and of showing worth. It is not an empire of settlement or of familialrelations beyond the seas.

3.2 Allegorical Adventure in Kafiristan

Twelve years later, in 1975, The Man Who Would Be King was first screened. Anadaption of Rudyard Kipling’s novella of the same name, the film portrays theescapades of Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan, two former British soldiers, as

120Ibid., p. 138. 121Richards, ‘Imperial Heroes’, pp. 138-39 (p. 139). 122Zulu. 123Ibid.22


they become king of Kafiristan and his advisor by several strokes of luck. Theacquaintance of a one-time Gurkha soldier, Billy Fish, enables them to commandthe troops of a local chieftain, and during a fight against another warlord, Dravot ishit by an arrow, which fails to penetrate his skin—due to its hitting a bandolier—making the locals believe that he is the descendent or reincarnation of Alexanderthe Great (‘Sikander’), to whom the same happened. The local tribes unite aroundDravot as king, and the two Britons are given Sikander’s treasury.124

The film can be seen as an allegory of the British Empire writ large. The twoBritish adventurers collaborate with a local, a ruse serves to establish their prestige,and as a result, they end up very wealthy. They know that their primacy restson a lie, and Carnehan suggests to Dravot that they quit while they are ahead.However, Dravot’s covetousness and avarice are his hubris: the subterfuge of theduo is discovered, and the locals murder Dravot and crucify Carnehan, who barelysurvives. Thus, imperialism is shown as both untenable and immoral. Furthermore,the affected quasi-British manners of the collaborator, Fish, show the Empire aslaughable, antiquated, and irrelevant. Like in Zulu, the Empire is represented asa place of adventure, where two (maverick) redcoats can make a fortune beyondthe fringes of civilisation; the film does not portray the Empire as a community ofBritons.

3.3 The Imperial Legacy in Political Satire

The prominence of the Dominions dwindled in representations taking place in Britainas well. Stuart Ward has argued that the Empire was much in evidence in satir-ical shows during the ‘Satire Boom’ in the 1960s,125 particularly as an outlet forexasperation with ‘Britain’s recurring failures, [with] hypocrisy and the shabbinessof its politics’.126 Much the same could in fact be said for the political satires YesMinister (1980-82) and Yes, Prime Minister (1986-88): the British Empire andits legacy are very evident in the series with frequent references to former colonialpossessions (sometimes with fictional but recognisable names), and how they eithermight frustrate one of Prime Minister Hacker’s schemes, or how leaders of one-timecolonial possessions might be offended by one of the British government’s policies.

One episode revolves entirely around the fictional Commonwealth democracy ofSt George’s Island. Hacker learns of an incipient invasion of the island by a nearbyCommunist country. The invasion is taken very seriously by Hacker on principle

124The Man Who Would Be King. 125Ward, pp. 91-109. 126David Frost, quoted in Ward, p. 108.

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of democracy, and he orders the sending of a fighter squadron on a friendship visitto head off the invasion.127 The episode remains indecisive on whether the defenceof the Commonwealth member is a good move. On the one hand, it is a moralpro-democratic action on the part of Britain. On the other hand, however, theCommonwealth is seen by some in the Civil Service as an albatross which damagesBritish financial interests greatly, holding the country back economically, not leastbecause an airport is being built with British capital on the island.

The plot of the episode alludes to two real Commonwealth conflicts of the 1980s.First, there is an allusion to the Falklands War of 1982, particularly the way in whichHacker and his staff did not know of St George’s Island until the possible invasion,just as few in the British public knew of the Falklands before that invasion.128 How-ever, the more notable allusion is to the Grenada débâcle of 1983, when Americanmilitary invaded the Commonwealth member Grenada to quash the Marxist gov-ernment which was aided by Cuba and which had seized power in a coup d’état fouryears previously.129 Because the American government did not advise the Britishgovernment, this incident caused some consternation in London.130 The comparisonis especially apt due to the facts that a British company was building an airport inGrenada,131 and that the capital of Grenada is named Saint George’s.

One of the only mentions of a former Dominion in the series is at the beginning ofthe episode ‘The Grand Design’. The main plot of the episode is that Hacker learns ofthe relative impotence of the NATO conventional forces on the Continent. GeneralHoward shocks Hacker when he discloses that ‘our conventional forces would holdthe Russians for, at most, 72 hours.’ In the next scene, Hacker’s Principal PrivateSecretary, Bernard Woolley, asks Hacker: ‘So, how long should we allow for thismeeting?’ Hacker, evidently distracted, incredulously exclaims: ‘72 hours!’ Woolley,not realising that the attention of Hacker is elsewhere, replies: ‘Uhm, it’s only theNew Zealand High Commissioner—isn’t 72 hours a bit generous?’ The rest of thescene, as well as the episode, concerns NATO forces in Europe and the defence ofBritain, and the New Zealand High Commissioner is never seen on stage.132 Thus,diplomatic relations with New Zealand are treated with a humoristic and ironicdistance. In this way, the two series, set in and aired during the middle of the 1980s,present Britain in a Cold War framework, in which diplomatic relations with formerDominions are of no importance when compared to Europe and the United States.

127‘A Victory for Democracy’. 128Thompson, Empire Strikes Back?, pp. 225-26.129Palmer, pp. 147-48. 130Robbins, p. 390. 131Palmer, pp. 147-48. 132‘The Grand Design’.

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3.4 Comparisons and Contrasts of Representations Afterthe Second World War

Zulu represents the British Empire as a place far from civilisation where Britishsoldiers can show their courage. Similarly, the allegorical empire in The Man WhoWould Be King is not an empire of settlement; rather, it is based firmly on thedomination and exploitation of the indigenous population. In Yes, Prime Minister,there are several episodes which revolve entirely around allusions to former Britishpossessions with tiny or no British populations, of which we have looked more in-depth at one. The one former Dominion mentioned in Yes, Prime Minister ismentioned only in passing, and is represented as of trifling importance to Britain.These examples suggest that the Empire as it was represented to Britons after theSecond World War centred on the empire of domination, rather than the empireof settlement, as had been the case before the First World War. The Empire thusportrayed retained the air of adventure but not the sentimental aspect bestowed bythe familial metaphors of times past.

If we accept Cannadine’s assertion that the Empire was ‘a culturally createdand imaginatively constructed artifact’,133 it follows that the artefact must be sus-tained culturally to allow for the continued imagining of it. However, we have seenthat the imagined imperial community of British communities around the worldwas not sustained and indeed eclipsed by representations of the empire of domina-tion. As a result, the notion of the British family as world-wide and interconnectedacross borders and the high seas—overseas Britains in Mackinder’s terms—becameunimaginable and lapsed, despite its strong purchase in Britain before the FirstWorld War.

133Cannadine, p. 3.

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Chapter 4

Concluding Remarks

We have seen how the Empire was conceptualised in both scholarly and juvenile liter-ature prior to the First World War. To a large extent, the colonies of settlement—theDominions—took centre stage in these representations, both by being pivotal to thedefence of the Empire, and by being linked to Britain by a tie of blood. They werenot bound to Britain by subjection, as were the colonies of domination. Exploita-tion in the ‘tropical empire’ was recognised as valuable to Britain, but those colonieswere not part of what could be called ‘the British family’. Indeed, we have seen thatfamilial metaphors were invoked by way of describing the relations between Britainand the Dominions. Conversely, the language surrounding the colonies of domina-tion was not only less metaphorical but also more candidly linked to the tangiblebenefits they provided: trade, resources, and a strategic upper hand.

Contrary to this focus on the Dominions, the Empire was represented quitedifferently to the British after the Second World War. In the films and satiricalTV episodes covered above, we saw how the former empire of domination ratherthan the empire of settlement became central to representations of the legacy of theEmpire.

The downfall of the British Empire was caused by a multitude of complex andinterrelated strains and pressures, both from within the Empire and from the in-ternational community. It would be absurd to suggest that cultural representationsof the Empire played a major part in the collapse, the reasons for which include,among other factors, international relations and financial politics. However, we haveseen that there was a marked shift in how the Empire was represented to Britons:from a family of British communities around the globe before the First World War,to primarily a collection of possessions offering exploits and exploitation after theSecond World War. Thus, the imagined imperial community ceased to be sustainedby cultural manifestations and lapsed, which might to some extent add to the vari-

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ous explanations for Britain’s pulling up the drawbridges to the former Dominionsduring the 1960s and 1970s.134

It is therefore evident that the British Empire was not presented to the Britishpublic as one monolithic polity. Interestingly, however, many of the monographssurveying the impact of the Empire on the metropole, whether minimalist or max-imalist, rarely group the impact by origin. Instead, most are grouped accordingto the genre of impact material, as if the Empire came to Britons as a uniformconcept. Thus, though the role of India is recognised to be different from that ofAustralia in an imperial context, their various impacts on Britain are to some ex-tent conflated in scholarly works. An example of this is a section on literature inThompson’s work: he gauges the impact of the Empire from as disparate sourcesas ‘Anglo-Indian women’s travel writing and children’s periodicals’, the stories forwhich were not necessarily written in the colonies.135 This is not to say that thisapproach is wrong. Indeed, much valuable work has been done on identifying thechannels through which the Empire came to Britain. Thus, books such as Porter’sThe Absent-Minded Imperialists and Thompson’s The Empire Strikes Back? arecatalogued according genre, gender, and class. However, because different parts ofthe Empire were represented in different ways, it might prove equally valuable toalso catalogue the impact of the Empire according to the origin of the material.

134For an account of the estrangement of Britain and the Dominions, see for instance Curran andWard, pp. 26-57, and Hopkins.

135Thompson, Empire Strikes Back?, pp. 98-105 (p. 99).

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Chapter 5

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Changing Conceptualisations of the British Empire in the Twentieth Century

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