Teaching Empire

British and Dominions Women Teachers in the South African War Concentration Camps

Bibliographic Data

ID9804458
AuthorsEliza Riedi (corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume120
Issue489
Pages1316-1347
Publication date2005-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe English Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-8266 • E-ISSN: 1477-4534
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ehr/cei333
OpenAlexW2086402671
LanguageEN
Citations received4

At the height of the South African War (1899-1902) three hundred women teachers from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were recruited to work in the concentration camps set up by the British to hold Boer women and children. Existing historiography on the popular response to this imperial war in Britain and the ‘white dominions’ largely ignores women, though the war had a powerful politicising effect on both imperialist and anti-imperialist women. This article explores the attitudes of the thousands of predominantly lower-middle-class women who applied to teach in the camps and finds that, rather than being motivated by ‘pure patriotism’ (in Richard Price's words) they were equally impelled by desire for travel, adventure, and better career prospects and pay. For many these ambitions were realised in the camps, where the success of the schools raised temporary, if delusive, hopes that education could make the former Boer republics ‘British in one generation’. For the dominions teachers their experiences in South Africa both confirmed feelings of ‘Britishness’ and reinforced a growing sense of colonial nationalism. The article concludes by suggesting the value of gender history in considering the impact of the South African War on British and colonial society

Ancient history · Archaeology · Empire · Spanish Civil War · African history and culture studies · Classics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · South African History and Culture

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