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The Political Consequences of Seretse Khama: Britain, the Bangwato and South Africa, 1948–1952

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Ronald Hyam
Ronald Hyam
Affiliation:
Magdalene College, Cambridge
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Extract

Ruth Williams was not a typist. She was apt to be put out when the newspapers called her that. In fact she was a secretary, a confidential clerk, with a firm of Lloyds' underwriters in London. On 30 September 1948, at a registry office in Kensington, she married Seretse Khama, heir to the chieftaincy of the Bangwato in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. No-one knew whether the Bangwato would accept a white consort. British newspapers ran features headed ‘Shall typist be a Queen?’ (Sunday Dispatch, 28 November 1948), and ‘This girl can upset the peace of Africa’ (Sunday Express, 10 July 1949). White opinion in South Africa was aghast: the marriage was condemned as ‘distasteful and disturbing’ (Johannesburg Star, 28 June 1949), as ‘striking at the root of white supremacy’ (Natal Witness, 2 July 1949). Ruth's parents opposed the marriage and did not attend the ceremony. Her father, George Williams, was a retired Indian army officer, working as a commercial traveller. Ruth was born in 1923, and brought up in Blackheath and Lewisham. She attended Eltham High School, took polytechnic classes in cookery, and served for four years in the war as a corporal-driver with the W.A.A.F. Together with her sister Muriel, she was a churchgoer, keenly interested in the African work of the London Missionary Society. They were constant visitors to the colonial students' hostel at Nutford Place in Bayswater. It was at an L.M.S. meeting in 1947 that she met Seretse, a quiet, friendly, relaxed and thoroughly Anglicized law student of twenty-seven, with an alert mind and honest manner. The sexual attraction between them was apparently strong. But there was also in their decision to marry a challenging element of anti-apartheid zeal. Ruth abhorred the colour bar, and felt she could do at least as much good in Bechuanaland as missionary wives had done.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 1986 , pp. 921 - 947
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 Prof. David Fieldhouse and Dr David Throup have helped me to improve this paper. The research for it has been undertaken with a grant from the Morshead-Salter Fund, Magdalene College, Cambridge. The principal research source is the Commonwealth Relations Office (C.R.O.) papers, especially files Y 3480/1–54 (1948–52), Public Record Office (P.R.O.), DO 35 series; these files alone contain well over a thousand documents. Redfern, J., Ruth and Seretse: ‘a very disreputable transaction’ (London, 1955)Google Scholar remains a useful introduction. For a brief background analysis of British policy towards the High Commission Territories, see my essay, ‘The politics of partition in southern Africa, 1908–61’, in Hyam, R. & Martin, G., Reappraisals in British imperial history (London, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 9. The best account to date of British policy towards Seretse is Douglas-Home, C., Evelyn Banng: the last proconsul (London, 1978), pp. 172–95Google Scholar. For officials' assessments of Ruth, see DO 35/4116/9 and 4131/119, and foreign office political papers, P.R.O., FO 371/91171.

2 DO 35/4113, Sir R. Coupland to C. G. L. Syers, 27 Sept., 1 and 5 Oct. 1948.

3 DO 35/4113, especially no. 45.

4 Hyam, R., ‘Concubinage and the colonial service: the Crewe circular (1909)’, Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, XIV, 3 (1986), pp. 170–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; DO 35/4149/4 and 5; DO 35/4135/607; DO 35/4137, minute by W. A. W. Clark, 2 Jan. 1952. For South African debates on the Mixed Marriages Bill, see House of Assembly Debates vol. 68, (Cape Town, 1949)Google Scholar, cc. 6164–6206, 6344–59, 6367–6463, 6471–6511 (19, 23, 24 and 25 May 1949); vol. 69, cc. 9065–71 (24 June 1949); see also du Toit, A., ‘Political control and public morality’, in Schrire, R. (ed.), South Africa public policy perspectives (Cape Town, 1983), pp. 54–83Google Scholar.

5 DO 35/4113, especially the views of G. E. Nettelton (no. 37), A. Sillery (nos. 67 & 73), and V. F. Ellenberger (no. 100).

6 Crowder, M., ‘Tshekedi Khama and opposition to the British administration of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1926–36’, Journal of African History, XXVI, 2/3 (1985), 193–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benson, M., Tshekedi Khama (London, 1960)Google Scholar; for Clark's assessment of Tshekedi, see DO 35/3883/157.

7 Do 35/4113/115, secretary of state to high commissioner, 2 July 1949. British recognition of the chief was provided for under Proclamation No. 74 of 1943 (see Schapera, I., A handbook of Tswana law and custom (2nd edn, Oxford, 1955), p. 87)Google Scholar.

8 DO 35/4114/34, Baring LO Liesching, 11 July 1949, extensively quoted in Douglas-Home, , Baring, pp. 182–5Google Scholar.

9 DO 35/4114, especially minutes by Gordon Walker (15 July 1949) and Liesching (14 and 5 July 1949)

10 Colonial office papers, supplementary correspondence, P.R.O., CO 537/4714, minute by A. B. Cohen, 20 July 1949.

11 Cabinet office papers, P.R.O., CAB 129/36/CP(49)155, memo 19 July 1949; CAB 128/16/CM. 47(49)8, conclusions 21 July 1949.

12 DO 35/4116; Do 35/4123, official record of proceedings of judicial inquiry at Serowe 1949 under Sir Walter Harragin; report, 1 Dec. 1949; see also DO 119/1152 (high commissioner's correspondence).

13 DO 35/4118; CO 537/5927.

14 C.R.O., private office files, DO 121/23, Noel-Baker to prime minister, 21 Dec. 1949; DO 35/4118, minute by G. H. Baxter, 7 Jan. 1950.

15 Prime minister's office papers, P.R.O., PREM 8/1308, minutes by Attlee, 21 Dec. 1949 and 22 Jan. 1950.

16 DO 35/4118; CAB 129/38/CP(50)13, memo 26 Jan. 1950; CAB 128/17/CM. 3(50)1, conclusions 31 Jan. 1950.

17 DO 35/4119.

18 Attlee papers, Churchill College archives centre, ATLE 1/17, draft autobiography, ch. XVII; Gordon Walker papers, Churchill College archives centre, GNWR 1/7, especially Attlee to Gordon Walker, 30 Apr. 1949.

19 DO 35/4119, & 4120; CAB 128/17/CM. 7(50)1, conclusions 3 Mar. 1950; CM. 11(50)7, conclusions 1 Mar. 1950. Although nobody challenged it, C.R.O. ministers later realized that the suspension of Seretse was almost certainly illegal, owing to defective wording of the proclamation: there were some scathing remarks about the ‘useless’ legal advice given by ‘cocksure and careless’ legal officers: see DO 35/4129.

20 House of Commons debates, 5th series, vol. 472, cc. 285–97 (8 03 1950)Google Scholar; vol. 473, cc. 334–58 (28 Mar. 1950). See also Brockway, Fenner, Towards tomorrow: an autobiography (London, 1977), p. 161Google Scholar; Goldsworthy, D., Colonial issues in British politics, 1945–1961 (Oxford, 1971), pp. 157–62, 241Google Scholar; Kahler, M., Decolonization in Britain and France: the domestic consequences of international relations (Princeton, NJ, 1984), pp. 238–9Google Scholar.

21 DO 35/4125/13; The Times, 7, 9, 17 and 18 Mar. 1950; Noel-Baker papers, Churchill College archives centre, NBKR 4/39; CO 847/45/47030/2/2 (Africa, original correspondence). I am grateful to Stephen Beecroft for discovering and transcribing Krishna Menon's representations in DO 121/121.

22 Gordon Walker papers, GNWR 1/9, diary 2 Apr. 1950; DO 35/4120/216, Baring to Gordon Walker, 10 Mar. 1950.

23 Smuts papers (microfilm), Cambridge university library, SP 95/180, Smuts to W. S. Churchill, 16 Mar 1950; see also DO 35/4018/92 for what Smuts told Baring.

24 DO 35/4120, & 4121, & 4122.

25 DO 35/4121/484, memo by Baring, June 1950; CAB 128/17/CM. 40(50)6, conclusions 29 June 1950. Cohen, for the colonial office, reluctantly agreed there was no effective alternative to excluding Seretse from Bechuanaland (CO 537/5926, minute 28 June 1950).

26 CAB 129/38/CP(50)138, memo 26 June 1950; CAB 129/46/CP(51)173, memo 22 June 1951. Both Noel-Baker and Gordon Walker, relying on Baring's impressions, tended to exaggerate African opposition to Seretse. Baxter of the C.R.O. was aware of this, while Cohen said it plainly was not right to suggest that Africans outside southern Africa would welcome non-recognition. A number of southern African black leaders were, however, certainly against recognition, perhaps because the marriage was seen as a bad example (‘what the lion does the jackal will copy’): notably S. Thema (editor of the widely circulating Bantu World), Dr A. B. Xuma (president of the African National Congress), and Sobhuza II of Swaziland. Sobhuza privately felt Seretse should ‘abdicate’, because the end result (if a son should also marry a European) would be a white chief, but he also keenly realized that a violent South African reaction would endanger the High Commission Territories as a whole; nevertheless, Sobhuza disliked the idea of overruling kgotla. The Bangwaketse chief Bathoen II was quoted as opposed to recognition, but it was not explained that he was a life-long friend of Tshekedi's. Baring tended to argue that the absence of editorial comment in Imvo Zabantsundu indicated a lack of Zulu and Xhosa interest. African opinion in Southern Rhodesia, he claimed vaguely, was ‘swinging against Seretse’. But generally African opinion was decidedly mixed in southern Africa, and those who supported non-recognition did so reluctantly. Evidence that white ‘liberals’ were often against recognition was also exaggerated: D. Rheinallt Jones and Q. Whyte (director of the South African institute of race relations) were only against recognition on balance. (See DO 35/4114/47, and 4118/5 and 13, and 4131/121, and 4133/324; CO 537/5927.)

27 PREM 8/1308, minute by N. Brook, 28 June 1950; CAB 129/38/CP(50)36, memo 14 Mar. 1950, and draft White Paper; DO 35/4115; House of Assembly debates, vol. 71, cc. 3619–20 (24 03 1950)Google Scholar. The White Paper was published as Cmd. 7913: Parliamentary Papers (1950), XIX. See also Sillery, A., Botswana, a short political history (London, 1974), p. 149Google Scholar.

28 DO 35/4011/5, & 4131.

29 CAB 129/42/CP(50)214, memo 25 Sept. 1950; CAB 129/45/CP(51)109, memo 16 Apr. 1951; PREM 8/1284, minute by Syers, 22 Aug. 1950. See also DO 35/3839; CO 537/5710; FO 371/88560 and 91171; DO 35/3140/55, high commissioner to secretary of state, 30 June 1951; Ovendale, R., ‘The South African policy of the British Labour Government, 1947–51’, International Affairs, LIX (1983), pp. 51–8Google Scholar.

30 The main C.R.O. file on Tshekedi was Y 3480/37, parts I–VII; DO 35/4132–4138. See also Benson, , Tshekedi Khama, pp. 173–272Google Scholar.

31 DO 35/4132/12, Gordon Walker (Cape Town) to Liesching, 7 Feb. 1951; DO 35/4133, minutes by Liesching (6 Apr. 1951) and Gordon Walker (6 Apr. and 15 June 1951); CAB 129/45/CP(51)103, memo 9 Apr. 1951, and CP(51)109, memo 16 Apr. 1951, and CP(51)145, memo 28 May 1951.

32 DO 35/4133.

33 CAB 129/46/CP(51)173, memo 22 June 1951, and CP(51)177, memo 24 June 1951; CAB 128/19/CM. 45(51)2, conclusions 21 June 1951, and CM. 46(51)4, conclusions 25 June 1951; CAB 128/20/CM. 51(51)3, conclusions 12 July 1951; DO 35/4134.

34 House of Commons debates, 5th series, vol. 489, cc. 1190–1318 (26 06 1951)Google Scholar; see also House of Lords debates, vol. 172, cc. 380–448 (27 06 1951)Google Scholar. The government was defeated in the Lords.

35 Since the opposition parties declined to nominate back-bench M.P.s, the observers were independent ‘individuals of standing’ chosen by the government: Prof. W. M. Macmillan (director of colonial studies at St Andrew's), H. L. Bullock (General and Municipal Workers' Union, past president of the T.U.C., and a widely-travelled man), and D. L. Lipson (a Gloucestershire county councillor, former headmaster and ex-Independent-M.P. for Cheltenham). It was said of this ill-assorted trio that ‘they came, they saw, they quarrelled’. See DO 35/4135, & 4140; CAB 129/46/CP(51)198, memo 11 July 1951; CAB 129/47/CP(51)250, memo 22 Sept. 1951, with annexes; CAB 128/20/CM. 60(51)8, conclusions 27 Sept. 1951; PREM 8/1308, part II.

36 DO 35/4136, especially no. 712, Liesching to Sir J. Le Rougetel, 28 Sept. 1951, and replies thereto, 22 Oct. 1951 (nos. 718, 727); no. 729, note on Bangwato affairs [by Clark, 29 Oct. 1951]; DO 121/148/45.

37 DO 35/4135, especially no. 590, draft note [by Clark], 20 Aug. 1951; DO 35/4136/733 A.

38 DO 121/148/37 and 40, notes by Lord Ismay, 4 and 22 Nov. 1951.

39 CAB 129/48/C(51)21, memo 19 Nov. 1951, and C(51)49, memo 17 Dec. 1951 (Transfer of the High Commission Territories); CAB 128/23/CC(51)10/5, conclusions 22 Nov. 1951, and CC(51)11/4, conclusions 27 Nov. 1951, and CC(51)18/6 and 7, conclusions 19 Dec. 1951.

40 DO 35/4137. Three assistant district officers memoralized the secretary of state, asking him to reconsider the policy of letting Tshekedi retunno the reserve. They were reprimanded for their ‘presumption and partisan blindness’ and then transferred. See DO 35/4138/970.

41 DO 35/4138/1058, Ismay to Churchill, 14 Mar. 1952, and no. 1065 A, Lord Salisbury to P Churchill, 18 Mar. 1952.

42 CAB 129/50/C(52)76, memo 13 Mar. 1952; CO 537/7776; DO 121/151.

43 CAB 128/24/CC(52)34/1, conclusions 27 Mar. 1952; CAB 129/50/C(52)76, memo 13 Mar. 1952; House of Commons debates, vol. 498, cc. 896–960 (27 03 1952)Google Scholar, and vol.499, cc. 1615–26 (30 Apr. 1952); House of Lords debates, vol. 175, cc. 1099–1166 (31 03 1952)Google Scholar.

44 About 150 letters (most, but not all, of them protesting about the government's policy) were received in the C.R.O., together with formal representations, which, in the case of the Labour party, were usually in the form of composite resolutions condemning both the policies for Seretse and for the Central African Federation. See DO 121/151; DO 35/4144, and 4145, and 4146, and 4147, and 4149; FO 371/96649.

45 Wingate, R., Lord Ismay, a biography (London, 1970), p. 188Google Scholar, grossly over-estimates the minister's influence on policy-making. An altogether safer general guide is Lynn, J. & Jay, A., The complete ‘Yes, minister’: the diaries of a cabinet minister, by lit. Hon. James Hacker, M.P. (London, 1984), especially pp. 336–7Google Scholar. See also Seldon, A., Churchill's Indian summer: the Conservative government, 1951–1955 (London, 1981), p. 337Google Scholar.

46 Sillery, , Botswana, p. 150Google Scholar, ascribes the government's ‘timid fear’ of confessing the South Afrićan factor to the role of the high commissioner. This is wrong: it was cabinet, both in 1950 and in 1952, which insisted on silence, against the advice of the high commissioner, and, in 1952, against the advice of the departmental minister as well. See CAB 128/24/CC(52) 31/4, conclusions 18 Mar. 1952, and CC(52)33/7, conclusions 25 Mar. 1952; CAB 129/50/C(52)76, memo 13 Mar. 1952, and C(52)81, memo 21 Mar. 1952.

47 CAB 129/46/CP(51)173, memo 22 June 1951; DO 35/4018/60; D. 119/1172, high commissioner to secretary of state, memo and dispatch, 8 July 1954. The events of January 1986 in Lesotho, when South African pressure toppred the government of Chief Jonathan and installed a more compliant regime, suggest that British fears were by no means fantasies.

48 Tshekedi returned to the reserve in October 1952. Rasebolai in May 1953 was appointed African Authority ‘without prejudice’, but failed to secure designation as chief. Tshekedi and Seretse became reconciled. Seretse was allowed to return as a private individual in the autumn of 1956. Rasebolai then chaired the tribal advisory council, Seretse acted as vice-chairman, and, Tshekedi as secretary (until his death in 1959). Seretse founded the Bechuanaland democratic party in 1962, became prime minister in 1965, and first president of Botswana in 1966. Ruth and Seretse had four children. Seretse Khama Ian Khama, the eldest son, became chief of the Bangwato in 1979. Seretse died in 1980. For a tribute to his statesmanship, see Redcliffe-Maud, J., Experiences of an optimist: memoirs (London, 1981), pp. 187–90Google Scholar, ‘Sir Seretse Khama: memorial address in Westminster Abbey’ (7 Aug. 1980).