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ASSISTING MRS TOMMY ATKINS: GENDER, CLASS, PHILANTHROPY, AND THE DOMESTIC IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, 1899–1902*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2017

ELIZA RIEDI
ELIZA RIEDI*
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
*
School of History, University of Leicester, le1 7rh[email protected]
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Abstract

Despite the well-established historiography examining the South African war's impact upon British society, little attention has been paid to the plight of British soldiers’ families or to the charitable efforts mobilized to maintain them in the absence of adequate state support. This article, focusing on the key charity in the field, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association (SSFA), examines the SSFA's wartime policies and considers how the Association's actions influenced subsequent state policy-making. It explores the motivations and attitudes of its middle-class, mostly female, volunteers, on whose sustained commitment the work of the SSFA depended. In analysing the sources of the SSFA's funding, it considers how class and regionality shaped public giving to patriotic philanthropy. Finally, it investigates how perceptions of soldiers’ wives and mechanisms for their support in the First World War were affected by the South African war experience. Overall, the article aims both to demonstrate the importance of philanthropic aid to soldiers’ families in understanding the domestic impact of this imperial war, and to trace the longer-term effects on the development of policies towards servicemen's dependants.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 745 - 769
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

The research for this article was funded by a British Academy Small Grant. I am also grateful to the SSAFA – the Armed Forces charity for permission to read and quote from its unpublished papers; to Gloucestershire Archives for permission to quote from the papers of Mary (‘May’) Ruth Lloyd-Baker; and to James Bothwell and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.

References

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2 van Heyningen, E., ‘The voices of women in the South African war’, South African Historical Journal, 41 (1999), pp. 22–43 Google Scholar, at p. 23.

3 A. Thompson, ‘Publicity, philanthropy and commemoration: British society and the war’, in Omissi and Thompson, eds., Impact of the South African war, p. 106. This essay includes the most extensive discussion to date of the Boer war funds for servicemen's families (pp. 106–13); the South African war work of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association (SSFA) is also touched on in the studies of the First World War referenced at n. 5 below.

4 See e.g. Beckett, I., The Victorians at war (London, 2003), ch. 21Google Scholar, ‘A question of totality’. This is not of course to suggest any equivalence between the wartime experiences of British and Boer women and children.

5 Pedersen, S., ‘Gender, welfare, and citizenship in Britain during the Great War’, American Historical Review, 95 (1990), pp. 983–1006 Google Scholar; G. R. C. Thomas, ‘State maintenance for women during the First World War: the case of separation allowances and pensions’ (D.Phil. thesis, Sussex, 1989); Lomas, J., ‘“Delicate duties”: issues of class and respectability in government policy towards the wives and widows of British soldiers in the era of the Great War’, Women's History Review, 9 (2000), pp. 123–47Google Scholar; Bland, L., ‘In the name of protection: the policing of women in the First World War’, in Brophy, J. and Smart, C., eds., Women-in-law: explorations in law, family and sexuality (London, 1985)Google Scholar; Smith, A., Discourses surrounding British widows of the First World War (London, 2013)Google Scholar. See also Grant, P., Philanthropy and voluntary action in the First World War: mobilizing charity (London, 2014), pp. 23–7Google Scholar.

6 M. D. Blanch, ‘British society and the war’, in Warwick and Spies, eds., South African war, p. 229.

7 See Times, 22 Feb. 1899; Beckett, I., The amateur military tradition, 1558–1945 (Manchester, 1991), pp. 200–5Google Scholar; Beckett, Victorians at war, pp. 223–4; Miller, Volunteers, p. 57; Army and militia: annual report of the inspector-general of recruiting for the year 1900 [Cd 519], 1901, p. 4.

8 Trustram, M., Women of the regiment: marriage and the Victorian army (Cambridge, 1984), p. 40Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., esp. chs. 3, 5, and 6; Cairns, W. E., Social life in the British army (London, 1900), pp. 74–6Google Scholar; Hardy, E. J., Mr Thomas Atkins (London, 1900), pp. 381–2Google Scholar.

10 Times, 10 Jan. 1900. Reservists employed by government departments received half-pay during their army service (Times, 8 Nov. 1899).

11 Trustram, Women, pp. 152–7, 170–7.

12 Stearn, R. T., ‘A great philanthropist: Sir James Gildea and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association’, Soldiers of the Queen: Journal of the Victorian Military Society, 142 (2010), pp. 3–9 Google Scholar, at pp. 3–5; Trustram, Women, pp. 179–81.

13 SSFA, Leaflet 6, printed in SSFA, Fifteenth annual report for the year ending 31 December 1899; Winchester, Hampshire Record Office, Lucy Ogilvy papers, 38M49/E7/55.

14 See e.g. Times, 9 Mar. 1900 – and the robust response from a female volunteer, 19 Mar. 1900.

15 SSFA, Annual report for … 1899, p. xix; SSFA, Seventeenth annual report for the year ending 31 December 1901, pp. 16, 19. The SSFA report for each year includes a report of the annual meeting held the following summer.

16 Prochaska, F., The voluntary impulse: philanthropy in modern Britain (London, 1988), pp. 43–4Google Scholar; see also Prochaska, F., Women and philanthropy in nineteenth-century England (Oxford, 1980), ch. 4Google Scholar; Summers, A., ‘A home from home – women's philanthropic work in the nineteenth century’, in Burman, S., ed., Fit work for women (London, 1979)Google Scholar.

17 SSFA, Leaflet 6, printed in SSFA, Annual report for … 1899.

18 Stearn, ‘Great philanthropist’, p. 6; Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association executive committee minutes (SSFA exec. mins.), 24 Mar. 1900, London, SSAFA – the Armed Forces charity.

19 Trustram, Women, pp. 183–6; Stearn, ‘Great philanthropist’, pp. 4–5.

20 Times, 1 Nov. 1899.

21 Trustram, Women, p. 180.

22 SSFA exec. mins., 1 Nov. 1900; Gildea, Sir J., Historical record of the work of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association from 1885 to 1916 (London, 1916), p. 107Google Scholar.

23 SSFA circular Transvaal War (TW) no. 2A (1 Dec. 1899); SSFA circulars TW, nos. 1–3 plus 2A and 2B are printed in Appendix J of War Relief Funds Committee (Cd 248), 1900.

24 SSFA circular TW no. 2 (24 Oct. 1899).

25 Ibid. no. 2A.

26 For Edwardian social investigators, see e.g. Rowntree, S., Poverty: a study of town life (London, 1902), p. 135Google Scholar; Reeves, M. Pember, Round about a pound a week (London, 1913), pp. 68, 156Google Scholar. For an early example of feminist history, see Oren, L., ‘The welfare of women in laboring families: England, 1860–1950’, in Hartman, M. S. and Banner, L., eds., Clio's consciousness raised (New York, NY, 1974)Google Scholar.

27 Cd 248, pp. 12–13 (Gildea's evidence); SSFA circular TW no. 2A.

28 SSFA circular TW no. 2.

29 Pedersen, ‘Gender’, pp. 1005, 984–5. The state did not adopt the SSFA's approach of linking grants to the soldier's civilian pay, however, but paid allowances at a flat rate correlated to the soldier's rank.

30 Register of cases, 1899–1902, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association, Cheadle Division, Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, 5493/1 (Cheadle casebook); minutes of Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association, Burton upon Trent Division, Lichfield, Lichfield Record Office, D34/1 (Burton mins.). The Cheadle casebook includes thirty-nine cases, but gives details for only thirty-seven; for Burton details are given of the dependants of 119 soldiers assisted by the SSFA.

31 Thane, P., Old age in English history: past experiences, present issues (Oxford, 2002), p. 176Google Scholar.

32 Thomas, ‘State maintenance’, ch. 4. During the First World War, parents of servicemen killed on active service also for the first time became eligible for state pensions.

33 Cd 248, p. 7 (Gildea's evidence); Lloyd's Weekly, 28 Jan. 1900; Standard, 5 Feb. 1900.

34 Times, 21 Oct. 1901.

35 Mary (‘May’) Ruth Lloyd-Baker, diary (Lloyd-Baker diary), 30 Oct. 1899, 4 Jan., 12 Jan. 1900, Gloucester, Gloucestershire Archives, Lloyd-Baker papers, D3549/31/1/3 Part 2.

36 SSFA, Thirtieth Annual Report, 1914–1915, p. 1874 (Special General Meeting held 28 Jan. 1915); see also Grayzel, S., Women's identities at war: gender, motherhood, and politics in Britain and France during the First World War (Chapel Hill, NC, 1999), pp. 91–4Google Scholar.

37 Thomas, ‘State maintenance’, p. 163.

38 Gildea, Historical record, p. 86.

39 Cheadle casebook (cross-referenced with 1901 census).

40 SSFA exec. mins., 24 Nov. 1900.

41 Daily Telegraph (Napier), 30 Sept. 1901.

42 Cd 248, p. 10 (Gildea's evidence); Pedersen, ‘Gender’, pp. 985, 996–1000; Thomas, ‘State maintenance’, pp. 187, 227–8.

43 Vane, M., ‘Provision for our soldiers and sailors’, National Review, 37 (1901), pp. 760–4Google Scholar, at p. 761.

44 Trustram, Women, pp. 179–80; Lomas, ‘“Delicate duties”’, p. 126.

45 Times, 14 Oct. 1899; Cd 248, p. 5 (Gildea's evidence); Caroline Beach to Colonel Ogilvy, 16 Nov. 1899, Hampshire Record Office, Lucy Ogilvy papers, 38M49/E7/55.

46 Including Birmingham (where the SSFA dealt with regulars’ families only) and Manchester. In spring 1900, the Manchester fund was supporting 2,500 cases and the Birmingham fund 2,200; the total number of soldiers’ dependants requiring assistance during the South African war is therefore greater than the SSFA figure. Cd 248, pp. 98–100, 138.

47 Cd 248, p. 5 (Gildea's evidence). For voluntary organizations’ difficulties in recruiting volunteers for East London, see Prochaska, Women and philanthropy, pp. 108–9.

48 Cd 248, p. 90 (C. S. Loch's evidence).

49 Ibid., p. 11 (Gildea's evidence).

50 Ibid., p. 13 (Gildea's evidence).

51 Daily Chronicle, 4 Jan. 1900.

52 Ibid., 30 Dec. 1899; see also 2 Jan., 4 Jan., 6 Jan., 13 Jan. 1900.

53 Lloyd's Weekly, 14 Jan. 1900; see also 21 Jan. 1900.

54 Daily Chronicle, 5 Jan. 1900.

55 SSFA exec. mins., 17 Feb. 1900.

56 Ibid.

57 Times, 26 Feb. 1900; see also Times, 16 Feb., 24 Feb. 1900. The Daily Mail, however, attacking the Times’s comments as tasteless and inaccurate, commended the SSFA's break with the COS and continued to promote it as ‘The Best Fund’ (Daily Mail, 10 Mar. 1900).

58 Times, 26 Jan., 19 Mar., 24 Mar. 1900; SSFA exec. mins., 17 Feb. 1900. Though the COS still bore a grudge a decade later, a similar situation in the First World War led to renewed SSFA–COS co-operation in London ( Bosanquet, H., Social work in London, 1869–1912 (London, 1914), pp. 380–6Google Scholar; Thomas, ‘State maintenance’, pp. 33, 36).

59 Times, 19 Mar. 1900.

60 Princess Louise to Lady Wolseley, n.d. [spring 1900], Hove, Hove Library, Wolseley papers.

61 Times, 27 June 1900, 24 June 1901.

62 Captain A. R. Hewitt to Mrs Ogilvy, 23 Feb. 1900, Hampshire Record Office, Lucy Ogilvy papers, 38M49/E7/55.

63 Pedersen, ‘Gender’, pp. 992–3.

64 Blakeley, B., ‘Women and imperialism: the Colonial Office and female emigration to South Africa, 1901–1910’, Albion, 13 (1981), pp. 131–49Google Scholar; Bush, J., Edwardian ladies and imperial power (Leicester, 2000)Google Scholar; Riedi, E., ‘Women, gender and the promotion of Empire : the Victoria League, 1901–1914’, Historical Journal, 45 (2002), pp. 569–99Google Scholar; Riedi, E., ‘Options for an imperialist woman : the case of Violet Markham, 1899–1914’, Albion, 32 (2000), pp. 59–84 Google Scholar; Van-Helten, J. J. and Williams, K., ‘The crying need of South Africa: the emigration of single British women to the Transvaal, 1901–1910’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 10 (1983), pp. 17–38 Google Scholar.

65 New Zealand Herald, 21 Apr. 1900.

66 Gloucestershire Archives, Lloyd-Baker papers, D3549/31/1/5 and D3549/31/1/6; Lloyd-Baker diary, 9 Dec., 15 Dec. 1900; Western Daily Press, 14 May 1903; Gloucester Citizen, 10 Feb. 1906.

67 Nation in Arms, Jan. 1910.

68 Daily Mail, 8 Oct. 1900; Derby Daily Telegraph, 9 Nov. 1900.

69 Lloyd-Baker diary, 4 Jan. 1900.

70 Ibid., 7 Dec. 1899, 14 Jan. 1900.

71 Ibid., 18 Oct. 1899.

72 Ibid., 24 Oct, 26 Oct. 1899.

73 Ibid., 4 Dec., 11 Dec. 1899, 15 Jan. 1900.

74 Ibid., 2 Dec. 1899.

75 Princess Louise to Lady Wolseley, n.d. [spring 1900], Hove Library, Wolseley papers.

76 Burton mins., list of cases.

77 H. O. Arnold-Forster, in 1898, quoted in Skelley, A. R., The Victorian army at home (London, 1977), p. 244Google Scholar; see also e.g. French, D., Military identities: the regimental system, the British army, and the British people c. 1870–2000 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 248–53Google Scholar. For conditions, see e.g. Skelley, Victorian army; Spiers, E. M., The late Victorian army, 1868–1902 (Manchester, 1992), ch. 5Google Scholar. For the soldier as popular hero in late nineteenth-century Britain, see e.g. MacKenzie, J. M., ‘Introduction: popular imperialism and the military’, in MacKenzie, ed., Popular imperialism and the military, 1850–1950 (Manchester, 1992)Google Scholar.

78 Lloyd-Baker diary, 29 Nov. 1899.

79 Burton mins., 30 Oct. 1899.

80 Minutes of evidence taken before the royal commission on divorce and matrimonial causes (Cd 6480), 1912–13, vol. ii, p. 373 (Millicent Garrett Fawcett's evidence).

81 Lloyd-Baker diary, 11 Oct., 23 Oct., 30 Oct., 3 Nov., 6 Nov., 10 Nov. 1899.

82 Lloyd-Baker diary, 10 Jan. 1900.

83 Burton mins., 23 Oct. 1899. Because of the volunteer shortage, in some London districts soldiers’ dependants instead collected their allowance weekly from a central office (see Lady V. Greville, ‘Reservists’ wives at home’, Pall Mall Gazette, 24 Feb. 1900, for a sentimentalized description). This method was criticized both as a failure of supervision and as forcing undesirable social mixing between ‘decent, self-respecting’ reservists’ dependants and ‘rude coarse soldiers’ wives’ (Times, 24 Feb. 1900).

84 Pedersen, ‘Gender’, pp. 992–3.

85 Lloyd-Baker diary, 23 Nov., 28 Dec. 1899; Gloucestershire Archives, Lloyd-Baker papers, D3549/31/1/3 Part 1.

86 Burton mins., 13 Nov., 20 Nov. 1899.

87 SSFA circular TW no. 2; Brodie, M., The politics of the poor: the East End of London, 1885–1914 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 115–24Google Scholar.

88 R. Kipling, ‘The absent-minded beggar’, Daily Mail, 31 Oct. 1899.

89 Lee, J., ‘Following Rudyard Kipling's “The absent-minded beggar”’, Kipling Journal, 85 (2011), pp. 6–26 Google Scholar, at p. 6. The poem did, however, attract some criticism for its curious pinning of blame for the families’ situation upon the soldiers themselves, allegedly ‘absent-minded’ about their domestic responsibilities – see e.g. Shields Daily Gazette, 19 Feb. 1900.

90 SSFA exec. mins., 24 Mar. 1900.

91 Times, 9 Aug. 1902; Gildea, Historical record, pp. 106–7. Gildea boasted that under 1 per cent – itself a substantial amount – was spent on administration and advertising: a skeleton staff ran the central office and local committees hiring offices or secretarial assistance were severely reprimanded (Gildea, Historical record, pp. 101, 107; SSFA exec. mins., 2 Mar., 29 Mar., 3 May 1901).

92 Times, 25 May 1903; SSFA exec. mins., 24 Mar. 1900.

93 Times, 1 Jan., 5 Jan. 1901; Gildea, Historical record, p. 94.

94 SSFA exec. mins., 1 Nov. 1900; Gildea, Historical record, p. 99.

95 Derby Daily Telegraph, 25 May 1901; Times, 26 Aug. 1900, 25 Feb. 1902; SSFA, Eighteenth annual report for the year ending 31 December 1902, pp. 23–4.

96 Dundee Courier, 29 May 1901; Edinburgh Evening News, 10 May, 28 May 1901.

97 But not all: in Burton upon Trent the major breweries granted reservists’ families 10s a week but the Midland Railway, another important local employer, refused even to ‘allow men to be kept in benefit of their club’ (Burton mins., 29 Jan. 1900).

98 For the importance of ‘working-class to working-class’ charity generally, see Prochaska, Voluntary impulse, pp. 27–31; for the First World War, see Grant, P., ‘“An infinity of personal sacrifice”: the scale and nature of charitable work in Britain during the First World War’, War & Society, 27 (2008), pp. 67–88 Google Scholar, at pp. 71–2.

99 Gildea, Historical record, p. 86; SSFA, Annual report for … 1900, pp. xiii–xv. For Glasgow Trades Council's protests both against allowances being determined by the man's wages rather than by need, and against ‘ladies, however well intentioned, going into houses making inquisitive inquiries’, see Glasgow Herald, 16 Dec. 1899.

100 Burton Mail, 12 Feb. 1900.

101 Weekly Mail (Cardiff), 18 Nov. 1899. But in 1901, incensed by the imposition of a coal tax, Abraham ‘protested against the district any longer being made a tool to collect any money in connection with the war’ (Cardiff Times, 18 May 1901).

102 Rose, J., The intellectual life of the British working classes (New Haven, CT, and London, 2001), pp. 336–8Google Scholar.

103 Thompson, ‘Publicity’, p. 112.

104 Beaven, B., ‘The provincial press, civic ceremony and the citizen-soldier during the Boer war, 1899–1902: a study of local patriotism’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 37 (2009), pp. 207–28Google Scholar, at p. 216.

105 Notably the Birmingham Daily Mail Reservist fund which raised nearly £56,000 (‘mainly … by the weekly subscriptions of over 50,000 working men and women’) and the Manchester, Salford, and District War Fund, which raised over £75,000 (Col. Hart, C. J., The history of the 1st Volunteer Battalion, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and its predecessors (Birmingham, 1906), pp. 232–3Google Scholar; Manchester Guardian, 9 Apr. 1902).

106 Report from the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons on charitable agencies for relief of widows and orphans of soldiers and sailors (289) 1901, p. 104; Burton mins., 11 Mar. 1901. The similarly provincial focus of much First World War charity is emphasized in Pedersen, S., ‘A surfeit of socks? The impact of the First World War on women correspondents to daily newspapers’, Scottish Economic & Social History, 22 (2002), pp. 50–72 Google Scholar.

107 Times, 1 Nov. 1899; see also French, Military identities, pp. 244–5, and for the difficulties in establishing this local connection, ibid., esp. ch. 9.

108 SSFA exec. mins., 29 Mar. 1901; SSFA circular TW no. 9.

109 Daily Mail, 2 Apr. 1901.

110 Cheadle casebook.

111 Thomas, ‘State maintenance’, ch. 5; Pedersen, ‘Gender’, p. 996. Subsequently dismissed as unfounded, these allegations nevertheless prompted the government to subject servicemen's dependants to a system of state surveillance.

112 Manchester Evening News, 5 Apr. 1915; see also e.g. General Booth's comments, Aberdeen Evening Express, 16 Nov. 1914.

113 See e.g. Derby Daily Telegraph, 8 Aug. 1900; Gloucester Citizen, 14 Sept. 1900.

114 Grayzel, Women's identities, pp. 2–8. For the development of this ideology in the aftermath of the South African war, see Davin, A., ‘Imperialism and motherhood’, History Workshop Journal, 5 (1978), pp. 9–65 Google Scholar.

115 Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 30 Jan. 1902; Coventry Evening Telegraph, 8 May 1901.

116 For the NSPCC and alcoholism, see Behlmer, G. K., Child abuse and moral reform in England, 1870–1908 (Stanford, CA, 1982), pp. 179–80Google Scholar; and NSPCC, Inebriate mothers and their reform: being the report for 1902–1903 (London, 1903)Google Scholar.

117 See reports on 12 July 1900 in e.g. Morning Post, Dundee Courier, Western Mail, Birmingham Daily Post. For a ‘Reservist's Wife's’ indignant rebuttal of allegations of widespread drunkenness and defence of soldiers’ wives as ‘sober respectable women … doing their best to keep intact the homes that Tommy left behind him’, see Edinburgh Evening News, 15 Oct. 1900.

118 Trustram, Women, pp. 186–7.

119 ‘Mrs Thomas Atkins on the war’, Isle of Wight Observer, 25 Nov. 1899 (reprinted from To-day).

120 Hansard's parliamentary debates, HL Deb., 25 June 1901, vol. 95, c. 1358.

121 See e.g. Northern Echo, 6 Dec. 1899; Bristol Mercury, 6 Dec. 1899; Cambridge Daily News, 7 Dec. 1899; Burnley Express, 16 Dec. 1899.

122 Editorials, Times, 9 Apr. 1901, Manchester Guardian, 30 Apr. 1902.

123 State pensions for widows of soldiers dying in action or from wounds or disease on active service since 11 Oct. 1899 were introduced in 1901. Widows of privates received 5s a week plus 1s 6d per child; pensions were withdrawn on remarriage or ‘misconduct’ (Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, HC Deb., 29 Mar. 1901; Times, 12 June, 26 June 1901).

124 SSFA exec. mins., 17 July 1900. A draft version (exec. mins., 16 June 1900) had been stronger, omitting ‘in the main’ and ‘wholly’. Charitable support for soldiers’ widows was administered through the Royal Patriotic Fund.

125 Lloyd-Baker diary, 29 Nov. 1899.

126 Burton mins., 30 July 1900.

127 SSFA, Annual report for … 1902, p. 13.

128 Report of committee on separation allowance, &c., 1903, London, The National Archives, WO 33/2895.

129 Simkins, P., Kitchener's army: the raising of the new armies, 1914–1916 (Manchester, 1988), pp. 106–7Google Scholar; Pedersen, ‘Gender’, pp. 992–5; Thomas, ‘State maintenance’, pp. 29–48.

130 Across the Boer war years, only about a hundred ‘wives of soldiers, sailors and marines’ were in receipt of outdoor parish relief in England and Wales (Pauperism (England and Wales) (half-yearly statements), 1900 (136), p. iii, 1901 (73), p. iv, 1902 (121), p. iv). For soldiers’ families and poor relief see Trustram, Women, ch. 8.