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‘SANDERS OF THE RIVER, STILL THE BEST JOB FOR A BRITISH BOY’; RECRUITMENT TO THE COLONIAL ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE AT THE END OF EMPIRE*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2016

CHRIS JEPPESEN
CHRIS JEPPESEN*
Affiliation:
University College London
*
University College London, Gower Street, London, wc1e 6bt[email protected]
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Abstract

In February 1951, the Sunday Express printed a piece extolling the virtues of a Colonial Service career, under the headline: ‘Sanders of the River, Still the Best Job for a British Boy’. This article explores the ideological and practical reasons why Sanders of the River, a character apparently so at odds with the post-Second World War Colonial Service message, continued to hold enough cultural resonance that it was considered appropriate to utilize him as a recruitment tool in 1951. Edgar Wallace's literary creation occupied a defining place in metropolitan understandings of the Colonial Service's work. Yet, by 1951, the ideological aims of the colonial project were changing. Sanders's paternalism had been dismissed in favour of a rhetoric that emphasized partnership and progress. The post-1945 district officer was expected to be a modern administrator, ready to work alongside educated Africans to prepare Britain's colonies for self-government. Exploring both Colonial Office recruitment strategies and recruits’ career motivations, this article situates the often ignored issue of Colonial Service recruitment at the end of empire within a wider cultural context to illuminate why, even as many turned away from careers in empire after 1945, a significant number of young Britons continued to apply.

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Articles
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The Historical Journal , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 469 - 508
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

My thanks to the anonymous reviewers for the Historical Journal for their comments and suggestions. I would like to offer sincere thanks to Peter Mandler for his support during my research for this article and helpful feedback on earlier drafts. I am also grateful for the support and comments offered by Emma Hunter, Margot Finn, Susan Imrie, Anthony Kirk-Greene, and Andrew W. M. Smith.

References

1 Sunday Express, 25 Feb. 1951.

2 David Glover, ‘Wallace, Edgar (1875–1932)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography; see also Clive Bloom, Bestsellers: popular fiction since 1900 (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 59, 130–1; Philip Waller, Writers, readers and reputations: literary life in Britain, 1870–1918 (Oxford, 2006), pp. 673–5; Q. D. Leavis, Fiction and the reading public (London, 1932), pp. 6–8. On the film version, see Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, Best of British: cinema and society from 1930 to the present (London, 1999), pp. 20–36.

3 Edgar Wallace, Sanders of the River (Kelly Bray, 2001; first publ. 1911).

4 A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, ‘The Colonial Service in the novel’, in John Smith, ed., Administering empire: the British Colonial Service in retrospect (London, 1999), p. 26.

5 Sunday Express, 25 Feb. 1951.

6 J. F. de S. Lewis-Barned, ‘A fanfare of trumpets’, unpublished memoir, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS.Afr.s.1778, p. 1.

7 Arthur Creech Jones (under secretary of state for the colonies), statement in the House of Commons on colonial affairs, 9 July 1946, Hansard, vol. 425, cc. 237–352.

8 Amongst the best of such surveys are Ronald Hyam, Britain's declining empire: the road to decolonisation, 1918–1968 (Cambridge, 2006), chs. 2–4; Hyam, Ronald, ‘Africa and the Labour government, 1945–1951’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 16 (1988), pp. 148–72Google Scholar; David Goldsworthy, Colonial issues in British politics, 1945–1961 (Oxford, 1970), passim; Frank Heinlein, British government policy and decolonisation, 1945–1963: scrutinizing the official mind (London, 2002); Phillip Murphy, Party politics and decolonization: the Conservative party and British colonial policy in tropical Africa, 1951–1964 (Oxford, 1995).

9 Goldsworthy, David, ‘Keeping change within bounds: aspects of colonial policy during the Churchill and Eden governments, 1951–1957’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 18 (1990), pp. 81–108Google Scholar. Arguing that the 1950s witnessed a concerted reassertion of colonial control, see Martin Lynn, ed., The British empire in the 1950s: retreat or revival (Basingstoke, 2006).

10 Colony-specific studies have tended to dominate but taken together offer a revealing account of the challenges faced across Africa after 1945. See for example John  Iliffe, A modern history of Tanganyika (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 436–84; Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African society: the labor question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996); Rathbone, Richard, ‘The transfer of power and colonial civil servants in Ghana’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28 (2000), pp. 67–84Google Scholar; Lynn, Martin, ‘The Nigerian self-government crisis of 1953 and the Colonial Office’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 34 (2006), pp. 245–61Google Scholar. For an excellent account of the confused, competing, and often contradictory voices attempting to shape colonial strategy after 1945, see Joanna Lewis, Empire state-building: war and welfare in Kenya, 1925–1952 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 82–123.

11 Frederick Cooper, Africa since 1940: the past of the present (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 49–53.

12 The classic, although flawed, study of the Colonial Service and motivation behind an application is Robert Heussler, Yesterday's rulers: the making of the British Colonial Service (Syracuse, NY, 1963). Many of Heussler's romanticized assumptions have been debunked in Nile Gardiner, ‘Sentinels of empire: the British Colonial Administrative Service, 1919–1954’ (Ph.D. thesis, Yale, 1998). Gardiner's conclusion that the Colonial Service predominantly comprised sons of the professional middle-class, public schools, and Oxbridge supports earlier analyses of Britain's other principal imperial civil services. See also A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, Britain's imperial administrators, 1858–1966 (Basingstoke, 2000); Peter Duigan and L. H. Gann, Rulers of British Africa, 1870–1914 (London, 1978); Henrika Kuklick, The imperial bureaucrat: the Colonial Administrative Service in the Gold Coast, 1920–1939 (Stanford, CA, 1979), pp. 19–39.

13 Hyam, Britain's declining empire, p. 11. On the Sudan Political Service, see Mangan, J. A., ‘The education of an elite imperial administration: the Sudan Political Service (SPS) and the British public school system’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 15 (1982), pp. 671–99Google Scholar. For the Indian Civil Service (ICS), David Potter, India's political administrators, 1919–1983 (Oxford, 1983). Offering a comparative survey of all services, Kirk-Greene, Britain's imperial administrators.

14 ‘Report of a committee on the system of appointment in the Colonial Office and the Colonial Services’, Cmd 3554, 1930, Reports Commissioners 1929–1930, viii (London, 1930), p. 29. This was commonly known as the Warren Fisher Committee after its chairman. Fisher was permanent secretary to the treasury. The committee largely endorsed Furse's selection strategy and praised his ability to pick the ‘right man’.

15 Sir Ralph Furse, Aucuparius: recollections of a recruiting officer (Oxford, 1962), p. 228.

16 J. M. Lonsdale and D. A. Low, ‘Introduction: towards the new order, 1945–1963’, in D. A. Low and A. Smith, eds., History of East Africa (Oxford, 1976), p. 13.

17 Clarke, Sabine, ‘A technocratic imperial state? The Colonial Office and scientific research, 1940–1960’, Twentieth Century British History, 18 (2007), pp. 453–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sabine Clarke, ‘The chance to send their first class men out to the colonies: the making of the Colonial Research Service’, in B. Bennett and J. M. Hodge, eds., Science and empire: knowledge and networks of science in the British empire, 1850–1970 (Basingstoke, 2011), pp. 187–208; J. M. Hodge, Triumph of the expert: agrarian doctrines of development and the legacies of British colonialism (Athens, OH, 2007), pp. 205–9; Helen Tilley, Africa as a living laboratory: empire, development and the problem of scientific knowledge (Chicago, IL, 2011), p. 323.

18 A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, Symbol of authority: the British district officer in Africa (London, 2006), p. 15.

19 Significant studies that do situate imperial administrators in a wider cultural settings include J. A. Mangan, The games ethic and imperialism: aspects of the diffusion of the ideal (Harmondsworth, 1986); Christopher Prior, Exporting empire: Africa, colonial officials and the construction of the British imperial state, c. 1900–1939 (Manchester, 2013).

20 Clarke, ‘A technocratic imperial state?’, pp. 453–4.

21 Wendy Webster, Englishness and empire, 1939–1965 (Oxford, 2005); Bill Schwarz, The white man's world (memories of empire), i (Oxford, 2013).

22 A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, On crown service: a history of HM Colonial and Overseas Civil Service, 1837–1997 (London, 1999), pp. 41–2; L. J. Butler, Britain and empire: adjusting to a post-imperial world (London, 2002), pp. 22–4.

23 Stephen Howe, Anticolonialism in British politics: the left and the end of empire, 1918–1964 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 143–4; R. D. Pearce, The turning point in Africa: British colonial policy, 1938–1948 (London, 1982), pp. 99–108.

24 W. H. Hailey, An African survey: a study of problems arising in Africa south of the Sahara (London, 1938); Stephen Constantine, The making of British colonial development policy, 1914–1940 (London, 1984), pp. 232–46. See also Margery Perham, ‘From power to service’, Listener, 23 Apr. 1943. Reprinted in Margery Perham, Colonial sequence, 1930–1949 (London, 1967), pp. 243–7.

25 Hodge, Triumph of the expert, pp. 179–80.

26 Hyam, Britain's declining empire, pp. 87–90; Goldsworthy, Colonial issues in British politics, pp. 15–36.

27 G. B. Cartland (CAS Gold Coast and Uganda, 1935–63) Colonial Office (CO) memorandum ‘Factors affecting native administrative policy’, Jan. 1946, The National Archives (TNA), CO847/25/7/1; A. F. Newbolt, CO memorandum, ‘Report of African tour 24th June–8th October 1946’, 15 Oct. 1946, Perham papers (PP), Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS.Perham/245/1. See also Pearce, R. D., ‘Morale in the Colonial Service in Nigeria during the Second World War’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 11 (1983), pp. 175–96Google Scholar.

28 Heinlein, British government policy and decolonisation, pp. 24–6.

29 For example, Andrew Cohen, CO memorandum ‘Native administration policy: notes for further discussion’, Apr. 1946, TNA, CO847/35/6/2; Arthur Creech Jones, ‘Local government: circular dispatch to African governors’, 25 Feb. 1947, TNA, CO847/35/6/15–24; Jones, Arthur Creech, ‘British colonial policy: with particular attention to Africa’, International Affairs, 27 (1951), p. 179Google Scholar.

30 ‘Statement on post-war recruitment for the Colonial Service’, broadcast on the BBC, 16 Sept. 1944, TNA, CO/877/22/7; Charles Jeffries, CO memorandum ‘Job analysis for the Colonial Service’, 1943, Furse papers (FP), Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/4/4/7.

31 CO memorandum ‘The university and the Colonial Service’, pp. 3–6, Oxford University Archives (OUA)/UR6/COL/4/10; Sir Sydney Caine, CO minute on ‘Memorandum on Colonial Service recruitment and training’, 9 Nov. 1947, TNA, CO877/31/5/1.

32 Handbook on post-war opportunities in the Colonial Service, 1945, FP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/4/4/4. On the problems of recruiting after 1918, see Furse, CO memorandum ‘Recruitment in the 1920s’, FP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/4/1/19; Alison Light, Forever England: femininity, literature and conservatism between the wars (London, 1991), pp. 8–10.

33 ‘Colonial Service appointments board report, 1931–34’, TNA, CO877/9/7; ‘Review of administrative cadets 1946’, TNA, CO/877/23/3.

34 Furse, CO memorandum, ‘An inquiry into the system of training the Colonial Service with suggestions for its reform to meet post-war conditions’, 1943, TNA, CO877/22/16. He wrote to Douglas Veale that ‘In fact it is [application rates] unlikely to reach anything like this summer's figures again at any rate until after the next world war!’, Furse to Veale, 25 Apr. 1946, OUA, UR6/COL/4/5.

35 For example, A. J. Cordy (CAS Nigeria, 1949–65), Overseas Pensioners’ Association Survey v, Towards a retrospective record, box 3 (2003), Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford; R. G. Hodgson (CAS Nigeria, 1947–63), Towards a retrospective record, box 4.

36 Furse, ‘Appendix to review of the position in regard to recruitment and training’, 9 Nov. 1947, FP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/4/4/6. Of the 560 men appointed to the CAS in 1946, only three had not seen active military service, CO memorandum ‘Post-war recruitment to the Colonial Service’, 1 May 1947, PP, MSS.Perham/245/1.

37 Colonial Service recruitment report Jan. 1952, Cambridge University Archives (CUA), CDEV/4/5.

38 A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, A biographical dictionary of the British Colonial Service, 1936–1966 (London, 1991), p. viii.

39 Ibid., p. vii.

40 Furse, CO memorandum ‘Review of the position in regard to recruitment and training’, 9 Nov. 1947, FP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/4/6.

41 ‘Colonial Office figures on recruitment, 1950/1951’, CUA, CDEV/3/5; CO to H. H. McCleery (Cambridge Devonshire Course Co-ordinator), 21 Jan. 1958, CUA, CDEV/4/7; Oxford University Appointments Board annual report, 1961, Oxford University Careers Service archive, OUA, CR1/8/61, p. 5. See also Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., ‘The thin white line: the size of the British Colonial Service in Africa’, African Affairs, 79 (1980), p. 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Letter from McCleery to Cambridge college tutors, 29 Sept. 1954, CUA, CDEV/4/6.

43 R. O. Greig (Colonial Office Recruitment Section) to McCleery, 5 Sept. 1954, CUA, CDEV/4/6.

44 Aldgate and Richards, Best of British, p. 24.

45 ‘Honouring Sanders of the River’, Daily Express, 16 Jan. 1937, p. 7. Bower hailed from the gentry and attended Harrow before serving during the occupation of Egypt in 1882, the first Sudan campaign, and the Jebu Expedition campaigns. He then transferred to the civil administration as Resident, Ibadan.

46 Peter Keating, The haunted study: a social history of the haunted novel, 1875–1914 (London, 1989), pp. 353–5. In the same genre, he mentions Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, G. A. Henty, A. E. W. Mason, John Buchan, and W. H. G. Kingston.

47 Jeffrey Richards, The age of the dream palace: cinema and society in Britain, 1930–1939 (London, 1984), pp. 249–50.

48 ‘Korda as imperialist’, Sunday Times, 7 Apr. 1935, p. 6.

49 ‘Film damaging to Nigeria’, Times, 22 Nov. 1957, p. 6.

50 For example, see Misra, Maria, ‘Colonial officers and gentlemen: the British empire and the globalization of “tradition”’, Journal of Global History, 3 (2008), pp. 135–61Google Scholar; David Spurr, The rhetoric of empire: colonial discourse in journalism, travel writing and imperial administration (London, 1993), pp. 68–9, 185–6.

51 Wallace, Sanders of the River, pp. 10–17. See also David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: how the British saw their empire (Oxford, 2001), pp. 66–70; Terence Ranger, ‘The invention of tradition in colonial Africa’, in Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger, eds., The invention of tradition (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 212–24.

52 Wallace, Sanders of the River, p. 74.

53 Edgar Wallace, Keepers of the king's peace (London, 1917).

54 Charles Allen, Plain tales from the British empire (London, 2008), pp. 316, 375; Kirk-Greene, Symbol of authority, pp. 11, 35.

55 Jeffrey Richards, ed., Imperialism and juvenile literature (Manchester, 1989), pp. 1–3; Martin Green, Dreams of adventure, deeds of adventure (London, 1980), passim; Webster, Englishness and empire, p. 6.

56 Jeffrey Richards, Happiest days: the public schools in English fiction (Manchester, 1988), pp. 142–8; John Tosh, A man's place: masculinity and the middle-class home in Victorian England (London, 1999), pp. 177–8; John Tosh, Manliness and masculinities in nineteenth-century England: essays on gender, family and empire (London, 2004), pp. 194–200.

57 Aldgate and Richards, Best of British, p. 24.

58 Andrew Thompson, The empire strikes back? The impact of imperialism on Britain from the mid-nineteenth century (Harlow, 2005), p. 105; Bernard Porter, The absent-minded imperialists: what the British really thought about empire (Oxford, 2004), pp. 180–7; Jonathan Rose, The intellectual life of the British working classes (2nd edn, London, 2010), pp. 321–64.

59 I am grateful to Professor John Lonsdale for this insight.

60 J. B. Carson, Sun, sand and safari: some leaves from a Kenya notebook (London, 1957), p. 13; Arthur Grimble, A pattern of islands (London, 1952), pp. 11–13.

61 A. V. Arthur (ICS 1937 and SPS 1948), unpublished memoir, Sudan Archive Durham (SAD), 726/7/1.

62 C. W. B. Costeloe (CAS Tanganyika, 1944), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

63 D. D. Yonge (CAS Tanganyika, 1948), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

64 R. B. Eberlie (CAS Tanganyika, 1957), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

65 Jeffries, ‘Job analysis for the Colonial Service’.

66 F. J. Pedler, minute on CO memorandum ‘Native administration policy’, 1 Nov. 1946, TNA, CO847/35/6.

67 ‘The university and the Colonial Service’, p. 6.

68 Annex by Sir Philip Mitchell to Arthur Creech Jones, ‘Local government dispatch, April 1947’, 30 May 1947, TNA, CO847/35/6/88.

69 Furse, ‘An inquiry into the system of training the Colonial Service with suggestions for its reform to meet post-war conditions’, 27 Feb. 1943, TNA, CO877/22/16.

70 Ibid.; also quoted in Kirk-Greene, On crown service, p. 43.

71 CO minute relating to ‘An inquiry into the system of training the Colonial Service’, 10 Apr. 1943, TNA, CO877/22/16. Furse made similar suggestions when the Colonial Service faced recruitment chaos in the aftermath of the First World War. See, for example, Furse, ‘A unified Colonial Service and notes on salaries’, 18 June 1919, FP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/1/2/11–12.

72 ‘Post-war training for the Colonial Service: report of a committee appointed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’ (Devonshire Committee), 1946, pp. 21–2.

73 Furse, Aucuparius, p. 273. On these discussions, see ‘Minutes of the committee on post-war training for the Colonial Service evidence of Sir Alan Burns’, 11 May 1944, OUA, UR6/COL/4/3, henceforth recorded as Devonshire Committee; Oxford University memorandum, ‘Further development of colonial studies in Oxford’, 15 Nov. 1945, pp. 2–3, OUA, UR6/COL/4/4. This attitude is well summarized in J. F. Cornes (Oxford Devonshire course supervisor) to Veale, 5 May 1953, OUA, UR6/COL/4/11.

74 Furse, ‘An inquiry into the system of training the Colonial Service’, pp. 5–6.

75 ‘Post-war training for the Colonial Service’, col. no. 198 (1946).

76 For a more detailed summary, see Kirk-Greene, On crown service, pp. 43–6.

77 Lord Hailey to the Devonshire Committee, 11 May 1944, OUA, UR6/COL/4/3; Jones, Arthur Creech, ‘The place of African local administration in colonial policy’, Journal of Africa Administration, 1 (1949), pp. 3–6Google Scholar.

78 Professor Frank Engledow to the Devonshire Committee, 11 May 1944, OUA, UR6/COL/4/3. CO minuted discussion regarding ‘Memorandum on training by Ralph Furse’, TNA, CO877/22/16.

79 A. M. Carr-Saunders (director of LSE) to Sir David Ross (provost Oriel College Oxford), 17 Mar. 1944, OUA, UR6/COL/4/3.

80 Sir Christopher Cox to the Devonshire Committee, 7 June 1944, OUA, UR6/COL/4/3.

81 Lord Hailey to the Devonshire Committee, 11 May 1944, OUA, UR6/COL/4/3.

82 Pearce, The turning point in Africa, pp. 118–19. The assistant Frederick Pedler was educated at Watford Grammar School and Cambridge, where he received a First in History. After university, he took the Civil Service Commission examination and joined the Colonial Office. From 1934 to 1937, he gained first-hand CAS experience while on secondment in Tanganyika. His appointment as Furse's assistant was not a success, with Pedler soon resigning in frustration at Furse's obstinacy.

83 See figures on school background above, ‘Analysis of appointments to the Colonial Administrative Service, 1947–56’, CUA, CDEV/4/7.

84 Arthur Creech Jones to the House of Commons, 29 July 1947, Hansard, vol. 441 cc. 263–378.

85 Sir Bede Clifford to the Devonshire Committee, 11 May 1944, OUA, UR6/COL/4/3; CO memorandum ‘Summary of feedback from colonial governments on First Devonshire Course’, 20 Aug. 1955, OUA, UR6/COL/4/12.

86 Richard Symonds, Oxford and empire: the last lost cause (London, 1986), p. 286.

87 ‘The university and the Colonial Service’, pp. 7–8.

88 J. D. Rankine (chief secretary Kenya) to CO, 1 Sept. 1950; Henry Potter (chief secretary Uganda) to CO, 14 Oct. 1950; Edward Twining (governor Tanganyika) to CO, 18 Oct. 1950, TNA, CO/877/33/5. These sentiments were reiterated by E. G. Rowe (CAS Tanganyika, 1928–58) in an interview for the Oxford Colonial Records Project (OCRP), 24 Sept. 1969, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS.Afr.s.1698, pp. 12–14. Rowe asserted: ‘I think most of the cases I had where the young men were too self-centred and interested in their own allowances and general comforts, or groused at the lack of amenities that they claimed to find, I think most of these cases originated with their wives.’

89 All of the aforementioned correspondence makes this point, whilst in a follow-up letter from January 1951, Philip Mitchell (governor of Kenya) informed the CO that many of the older recruits had quickly resigned, whilst the most recent batch of younger cadets were much more acceptable, Mitchell to CO, 10 Jan. 1951, TNA, CO/877/33/5.

90 ‘Appendix V: the Colonial Service, report of the committee on the conference of African governors’, 22 May 1947, Ronald Hyam, ed., British documents on the end of empire, series A vol. ii: the Labour government and the end of empire, 1945–1951; Part i – High policy and administration (London, 1992), p. 234. Furse, CO memorandum, ‘An inquiry into the system of training’, TNA, CO877/22/16.

91 ‘The university and the Colonial Service’, p. 8.

92 Furse to Veale, 25 Apr. 1946, OUA, UR6/COL/4/5.

93 CO circular ‘Recruitment and publicity in schools’, Aug. 1956, CUA, CDEV/4/7.

94 Sir Edmund Richards to the Devonshire Committee, 12 Apr. 1944, OUA, UR6/COL/4/2; Greig to McCleery, 13 Nov. 1953, CUA, CDEV/4/5. Furse had long stressed the potential benefits to recruitment of having serving officers based in the universities, Furse, CO memorandum ‘A unified Colonial Service and notes on salaries’, 18 June 1919, FP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/1/2/6–24.

95 A. F. Newbolt, Colonial Office appointments handbook (London, 1948), pp. 13–14.

96 Ibid., p. 14. See also Schwarz, The white man's world, pp. 254–5.

97 Colonial Office interview summaries, 1961, CUA, CDEV/3/29/A. The reports for all cadets who undertook their training at Cambridge are held in the CUA CDEV Archive, as well as several interview summaries for recruits in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The conditions of access demand all references are kept anonymous. Subsequently, where I quote directly from a report or interview summary I give the year and folder, whilst more general points must be taken as reflective of the overall tone of the collection.

98 Rebuffing Patrick Rension's proposals for a new Commonwealth Service in 1957, John Macpherson was clear that ‘we would be deluding ourselves and indulging wishful thinking if we thought that we could recapture the career assurances of the 20s and 30s’. Sir John Macpherson to Patrick Renison, 18 Feb. 1957, Renison papers (RP), Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford, SS.Brit.Emp.s.404/1/4. On proposals for replacing HMOCS (as the Colonial Service became in 1955) with a multiracial Commonwealth Service, see RP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.404/1/4. The suggestion of a Commonwealth Service raised considerable contention. For a summary of the arguments for and against, see Blood, Sir Hilary, ‘A review of the Overseas Service’, Corona, 9 (1957), pp. 454–6Google Scholar; and Bradley, Kenneth, ‘A Commonwealth Service?’, Corona, 10 (1958), pp. 125–8Google Scholar.

99 African governors’ conference, ‘Minute on constitutional development in Africa’, Nov. 1947, in Hyam, ed., British documents on the end of empire, vol. ii, pp. 303–6; Helen Callaway, Gender, culture, and empire: European women in colonial Nigeria (Chicago, IL, 1987), pp. 141–3. Callaway quotes Jeffries, p. 142; P, Holden, Women administrative officers in colonial Africa, 1944–1960 (Oxford, 1985).

100 For a radical reimagining of colonial officers, see the Charter of the Congress of Peoples against Imperialism, cited in Goldsworthy, Colonial issues in British politics, p. 150.

101 Furse to Veale, 11 May 1953, OUA, UR6/COL/4/11.

102 CO public relations (Schools) general policy, Feb. 1950, TNA, CO/877/56/8.

103 R. D. Salter-Davies (Ministry of Labour) to T. D. Vickers (CO), 14 Feb. 1949; Vickers to Salter-Davies, 22 July 1949, TNA, CO/877/56/8.

104 CO memorandum ‘Colonial Service recruitment: talks at schools’, Feb. 1950, TNA, CO/877/56/8; CO to McCleery, 14 Oct. 1953, CUA, CDEV/1/4/5.

105 Letter from CO to McCleery, 14 Oct. 1953, CUA, CDEV/4/5.

106 Letter from A. G. H. Gardner-Brown (supervisor Cambridge Devonshire course) to CO, 4 Nov. 1949, CUA, CDEV/4/5.

107 Request from Gardner-Brown asking a member of the Second Devonshire Course to visit Newmarket Grammar School, 13 Feb. 1951, CUA, CDEV/4/5.

108 Letter from McCleery to Greig, 20 Apr. 1954, CUA, CDEV/4/6.

109 ‘Colonial Office circular on recruitment and publicity at schools’, Aug. 1956, CUA, CDEV/4/7.

110 ‘Colonial Service recruitment (expatriate staff) report’, Jan. 1952, CUA, CDEV/4/5.

111 A. H. M. Kirk-Greene and R. B. Du Boulay, ‘Memorandum on recruiting for the Administrative Service of Northern Nigeria at Oxford and Cambridge universities, 1955–1956’, 1 Aug. 1956, CUA, CDEV/4/7.

112 Ibid.

113 For example, the Daily Express published an article into the frustrations faced by new recruits under the headline ‘Empire Makers Filled Forms: So the Young “Pioneers” Quit’, 13 May 1948, p. 3.

114 ‘Recruiting for the Administrative Service of Northern Nigeria’; Christine Heward, Making a man of him (London, 1988), pp. 195–201.

115 Furse consistently pushed for this during the interwar period. Furse, CO memorandum ‘Warren Fisher Committee’, 1929, FP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/4/1.

116 McCleery to A. D. Garson, (CO), 8 Mar. 1955, CUA, CDEV/4/6.

117 R. Varvill, ‘CO minute on recruitment to the Administrative Service’, 1 Apr. 1953, TNA, CO/1017/264. For instance, in the first edition of a new careers encyclopaedia published in 1953 and listing descriptions and information on over 220 different job, the Colonial Service received a detailed three-page summary; by the third edition, published in 1963, it covered barely half a page, G. H. Chaffe, ed., Careers encyclopaedia (3rd edn, London, 1952), pp. 147–9; ibid. (2nd edn, London, 1958), pp. 129–30; ibid. (3rd edn, London, 1963), p. 103.

118 CO interview summaries 1958–61, CUA, CDEV/3/27–9; McCleery to Rev. D. P.  Hardy (fellow Selwyn College, University of Cambridge), 24 Oct. 1956, CUA, CDEV/4/7. McCleery wrote that he thought there would still be British officers in Tanganyika in 1984.

119 Garson to McCleery, 9 Nov. 1959, CUA, CDEV/4/7.

120 McCleery to Garson, 6 Nov. 1959, CUA, CDEV/4/7.

121 W. J. Griffith (CAS Nigeria, 1947–60) to CO, 10 Oct. 1950, CUA, CDEV/4/5.

122 Furse after dinner speech June 1948, FP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.415/7/1/4; ‘Memorandum on recruiting for the Administrative Service of Northern Nigeria’.

123 H. B. Allen (CAS Uganda, 1954–62), Towards a retrospective record, box 2.

124 Aldgate and Richards, Best of British, p. 25.

125 Kirk-Greene, Symbol of authority, pp. 21–2.

126 A product of Wellington and Oxford, Bradley was appointed as a cadet to Northern Rhodesia in 1926 and rose to the position of colonial secretary in the Gold Coast before retiring in 1949 to take up the role of editor of Corona – the Colonial Service's journal – and subsequently the directorship of the Commonwealth Institute, for which he was knighted.

127 ‘Colonial Service recruitment (expatriate staff) report’, Jan. 1952.

128 Newbolt, foreword to Kenneth Bradley, The Colonial Service as a career (London, 1950), p. 6.

129 This impression was reinforced in popular published accounts of Africa during this time, for example see Harold Evans, Men in the tropics: a colonial anthology (London, 1949).

130 Bradley, The Colonial Service as a career, p. 7.

131 Kenneth Bradley, A career in the Oversea Civil Service (2nd edn, London, 1955).

132 A. R. Thomas, foreword to Bradley, A career in the Oversea Civil Service, p. 6.

133 Bradley, A career in the Oversea Civil Service, p. 17.

134 Ibid., p. 55.

135 For instance, Bradley's own memoir, written in 1966, recalled his vision of the interwar colonial empire: ‘Whilst at school these boys were learning to feel the tug of the reins of authority. Small wonder that a handful of men who had this schooling could keep the Pax Britannica right round the world over the teeming millions of the old Empire with justice and mercy as well as they did. The theory of Indirect Rule in colonial administration, that is to say, the delegation of power and responsibility to traditional rulers and Chiefs, instituted by Lord Lugard in Nigeria, was only the prefectorial system writ large, with, mutatis mutandis, the District Officers as masters, the Chiefs as prefects and the tribesmen as the boys’, Sir Kenneth Bradley, Once a district officer (London, 1966), p. 15.

136 Cadets’ reports, 1955–6, CUA, CDEV/3/10. Another example: ‘He is very interested in political matters and debates well, but I am not so happy about him as a “Sanders of the River”. Studious rather than athletic…I imagine he will ultimately gravitate to the Secretariat’, Cadets’ reports, 1958–9, CUA, CDEV/3/26.

137 George Baker (CAS Tanganyika) to McCleery, undated, Dec. 1955, CUA, CDEV/4/6.

138 Stanhope White, Dan Bana: the memoirs of a Nigerian official (London, 1966), pp. xv–xvi.

139 Cadets’ confidential reports, 1958–9, CUA, CDEV/3/26.

140 Cadets’ reports, 1949–50, CUA, CDEV/3/4; Cadets’ reports, 1957–8, CUA, CDEV/3/12.

141 McCleery to Baker, 21 Dec. 1955, CUA, CDEV/4/6.

142 CO interview summary, 3 May 1961, CUA, CDEV/3/29/A.

143 Cadets’ reports, 1958–9, CUA, CDEV/3/26.

144 John Roche, ‘The non-medical sciences, 1939–1970’, in Brian Harrison, ed., The history of the University of Oxford, iii:The twentieth century (Oxford, 1994), pp. 253–7; Daniel I. Greenstein, ‘The junior members, 1900–1990’, in Harrison, ed., The history of the University of Oxford, iii, pp. 59–61.

145 CO report ‘Analysis of appointments to the Colonial Administrative Service, 1947–56’, Oct. 1957.

146 A. G. M. Gardner-Brown to prospective candidate, 28 Feb. 1951, CUA, CDEV/4/5.

147 C. P.  Snow, The Masters (London, 1951), p. 22. This takes on a different dimension when considered alongside the fact that Snow's brother was then serving in the CAS in Fiji, having gained a First Class degree from Cambridge. Philip Snow later wrote a memoir of his brother entitled Stranger and brother: a portrait of C. P. Snow (London, 1982).

148 Daily Express, 27 Aug. 1957, p. 2.

149 Ibid.

150 For a particularly insightful analysis of the changing nature of the middle classes during the mid-twentieth century, see Savage, Mike, ‘Affluence and social change in the making of technocratic middle-class identities: Britain, 1939–1955’, Contemporary British History, 22 (2008), pp. 457–76Google Scholar.

151 Francis Greenland (CO) to McCleery, 20 Nov. 1959, CUA, CDEV/4/7.

152 ‘Appointments in recruitment for service overseas: future policy’, Cmd 1740, Parliamentary accounts and papers, xxi, 1961–2, pp. 755–85.

153 Colonial Service recruitment poster, Jan. 1955, CUA, CDEV/4/6.

154 CO circular ‘Recruitment and publicity at schools’, Aug. 1956, CUA, CEDV/4/7.

155 John Duthie (CAS Gold Coast, 1946–57), Towards a retrospective record, box 4.

156 D. Joy (CAS Northern Rhodesia, 1956–63), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

157 X, Towards a retrospective record, box 5.

158 CO interview summary, May 1961, CUA, CDEV/3/29/A.

159 Cadets’ reports, 1961–2, CUA, CDEV/3/29/A.

160 Bradley, A career in the Oversea Civil Service, p. 62. The final sentence reads: ‘If you agree with me that the Commonwealth and Empire are our proudest heritage, and that to serve the Colonial peoples is the greatest privilege and the finest opportunity for practical, constructive and selfless service to humanity which you are ever likely to be offered, then for you this may be only the beginning.’

161 Dr P. Mawhood (CAS Tanganyika, 1949–64), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

162 For example D. Glendening (CAS Northern Rhodesia, 1956–71), Towards a retrospective record, box 3; M. Wasilewski (CAS Kenya, 1957–62), Towards a retrospective record, box 2; Michael Crouch (CAS Aden, 1958–67), Towards a retrospective record, box 2.

163 Cadets’ reports, 1960–1, CUA, CDEV/3/28.

164 Kirk-Greene, Symbol of authority, p. 16.

165 R. N. Barlow-Poole (CAS Nigeria, 1947–68), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

166 CO interview summaries, 1961–2, CUA, CDEV/3/29/A; J. Vinter interview with J. J. Tawney, 26 Feb. 1971, OCRP, MSS.Afr.s.1999. See also, for example, Patrick Walker (CAS Uganda, 1956–62), Towards independence: a district officer in Uganda at the end of empire (London, 2009), pp. 11–49. For an analysis of similar impulses in the Indian context, see Elizabeth Buettner, Empire families: Britons and late imperial India (Oxford, 2004), pp. 180–7. Although lacking the same looming insecurity, a not dissimilar attitude was often displayed amongst military families, where sons joined the family regiment for a short commission with the clear intention of resigning after the initial tour. David French, Military identities: the regimental system, the British Army, and the British people, c. 1870–2000 (Oxford, 2005), p. 53.

167 T. J. Tawney (CAS Tanganyika, 1958–64), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

168 J. P. S. Daniell, to J. A. Mangan, SAD, 891/7/31.

169 Alan Allport, Demobbed: coming home after the Second World War (New Haven, CT, 2004), pp. 141–8; James Hinton, Nine wartime lives: Mass-Observation and the making of the modern self (Oxford, 2010), pp. 169–71. For instance, G. J. Ellerton (CAS Kenya, 1945–63), Towards a retrospective record, box 2.

170 S. S. Richardson (SPS 1947–56; CAS Nigeria, 1956) to J. A. Mangan, undated 1981, SAD, 891/7/44; H. H. Tomlinson (CAS Gold Coast, 1949–54), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

171 M. H. Dorey (CAS Tanganyika, 1950–62), Towards a retrospective record, box 5.

172 CO interview summary, 1958–9, CUA, CDEV/3/26.

173 John Osborne, ‘They call it cricket’, in Tom Maschler, ed., Declaration (London, 1957); Webster, Englishness and empire, pp. 199–210; Dan Rebellato, ‘Look back at empire: British theatre and imperial decline’, in Stuart Ward, ed., British culture and the end of empire (Manchester, 2001), pp. 84–7.

174 CO interview summary, 3 May 1961, CUA, CDEV/3/29/A.

175 Cadets’ reports, 1957–8, CUA, CDEV/3/12.

176 Cadets’ reports, 1958–9, CUA, CDEV/3/26. The presence of Colonial Service cadets undertaking training at the LSE provided a provocative juxtaposition to the prevailing mood of anti-colonialism; Andrew Stuart, Of cargoes, colonies and kings: diplomatic and administrative service from Africa to the Pacific (London, 2001), p. 5; R. E. N. Smith, unpublished memoir, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS.Afr.s.2277, p. 8.

177 H. Taylor (CAS Tanganyika, 1959–62), Towards a retrospective record, box 5.

178 W. R. Pennington to McCleery, 23 Jan. 1953, CUA, CDEV/4/5.

179 Graduate employment: a sample survey, September 1956 (London, 1956); Oxford and Cambridge University Appointments Boards’ placement figures 1950–65; David Edgerton, Warfare state: Britain, 1920–1970 (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 172–4.

180 Andrew Sinclair, My friend Judas (London, 1959), pp. 173–5.

181 This was noted as a general trend by both the Oxford and Cambridge Appointments Boards. See for example Cambridge University Appointments Board annual report 1962, CUA, APTB/1/68. On career trajectories, see David Vincent, ‘Mobility, bureaucracy and careers in early twentieth-century Britain’, in Andrew Miles and David Vincent, eds., Building European society: occupational change and social mobility in Europe, 1840–1940 (Manchester, 1993), pp. 221–4.

182 J. N. Stevens (CAS Sierra Leone, 1956–64), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

183 D. Connolly (CAS Tanganyika, 1959–62), Towards a retrospective record, box 3.

184 CO interview summary, 4 Oct. 1960, CUA, CDEV/3/29/A.

185 Oxford University Appointments Board annual report, 1964, OUA, CR1/8/64, p. 7.

186 Rension to Macpherson, 3 Jan. 1957, RP, MSS.Brit.Emp.s.404/1/4.

187 Jane Lewis, The end of marriage? Individualism and intimate relations (Cheltenham, 2002), pp. 29–32.

188 CO interview summaries, 30 Dec. 1960, CUA, CDEV/3/29/A.

189 Scott Anthony and Oliver Green, British aviation posters: art design and flight (London, 2012), pp. 130–4.

190 ‘Recruiting for the Administrative Service of Northern Nigeria’.

191 T. G. Brierly (CAS Tanganyika, 1950–1; Nigeria, 1951–64), Towards a retrospective record, box 3; D. E. Nicoll-Griffith (CAS Kenya, 1952–64), Towards a retrospective record, box 3; C. A. K. Cullimore (CAS Tanganyika, 1958–61), Towards a retrospective record, box 4.

192 M. V. Saville (CAS North Borneo, 1949–64), Towards a retrospective record, box 2.

193 P. Wass (CAS Bechuanaland, mid-1950s), Towards a retrospective record, box 2.

194 Hyam, Britain's declining empire, pp. 10–12.