Current studies of British citizenship and nationality neglect the development of legal frameworks prior to the Second World War. A growing body of literature, invigorated by the 2017 Windrush scandal, charts the collapse of imperial citizenship as a dimension of British decolonisation from the 1960s onwards. In contrast, this article analyses how the British empire’s framework of national belonging became strained during the early 1920s, as Dominion leaders increasingly asserted their own sense of statehood and the League of Nations mandates system introduced new forms of imperial rule. The article considers General Jan Smuts’ decision to afford British naturalisation to 7,000 German colonists residing in the mandate of South-West Africa. League officials argued that Smuts’ scheme undermined the anti-annexationist ‘spirit’ of the Covenant, because mass naturalisation represented a practical declaration of South African sovereignty in the mandate. Meanwhile, British mandarins in the Home, Colonial, and Foreign Offices believed Smuts’ policy would destabilise the empire’s constitutional distinctions between territorial zones of formal and informal imperial governance. They also feared it would inspire subaltern inhabitants of other British-protected foreign spaces, especially mandatory Palestine and the Indian princely states, to similarly demand naturalisation in order to claim stronger legal rights for themselves as British subjects. Ultimately, Smuts leveraged his political stature to secure British and League consent for his plan. To maintain a façade of constitutional coherence and metropolitan control, Whitehall mandarins recast Smuts’ naturalisation scheme as an imperial anomaly. Non-European inhabitants of the British mandates, and the wider informal empire, were granted the uncodified, indeterminate status of ‘British Protected Persons’ (BPPs). Recent scholarship has recognised BPP status as a form of de facto statelessness. Inter-war policymakers in the Home and Colonial Offices drew similar parallels, this article shows.
{"title":"Contesting an Elastic Constitution: British Nationality and Protection in the Mandates","authors":"Augusta Waldie","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0407","url":null,"abstract":"Current studies of British citizenship and nationality neglect the development of legal frameworks prior to the Second World War. A growing body of literature, invigorated by the 2017 Windrush scandal, charts the collapse of imperial citizenship as a dimension of British decolonisation from the 1960s onwards. In contrast, this article analyses how the British empire’s framework of national belonging became strained during the early 1920s, as Dominion leaders increasingly asserted their own sense of statehood and the League of Nations mandates system introduced new forms of imperial rule. The article considers General Jan Smuts’ decision to afford British naturalisation to 7,000 German colonists residing in the mandate of South-West Africa. League officials argued that Smuts’ scheme undermined the anti-annexationist ‘spirit’ of the Covenant, because mass naturalisation represented a practical declaration of South African sovereignty in the mandate. Meanwhile, British mandarins in the Home, Colonial, and Foreign Offices believed Smuts’ policy would destabilise the empire’s constitutional distinctions between territorial zones of formal and informal imperial governance. They also feared it would inspire subaltern inhabitants of other British-protected foreign spaces, especially mandatory Palestine and the Indian princely states, to similarly demand naturalisation in order to claim stronger legal rights for themselves as British subjects. Ultimately, Smuts leveraged his political stature to secure British and League consent for his plan. To maintain a façade of constitutional coherence and metropolitan control, Whitehall mandarins recast Smuts’ naturalisation scheme as an imperial anomaly. Non-European inhabitants of the British mandates, and the wider informal empire, were granted the uncodified, indeterminate status of ‘British Protected Persons’ (BPPs). Recent scholarship has recognised BPP status as a form of de facto statelessness. Inter-war policymakers in the Home and Colonial Offices drew similar parallels, this article shows.","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134995799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0403","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134995806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When the town of Lewes in Sussex commissioned a plaque to commemorate an ex-American destroyer adopted as a part of their Warship Week in the Autumn of 1942, an Admiralty representative stated that the ship symbolised the ‘imperishable’ and ‘unbreakable’ links existent between Britain and America. 1 The local newspaper also reported, ‘The people living in the country did not fully appreciate all that was meant by the term ‘sea power’ and that ‘they existed today through the work of ships like HMS Lewes.’ 2 This article examines the symbolic role of the fifty destroyers transferred under the 1940 destroyers for bases deal, and argues that they became potent emblems of Anglo-American unity. It explores the rhetoric, propaganda, adoptions and naming practices which surrounded the transfer of the destroyers to argue that they were tangible symbols used to publicly navigate issues of British identity and naval power raised by the deal. By examining the ways in which the ships were renamed, repurposed and adopted by regional communities, this paper will demonstrate that the ships were predominantly valuable for their perceived promotion of the relationship between the two navies, governments and nations.
{"title":"In Mutual Recognition of the Value of Seapower: Anglo-American Unity and the Destroyers Transferred Under the Destroyers-for-Bases Deal","authors":"Jayne Friend","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0406","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0406","url":null,"abstract":"When the town of Lewes in Sussex commissioned a plaque to commemorate an ex-American destroyer adopted as a part of their Warship Week in the Autumn of 1942, an Admiralty representative stated that the ship symbolised the ‘imperishable’ and ‘unbreakable’ links existent between Britain and America. 1 The local newspaper also reported, ‘The people living in the country did not fully appreciate all that was meant by the term ‘sea power’ and that ‘they existed today through the work of ships like HMS Lewes.’ 2 This article examines the symbolic role of the fifty destroyers transferred under the 1940 destroyers for bases deal, and argues that they became potent emblems of Anglo-American unity. It explores the rhetoric, propaganda, adoptions and naming practices which surrounded the transfer of the destroyers to argue that they were tangible symbols used to publicly navigate issues of British identity and naval power raised by the deal. By examining the ways in which the ships were renamed, repurposed and adopted by regional communities, this paper will demonstrate that the ships were predominantly valuable for their perceived promotion of the relationship between the two navies, governments and nations.","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"139 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134995804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The colonial Garden City Movement represents the culmination of a whole sequence of relationships between botany and imperialism that had developed from the seventeenth century onwards, but particularly in the Victorian era. Botany was central to the transnationality of imperialism and botanical exploration while plant collecting fed into many Victorian phenomena in Britain which also had their colonial counterparts. These were intended to alleviate the social, environmental and medical evils of industrialism, providing a closer interaction between the rural and the urban. They included the creation of green belts, the founding of model villages, the emergence of municipal public parks and botanical gardens, and finally the garden city movement. By these means it was intended that industrial (and sometimes rural) workers should experience a healthier lifestyle, as well as a social uplift which would mitigate class conflict while also providing rational recreation. In the export of garden city ideas to the British Empire, there were additionally significant colonial precedents in street tree planting and in the beautification movement of the Victorian era and early twentieth century. This article specifically focuses upon the translation of aspects of this garden city movement and of these other influences into the creation of the new capital of Lusaka in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in the twentieth century and the manner in which a great diversity of both indigenous and exotic plants were used to express the idealistic characteristics of this urban development while also reflecting the social and racial norms inherent in the colonial relationship.
{"title":"Lusaka: New Capital and the Imperial Garden City Movement","authors":"John M. MacKenzie","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0404","url":null,"abstract":"The colonial Garden City Movement represents the culmination of a whole sequence of relationships between botany and imperialism that had developed from the seventeenth century onwards, but particularly in the Victorian era. Botany was central to the transnationality of imperialism and botanical exploration while plant collecting fed into many Victorian phenomena in Britain which also had their colonial counterparts. These were intended to alleviate the social, environmental and medical evils of industrialism, providing a closer interaction between the rural and the urban. They included the creation of green belts, the founding of model villages, the emergence of municipal public parks and botanical gardens, and finally the garden city movement. By these means it was intended that industrial (and sometimes rural) workers should experience a healthier lifestyle, as well as a social uplift which would mitigate class conflict while also providing rational recreation. In the export of garden city ideas to the British Empire, there were additionally significant colonial precedents in street tree planting and in the beautification movement of the Victorian era and early twentieth century. This article specifically focuses upon the translation of aspects of this garden city movement and of these other influences into the creation of the new capital of Lusaka in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in the twentieth century and the manner in which a great diversity of both indigenous and exotic plants were used to express the idealistic characteristics of this urban development while also reflecting the social and racial norms inherent in the colonial relationship.","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134995805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Even after the war’s centenary from 2014–2018, many English-speaking popular readers and students retain a static and narrow conception of the First World War, much of it focused around the British experience in a section of trenches on the Western Front. This narrative of the war with its focus on the Battles of the Marne, Ypres, the Somme, and Passchendaele, is certainly significant, but it has played an outsized role in shaping the war's history for generations of people. This brief article provides an overview of resources and approaches that relate a different story about Britain's global war and offers concrete suggestions for reframing the story for students and public audiences alike. By broadening the British war story, beyond country and empire, to a global, transnational story, we can narrate a history that aligns more productively with the reality of the conflict as it was experienced. Rather than focusing only on a small slice of the rich wartime tapestry, such a global history re-centers the experiences of non-combatants, imperial citizens, non-citizens, and expatriates – telling a more holistic story of “Britain” at war.
{"title":"Beyond God, Country, and Empire: The United Kingdom and the Transnational Turn in the First World War","authors":"Tammy M. Proctor","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0405","url":null,"abstract":"Even after the war’s centenary from 2014–2018, many English-speaking popular readers and students retain a static and narrow conception of the First World War, much of it focused around the British experience in a section of trenches on the Western Front. This narrative of the war with its focus on the Battles of the Marne, Ypres, the Somme, and Passchendaele, is certainly significant, but it has played an outsized role in shaping the war's history for generations of people. This brief article provides an overview of resources and approaches that relate a different story about Britain's global war and offers concrete suggestions for reframing the story for students and public audiences alike. By broadening the British war story, beyond country and empire, to a global, transnational story, we can narrate a history that aligns more productively with the reality of the conflict as it was experienced. Rather than focusing only on a small slice of the rich wartime tapestry, such a global history re-centers the experiences of non-combatants, imperial citizens, non-citizens, and expatriates – telling a more holistic story of “Britain” at war.","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"2013 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134995800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The First World War has had an indelible impact on Newfoundland, shaping not only its relationship with Britain and empire, but also its union with Canada in 1949. For some, the Battle of the Somme was a powerful display of Newfoundland's identity as a British dominion and its loyalty to the mother country. Many Newfoundlanders, however, lament the tragic economic and political consequences of Newfoundland's war service that many believe led to its loss of independence and its union with Canada decades later. Edward Riche's 2017 play Dedication explores the legacy of the First World War on Newfoundland identity and the province's continued positive association with Sir Douglas Haig through the dramatisation of a grieving female journalist interviewing Haig in St. John's in 1924, just before the unveiling of the national war memorial. The play grapples with themes of colonisation, patriotism, and duty as the playwright seeks to challenge the prevailing myth of identity grounded in glorious sacrifice. While the interview in the play raises questions about the war's legacy through its focus on the dedication of the WWI monument by Haig himself, Riche interrogates Newfoundland's established memory of the war, as well as the value of monuments as historical markers of memory and identity.
第一次世界大战对纽芬兰产生了不可磨灭的影响，不仅塑造了它与英国和帝国的关系，而且在1949年与加拿大的联盟。对一些人来说，索姆河战役有力地展示了纽芬兰作为英国自治领的身份及其对母国的忠诚。然而，许多纽芬兰人对纽芬兰的战争服务造成的悲剧性经济和政治后果感到惋惜，许多人认为这导致了纽芬兰在几十年后失去独立，并与加拿大合并。爱德华·里奇(Edward Riche) 2017年的戏剧《奉献》(Dedication)探讨了第一次世界大战对纽芬兰身份的影响，以及该省与道格拉斯·黑格爵士(Sir Douglas Haig)之间持续的积极联系。1924年，就在国家战争纪念碑揭幕之前，一位悲伤的女记者在圣约翰采访了黑格。该剧围绕殖民、爱国主义和责任等主题展开，剧作家试图挑战建立在光荣牺牲基础上的主流身份神话。剧中的采访通过关注黑格本人对第一次世界大战纪念碑的奉献，提出了关于战争遗产的问题，而里奇则质疑纽芬兰对战争的既定记忆，以及纪念碑作为记忆和身份的历史标志的价值。
{"title":"The ‘Myth’ of Beaumont-Hamel: Counter-Monumentality and Newfoundland Identity in Edward Riche's Dedication","authors":"B. White","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0399","url":null,"abstract":"The First World War has had an indelible impact on Newfoundland, shaping not only its relationship with Britain and empire, but also its union with Canada in 1949. For some, the Battle of the Somme was a powerful display of Newfoundland's identity as a British dominion and its loyalty to the mother country. Many Newfoundlanders, however, lament the tragic economic and political consequences of Newfoundland's war service that many believe led to its loss of independence and its union with Canada decades later. Edward Riche's 2017 play Dedication explores the legacy of the First World War on Newfoundland identity and the province's continued positive association with Sir Douglas Haig through the dramatisation of a grieving female journalist interviewing Haig in St. John's in 1924, just before the unveiling of the national war memorial. The play grapples with themes of colonisation, patriotism, and duty as the playwright seeks to challenge the prevailing myth of identity grounded in glorious sacrifice. While the interview in the play raises questions about the war's legacy through its focus on the dedication of the WWI monument by Haig himself, Riche interrogates Newfoundland's established memory of the war, as well as the value of monuments as historical markers of memory and identity.","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"102 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78309243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0396","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0396","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136180611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Young men of empire seeking their fortune in Australia incorporated violence against Indigenous people into their lives as part of leisure. This derived from the persona created by romanticism. Squatters created an emotional community that valued capital at the expense of family and emphasised uniformity, they were a transitory people travelling to England and Europe. They held a specific relationship to the Aboriginal polity in which they lived and a loose and imaginative relationship to government. This paper explores squatter space as they saw it.
{"title":"Australian Squatter Space 1850–1880","authors":"Paula Jane Byrne","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0400","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0400","url":null,"abstract":"Young men of empire seeking their fortune in Australia incorporated violence against Indigenous people into their lives as part of leisure. This derived from the persona created by romanticism. Squatters created an emotional community that valued capital at the expense of family and emphasised uniformity, they were a transitory people travelling to England and Europe. They held a specific relationship to the Aboriginal polity in which they lived and a loose and imaginative relationship to government. This paper explores squatter space as they saw it.","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72783604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Soft Power and Hard Choices: Royal Diplomacy in the Carolean Age","authors":"M. Farr","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0397","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0397","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82590873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the relations between the British government and the British South Africa Company through the 1890s. It aims to explore the ways in which the imperial government sought to restrain and control the BSAC as a sub-imperial actor with its own distinct agenda and interests. While sub-imperial actors were a useful way to claim colonial hinterlands before rival colonial powers, they could also land the government in difficult and unwanted situations. The 1895 Jameson raid scandal and the rebellions of the Ndebele and Shona in 1896–7 necessitated government intervention and limitation of company privileges. Yet, while such situations were on a whole unwanted by the government, they also proved vital pretexts to limit, control and convert sub-imperialism to the imperial and geopolitical interests of the government.
{"title":"Restraining Sub-imperialism in Southern Rhodesia, 1889–1898","authors":"Mads Bomholt Nielsen","doi":"10.3366/brw.2023.0401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/brw.2023.0401","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the relations between the British government and the British South Africa Company through the 1890s. It aims to explore the ways in which the imperial government sought to restrain and control the BSAC as a sub-imperial actor with its own distinct agenda and interests. While sub-imperial actors were a useful way to claim colonial hinterlands before rival colonial powers, they could also land the government in difficult and unwanted situations. The 1895 Jameson raid scandal and the rebellions of the Ndebele and Shona in 1896–7 necessitated government intervention and limitation of company privileges. Yet, while such situations were on a whole unwanted by the government, they also proved vital pretexts to limit, control and convert sub-imperialism to the imperial and geopolitical interests of the government.","PeriodicalId":53867,"journal":{"name":"Britain and the World","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74324922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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