“W.T. Stead and the Pro-Boer Response to the South African War: Dissent Through Visual Culture”
Jodie N. Mader, Thomas More College
1778
The South African/Second Anglo-Boer War pitted Britain against the two Boer republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Since the late 1800s, the Boers repeatedly resisted British efforts to annex the two republics and attempted to prohibit the influx of foreign profiteers looking to exploit the gold mines. The Boers ultimately declared war in October 1899 over what they saw as a threat to their sovereignty, as British troops lined their borders. Contrary to British perceptions, the Boers proved to be a formidable enemy: engaging in a guerilla style of warfare; using the modern high-velocity rifles and artillery; and outnumbering their enemy at the outset of the war. This war lasted for three years and both sides suffered numerous setbacks and casualties. In the end, the Boers surrendered in May 1902 after running out of supplies, losing their homes, and enduring the loss of thousands in refugee camps set up by the British.
@ Most historians assert that around 27,000 Boer noncombatants died in refugee camps set up by the British during the war. Many of the victims were women and children. Peter Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899-1902 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1.
What was striking about this conflict was the vociferous anti-war movement in the metropole. Though many dissidents supported the empire, they criticized the British government’s stated reasons for being involved in this particular battle. These so-called “Pro-Boers”
@ This paper will use the term “Pro-Boer” to denote all who were against the war. However, not all critics of war necessarily favored the Boers, as most were simply against this particular war and did not have any strong affinity for the enemy combatant. challenged the government’s claim of fighting for the cause of the Uitlanders, the foreign subjects (both financiers and expatriate workers of German and British origin) living in the Boer territories who were not afforded political rights.
@ The word Uitlander means “foreigner” in Afrikaans. It was widely believed that the British government wanted foreigners to become full- fledged citizens in order to pack the Boer parliament with their representatives and in turn create laws that favored foreign mining companies. Likewise, some critics contended that the Colonial Office ultimately wanted to assert suzerainty, or political control, over the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.
Most anti-war activists (known collectively as “Pro-Boers” by their enemies) who protested this war did not dispute the importance of the British Empire.
@ See Stephen Koss, The Anatomy of an Anti-War Movement: The Pro-Boers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), Arthur Davey, The British Pro-Boers, 1877-1902 (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1978), and Richard Price, An Imperial War and the British Working Class: Working-Class Attitudes and Reactions to the Boer War 1899-1902 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972). Instead, they argued that Britain had subverted the imperial mission by fighting against another white, Protestant, and politically independent African nation. These individuals who criticized the motives behind Britain’s war came from diverse backgrounds. The composition of the Pro-Boers ranged from Liberal politicians,
@ The Boer War was particularly a divisive issue for an already split Liberal Party that had parted ways over Irish Home Rule. Liberal MPs such as Leonard Courtney, David Lloyd George, and Henry Campbell Bannerman were against the war, while Liberal Imperialists, led by Lord Rosebery, supported the war. such as David Lloyd George, to socialists, women’s groups, suffragists, trade unionists, Quakers, and Irish nationalists. These disparate groups created a variety of ad hoc committees geared to object to the war: South African Conciliation Committee, the Transvaal Committee, the Manchester Transvaal Peace Committee, and the Stop-the-War Committee (to name a few). The Pro-Boer organizations pushed their anti-war agenda through many avenues to reach the British public. These enterprises included publications, newspapers, public speeches, meetings, and petitions.
The Pro-Boer movement faced an uphill battle in its opposition to the war. The late nineteenth-century witnessed what historian G.R. Searle has called the “apogee of imperialism,” when the British Empire was reaching its height and competing with other nations, such as Germany and France, for land in Africa and Asia.
@ G.R. Searle, A New England? Peace and War, 1886-1918 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2. See also Hugh Cunningham, “The Language of Patriotism,” in Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, edited by Raphael Samuel (New York: Routledge, 1989). A key aspect of the period was jingoism, which was “the transmission of notions of Imperialism, of military valour, through the music-hall and the popular newspaper … ” to a broad popular audience.
@ J.H. Grainger, Patriotisms: Britain, 1900-1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 148. Beyond jingoism, the Pro-Boers had to contend with various pro-empire and pro-war groups, such as the Imperial South African Association and the South African League, which insisted on the necessity of this war for the prestige of the British Empire.
A considerable component of the anti-war movement was the pamphlet campaign. Over 2000 leaflets, pamphlets, and booklets were printed and dispersed across Britain and the world.
@ See John S. Galbraith, “The Pamphlet Campaign on the Boer War,” The Journal of Modern History, 24 (June 1952), 112. Historians such as Arthur Davey, Stephen Koss, and John Galbraith have intensively studied the anti-war rhetoric. However, attention to the visual images in these publications has been overlooked. Most books that study dissent impressions hone in on the illustrations found in the newspapers, foreign press, and publications such as the
Illustrated London News and
Punch.
@ Mark Bryant, Wars of Empire in Cartoons (London: Grub Street, 2008). Little consideration has been given to what was published visually in anti-war pamphlets. Indeed, a gap appears to be present in assessing both the verbal and perceptible in the late nineteenth-century, specifically with the Boer war. Historian James Thompson aptly points out that “discussion of late Victorian culture hitherto has paid little attention to its visual dynamics.”
@ James Thompson “’Pictorial Lies’?-Posters and Politics in Britain c. 1880-1914,” Past & Present, No. 197 (November 2007): 177-201. This paper seeks to address this missing piece by examining how discernible images played a role in anti-war ephemera.
@ This paper is part of a bigger project on anti-war imagery in Pro-Boer organizations.
A major producer of images was W.T. Stead and his controversial Pro-Boer organization, the Stop-the-War Committee (STWC). This anti-war association was well known for its extreme views, in comparison to the more moderate and larger South African Conciliation Committee (SACC). Leonard Courtney, a Member of Parliament (MP), led the direction SACC. Pro-Boer organizations such as the SACC and Manchester Transvaal Peace Committee (MTPC), led by C.P. Scott, MP, did not use imagery in their publications and refrained from utilizing inflammatory language. This reluctance was perhaps due to the fact that MPs managed both the SACC and MTPC and therefore did not want to risk their political careers. Scott and Courtney wanted the war to end, but insisted that it conclude with conciliation between the Boer republics and Britain. Courtney pointed out that the goal of the SACC was to “bring together and keep together in peace, the two races that have lived, and must live side by side, in South Africa. Their aim was to conciliate Boer and Briton.”
@ SACC, “Mr. Leonard Courtney’s Speech, 10 January 1902, SACC, Liverpool Branch.”
In contrast, Stead wanted an immediate end to the war, as noted in a STWC placard:
Stop the war. It is an unjust war, which ought never to have been provoked ... Why are our sons and brothers killing and being killed in South Africa? ... There have been no war if we had consented to arbitration, which Kruger begged for, but which we haughtily refused ... Stop the war and Stop It Now!
@ STWC Placard, Koss, The Anatomy, 71-72.
Stead, an eccentric journalist with no political background, was in a better position to take on the British pro-war propaganda than Scott or Courtney. With little censorship in Britain, editorial criticism generally thrived for those who were not directly involved in politics.
@ Miles Hudson and John Stanier, War and the Media (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 31. Stead had a long career in journalism as editor of several newspapers and journals:
The Northern Echo,
Pall Mall Gazette,
Review of Reviews, and
War Against War in South Africa. Moreover, he campaigned against a myriad of topics, such as social reform, prostitution, morality, and political corruption.
@ See Stead, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (1885) and Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late Victorian London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). He earned his reputation by creating tabloid journalism, emphasizing themes of sensationalist crimes or political mismanagement.
The creation of the STWC came in late 1899 when few metropolitan newspapers were supportive of the anti-war movement. Stead, a deeply religious individual and later spiritualist, placed several preachers and ministers in leadership roles, such as Rev. Dr. John Clifford and Silas Hocking. According to historian Koss, there was no “halfway measures” with the STWC and Stead published with intensity numerous pamphlets, leaflets, posters, and broadsheets.
@ Koss, The Anatomy, xxiv. The STWC listed six MPs as members, but none appear to have had a direct role. The STWC had many branches throughout all of Britain.
The STWC pamphlets were composed in a way to immediately grab the reader’s attention. For example, a few titles read: “Say! Say! Say! To the Absent-Minded Public”; “Death to the Republics! Death! The New War and its War Cry! A Protest and an Appeal”; and “The Swindle of Suzerainty. The Fraud that Forced on War.” Many of the pamphlets were reprints of speeches made by politicians and other critics (Figure 1). The image of Lady Britannia was visible on several STWC covers. For Stead, Lady Britannia personified a heroic figure of peace and liberty in British culture.
@ For more on Stead’s understanding of Lady Britannia, see The United States of Europe (Toronto: G.N. Morang and Co., 1899).
Along with the desire to foment agitation through the written word was the use of cartoon images. At the time, the use of the camera was on the rise, particularly with the Eastman Kodak.
@ Kenneth O. Morgan points out that the cameras were used more in this war than any one before. See Morgan, Ages of Reform: Dawns and Downfalls of the British Left (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011). However, getting these pictures fast and ready for the public proved to be difficult, and editors opted for the abundant and accessible cartoon illustrations. F.C. Gould, editor of the
Westminster Gazette and cartoonist, wrote that there is “a large portion of the public which is more susceptible to impressions conveyed in pictorial form than to more subtle appeals ... involved in reading.”
@ Cited in unpublished autobiography, House of Lords Record Office, London, MS 37b, ch. 16, fos 386-387. Also noted in Thompson, “’Pictorial Lies’. Stead borrowed many of Gould’s drawings as well as others for his STWC pamphlets. Many of these cartoons conveyed important and yet controversial views of the Pro-Boer extreme.
Stead’s most obvious targets were the two key politicians believed to be responsible for this war, Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain and High Commissioner for South Africa, Alfred Milner. Like other ad hoc Pro-Boer organizations, Stead vociferously attacked Chamberlain for his role in instigating the war. Chamberlain was an easy target as he worked in the metropole and was perceived as the leader of imperial decisions in South Africa. Stead had been critical of Chamberlain for quite some time, accusing him of a cover up with the Jameson Raid back in 1895.
@ The Jameson Raid took place in 1895 when British and South African financiers attempted to overthrow the Transvaal. This coup failed and many suspected Chamberlain had knowledge of this event and endorsed it. The STWC portrayed Chamberlain as one who changed his mind often during pre-war negotiations with the president of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger (Figure 2,3). Chamberlain, with his distinctive suit and monocle, was illustrated as one who swindled a helpless Boer leader Kruger by demanding impossible franchise concessions that would have drastically reduced the republic’s sovereignty (Figure, 4). A sharp contrast was made visually between the well dressed and wealthy Chamberlain and the less refined and humble President Kruger. In another image, the STWC showed Chamberlain as the grim reaper, making him responsible for the decisions that led to high number of causalities at the start of the war (Figure 5).
Publicly admonishing Milner proved to be a much more complicated matter. Milner was Chamberlain’s South African representative. Pro-Boers believed that he also caused the conflict due to his impossible demands with the Boers, which in turn led the republics to declare war. It was suspected by many in Britain that Milner had acted on the orders of Chamberlain. The problem for the anti-war movement was that Milner was often more in Africa than in the metropole, which made him a less viable target for the Pro-Boers.
For Stead, the problem with Milner went ever deeper. Milner had worked with Stead in the 1880s at the
Pall Mall Gazette before leaving for political office. After Milner’s departure, Stead maintained a friendly relationship with him. As expected, once war began, their friendship became strained.
@ Frederic Whyte, The Life of W.T. Stead, vol.2, (New York/Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 1925), 191. See Joseph O’Baylen, “W.T. Stead and the Boer War: The Irony of Idealism, Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 40 (1959): 304-314 and “W.T. Stead’s Controversial Visit to South Africa, 1904,” History Today (2001): 11-15. This paper asserts that Stead, despite his beliefs, opted to be moderately critical of Milner and refrained from using any visual images that could potentially sever their relationship. To criticize Milner in STWC publications, Stead often disseminated speeches of others and not his own. For example, one pamphlet republished a speech by John Burns MP where he described Milner as an “unfortunate appointment” and was “influenced by the worst in South Africa.”
@ STWC, “War Against the Two Republics: A Speech Delivered in Battersea Park, on May 20th 1900, by John Burns, LCC, MP”.
Why was Milner able to dodge Stead’s vilification? Historian H.C.G. Matthews points out that Milner eluded any major public reprimand by maintaining close ties with Liberal Imperialists in the House of Commons. In particular, Liberal Imperialists warded off efforts to censure Milner in Parliament.
@ See H.C.G. Matthew, The Liberal Imperialists: The Ideas and Politics of a Post-Gladstonian Elite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). Also see H.W. McCready, “Sir Alfred Milner, The Liberal Party, and the Boer War,” Canadian Journal of History (March 1967): 13-44. Stead thus joined mainstream Pro-Boerism in avoiding any elaborate public criticisms of Milner despite the reality that most believed he was responsible for goading the Boers into war with preposterous demands for the foreigner franchise.
Another area of frustration explored in STWC pamphlets was financial. Many Pro-Boers believed this was a ‘capitalist war’, i.e. a war waged for profit; indeed, parts of the Boer republics were rich in gold and diamond mines. It was alleged that British financiers, along with Chamberlain’s approval, hatched a plan to instigate war with the Boers in order to acquire more favorable mining rights.
@ Many foreign mining magnates saw the Boer republics as oppressive in terms of the taxes they had to pay and the restrictions. Most Pro-Boers highlighted this topic in their pamphlets and public meetings. Bernard Porter noted that propaganda against capitalism in this war was unparalleled in British history.
@ Bernard Porter, Critics of Empire: British Radical Attitudes to Colonialism in Africa, 1895-1914 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968), 64.
Links between capitalism and Jewish financiers, specifically in STWC publications was striking. In several STWC leaflets, the insinuation was made that Jewish financiers in the diamond and gold rich Boer territory fomented the conflict. It was well known that Barney Barnato and Alfred Beit were two of the leading Jewish entrepreneurs in the territory. Similarly, five of the ten major mining firms on the Witwatersrand (Transvaal) were Jewish operated.
@ Claire Hirshfield, “The Anglo-Boer War and the Issue of Jewish Culpability,” Journal of Contemporary History vol. 15 (London: SAGE, 1980), 620. To promote this theory, the STWC worded pamphlets castigating Jewish financiers as “serpents” who had “no bowels of compassion.”
@ STWC, “The Trail of the Financial Serpent: Full Report of the Speech in the House of Commons by John Burns, MP”; “War Against the Two Republics: A Speech Delivered in Battersea Park, on May 20, 1900”, also see Koss, The Anatomy, 94-95. These words were combined with strongly anti-Semitic cartoons, playing upon the stereotypical caricatures of Jews: crooked nose, dark features, and bags of money (Figure, 6,7,8). This theme was also reflected in the leaflet, “More Victims for Moloch: The Demands for Reinforcement” as the “Moloch” was an ancient god that some believed Hebrews had worshipped and sacrificed children to. The STWC cast the Moloch pejoratively as a symbol of devouring power and in turn blamed the British government for sacrificing the lives of innocent Britons to the greedy God (Figure, 6).
Indeed, nineteenth-century Britain was imbricated with strong elements of Anti-Semitism. Well-known economist J.A. Hobson, echoed MP Burns by fueling this sentiment in the metropole. In
The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects, Hobson argued that Johannesburg was the “the New Jerusalem”.
@ J.A Hobson, The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects (1900; New York: Howard Fertig, 1969), 226. Much work has been done on Anti-Semitism in the Boer War and an attempt has been made to discern the difference “between the ‘real’ Jews and the hostile cultural stereotypes of the period.”
@ Eitan Bar-Yosef and Nadia Valman, eds., ‘The Jew’ in Late Victorian and Edwardian Culture: Between the East End and East Africa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 11. It is believed that part of the increased Anti-Semitism arose from heightened national fears and concerns. Historians Bar-Yosef and Valman argue, “writing about the Jew suggests not so much an atavistic hatred of Jews themselves,” but more as a “profound modern fear about money, democracy, and nation in the contemporary world.”
@ Bar-Yosef, ‘The Jew’, 12. Distrust of unrestrained capitalism in a controversial war ignited the concerns of Hobson, Burns, and others, which were then projected onto Jewish ascendancy.
@ For more on Jews during this period in Britain see: G. Alderman, Modern British Jewry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); D. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and British Culture, 1840-1914 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1994); Colin Holmes, Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876-1939 (London: Edward Arnold, 1979); and Jonathan Schneer, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
Another major motif in STWC propagation was the affront on Jingoism. Most Pro-Boers viewed Jingoism as a “perverted patriotism, composed of national conceit, whose intellectual foundations were the various doctrines of Anglo Saxon ‘manifest destiny’ ... race pride ... [and] engrossing arrogance.”
@ Porter, Critics of Empire, 88. One STWC pamphlet portrayed Britain as a marauder, pirating the seas and taking the Transvaal by force (Figure 10). The beloved Union Jack flag was abandoned in favor of one that was tainted with elements of piracy. In another leaflet “Naboth’s Vineyard in South Africa”, a man resembling the iconic John Bull
@ John Bull is similar to the national personification of Uncle Sam in the United States. (the national personification of Britain), can be seen reaching across continents to grab the coveted gold and diamond fields in Africa (Figure 9). This leaflet referenced the Old Testament (1 Kings 21) passage whereby Ahab took Naboth’s vineyard by force, after he refused to sell the land. The STWC connected this biblical story with what they saw as the unrestrained seizure of land in Africa. Not surprisingly, religious overtones were often the norm in many STWC pamphlets.
Other STWC publications emphasized that jingoism had spawned avarice and corruption within the British government and externally in foreign relations. In the leaflet “An Artist’s View of the South African War,” the female figures of “Humanity”, “Justice”, and “Honour,” were held captive by half human/half animals that represented “Greed”, “War”, and “Fraud” (Figure 11). The STWC was eager to call attention to the potential danger of the empire growing too large. In “The Besetting Sin of Empires! Nebuchadnezzar’s Pride and Punishment,” the STWC compared Britain to the failed empires of ancient Greece, Rome, and Babylon (Figure 12). The STWC attempted to elucidate public anxiety over Britain potentially slipping, as many ancient empires had, into the throngs of excess and ultimate ruin. This assumption was perhaps an exaggeration, but was not surprising given Stead’s background in tabloid journalism.
Stead’s lack of a political background contributed to his ability to take greater risks both in his written and visual tactics to counter the war effort. Others perceived both him and his STWC as the ‘radical’ body among dissidents. As he had done in the past, Stead played upon emotion and sensationalism to get his message across to the populace. The STWC was thus deliberate and pointed in its criticisms, attacking important and well-known targets as Joseph Chamberlain and Jewish financiers with intensity.
Was the STWC a success? Over the course of one year STWC gained publicity and issued millions of leaflets, posters, and cartoons. It came to be seen as the extreme opposite to the more moderate and mainstream anti-war organization, the SACC. Along with the topics listed in this paper, the STWC brought in foreign opinion, such as publishing the thoughts of Dutch politician, A. Kuyper, on Britain’s war with the Boers. Stead became increasingly concerned with international opinion and wanted the British public to be aware that many in Europe, particularly the Netherlands and Germany, were Pro-Boer allies.
@ Davey, The British, 86.
However, the organization’s extremist position came at a price. While STWC leaflets continued to be published, Stead’s other journal War Against War (which included STWC literature) became more difficult to sell. Member Silas Hocking had difficulty selling novels due to his association. Money became tighter and many of their meetings fell victim to violence and heckling. By the end of 1900, it was harder to write in such caustic tones and personally afford to cover much of the printing costs. The mood was changing in Britain, as after the 1900s, many believed the war should be fought until a treaty could be reached. Moreover, the tide was turning in the army’s favor, as the Boers struggled to outlast the increasing British presence on the battlefield.
The irony of Stead’s quick rise to the public stage at the start of the war was that his notoriety was short lived. The visual themes of jingoism and Judeo capitalism were soon eclipsed by a major humanitarian crisis that emerged in the war. When the army forces burned Boer farms, many enemy women and children were left homeless and hungry, which forced the British to create refugee camps. However, many of these camps quickly became overcrowded, ill managed, and unhealthy. Word soon traveled back to Britain of these conditions and anti-war rhetoric quickly turned towards Britain’s conduct in war and its treatment of enemy noncombatants. Consequently, most Pro-Boer tactics shifted to focus exclusively on the camps and less on the issues discussed in this paper. It soon became the common belief that the war needed to be concluded in a conciliatory fashion, but had to be carried out with care towards the enemy noncombatants.
By the end of 1900, the STWC lapsed in activity. Stead shifted his attention towards international consensus, courting foreign Pro-Boers to write tracts for his other publications. He also furthered his goal of establishing an organization for international arbitration and peace, something he had been keenly involved with for quite some time. Other Pro-Boer committees such as the SACC and MTPC faithfully continued their criticisms of the war in a tone that they had done since their inception. It can be deduced that financial strain and Stead’s eccentric writing style and imagery perhaps led to the demise of the STWC. In many ways it seems that Pro-Boer moderation, both in written and visual form, had won out.
“Jockeyed into War: The Story of Nine-Tenths Acceptance”
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Fig. 3 @ STWC, Leaflet #5, “Jockeyed into War: The Story of Nine-Tenths Acceptance.” (Figure 3) |
“Diplomacy or Highway Robbery? The Story of Chamberlain’s Methods”
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Figure 4 @ STWC, Leaflet, #34, “Diplomacy or Highway Robbery? The Story of Chamberlain’s Methods.” (Figure 4) |
“South African War: Butcher’s Bill, 1900: Presented with Joe C.’s Compliments to John Bull, Esq.”
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Figure 5 @ STWC, Leaflet #39, “South African War: Butcher’s Bill, 1900: Presented with Joe C.’s Compliments to John Bull, Esq.” (Figure 5) |
“More Victims for Moloch: The Demands for Reinforcements”
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Figure 6 @ STWC, Leaflet #20, “More Victims for Moloch: The Demands for Reinforcements.” (Figure 6) |
“Morituri to Salutant! Dying for Dividends of Dives”
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Figure 7 @ STWC, Leaflet #7, “Morituri to Salutant! Dying for Dividends of Dives.” (Figure 7) |
“Is this a Stock-Jobber’s War? Some Significant Admissions”
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Figure 8 @ STWC, Leaflet #8, “Is this a Stock-Jobber’s War? Some Significant Admissions.” (Figure 8) |
“Naboths’ Vineyard in South Africa”
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Figure 9 @ STWC, Leaflet #4, “Naboths’ Vineyard in South Africa.” (Figure 9) |
“The Meteor Flag of England: Up-to-Date”
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Figure 10 @ STWC, Leaflet #37, “The Meteor Flag of England: Up=to=Date” (Figure 10) |
“An Artists View of the South African War”
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Figure 11 @ STWC, Leaflet #45, “An Artists View of the South African War.” (Figure 11) |
“The Besetting. Sin of Empires! Nebuchadnezzar’s Pride of Punishment...” By the Rev. Canon Scott-Holland.
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Figure 12 @ STWC, Leaflet #36, “The Besetting. Sin of Empires! Nebuchadnezzar’s Pride of Punishment...” By the Rev. Canon Scott-Holland. (Figure 12) |
Jodie N. Mader, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Thomas
More College, where she teaches courses in world history, the British Empire,
and women in Modern European and American History. She has published several articles on
teaching and British history.
“W.T. Stead and the Pro-Boer Response to the South African War: Dissent Through Visual Culture”
Jodie N. Mader, Thomas More College
Endnotes
1 Most historians assert that around 27,000 Boer noncombatants died in refugee camps set up by the British during the war. Many of the victims were women and children. Peter Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899-1902 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1.
2 This paper will use the term “Pro-Boer” to denote all who were against the war. However, not all critics of war necessarily favored the Boers, as most were simply against this particular war and did not have any strong affinity for the enemy combatant.
3 The word Uitlander means “foreigner” in Afrikaans.
4 See Stephen Koss, The Anatomy of an Anti-War Movement: The Pro-Boers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), Arthur Davey, The British Pro-Boers, 1877-1902 (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1978), and Richard Price, An Imperial War and the British Working Class: Working-Class Attitudes and Reactions to the Boer War 1899-1902 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972).
5 The Boer War was particularly a divisive issue for an already split Liberal Party that had parted ways over Irish Home Rule. Liberal MPs such as Leonard Courtney, David Lloyd George, and Henry Campbell Bannerman were against the war, while Liberal Imperialists, led by Lord Rosebery, supported the war.
6 G.R. Searle, A New England? Peace and War, 1886-1918 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2. See also Hugh Cunningham, “The Language of Patriotism,” in Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, edited by Raphael Samuel (New York: Routledge, 1989).
7 J.H. Grainger, Patriotisms: Britain, 1900-1939 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 148.
8 See John S. Galbraith, “The Pamphlet Campaign on the Boer War,” The Journal of Modern History, 24 (June 1952), 112.
9 Mark Bryant, Wars of Empire in Cartoons (London: Grub Street, 2008).
10 James Thompson “’Pictorial Lies’?-Posters and Politics in Britain c. 1880-1914,” Past & Present, No. 197 (November 2007): 177-201.
11 This paper is part of a bigger project on anti-war imagery in Pro-Boer organizations.
12 SACC, “Mr. Leonard Courtney’s Speech, 10 January 1902, SACC, Liverpool Branch.”
13 STWC Placard, Koss, The Anatomy, 71-72.
14 Miles Hudson and John Stanier, War and the Media (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 31.
15 See Stead, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (1885) and Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late Victorian London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
16 Koss, The Anatomy, xxiv.
17 For more on Stead’s understanding of Lady Britannia, see The United States of Europe (Toronto: G.N. Morang and Co., 1899).
18 Kenneth O. Morgan points out that the cameras were used more in this war than any one before. See Morgan, Ages of Reform: Dawns and Downfalls of the British Left (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011).
19 Cited in unpublished autobiography, House of Lords Record Office, London, MS 37b, ch. 16, fos 386-387. Also noted in Thompson, “’Pictorial Lies’.
20 The Jameson Raid took place in 1895 when British and South African financiers attempted to overthrow the Transvaal. This coup failed and many suspected Chamberlain had knowledge of this event and endorsed it.
21 Frederic Whyte, The Life of W.T. Stead, vol.2, (New York/Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 1925), 191. See Joseph O’Baylen, “W.T. Stead and the Boer War: The Irony of Idealism, Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 40 (1959): 304-314 and “W.T. Stead’s Controversial Visit to South Africa, 1904,” History Today (2001): 11-15.
22 STWC, “War Against the Two Republics: A Speech Delivered in Battersea Park, on May 20th 1900, by John Burns, LCC, MP”.
23 See H.C.G. Matthew, The Liberal Imperialists: The Ideas and Politics of a Post-Gladstonian Elite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). Also see H.W. McCready, “Sir Alfred Milner, The Liberal Party, and the Boer War,” Canadian Journal of History (March 1967): 13-44.
24 Many foreign mining magnates saw the Boer republics as oppressive in terms of the taxes they had to pay and the restrictions.
25 Bernard Porter, Critics of Empire: British Radical Attitudes to Colonialism in Africa, 1895-1914 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968), 64.
26 Claire Hirshfield, “The Anglo-Boer War and the Issue of Jewish Culpability,” Journal of Contemporary History vol. 15 (London: SAGE, 1980), 620.
27 STWC, “The Trail of the Financial Serpent: Full Report of the Speech in the House of Commons by John Burns, MP”; “War Against the Two Republics: A Speech Delivered in Battersea Park, on May 20, 1900”, also see Koss, The Anatomy, 94-95.
28 J.A Hobson, The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects (1900; New York: Howard Fertig, 1969), 226.
29 Eitan Bar-Yosef and Nadia Valman, eds., ‘The Jew’ in Late Victorian and Edwardian Culture: Between the East End and East Africa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 11.
30 Bar-Yosef, ‘The Jew’, 12.
31 For more on Jews during this period in Britain see: G. Alderman, Modern British Jewry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); D. Feldman, Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and British Culture, 1840-1914 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1994); Colin Holmes, Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876-1939 (London: Edward Arnold, 1979); and Jonathan Schneer, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
32 Porter, Critics of Empire, 88.
33 John Bull is similar to the national personification of Uncle Sam in the United States.
34 Davey, The British, 86.
35 STWC, Leaflet #5, “Jockeyed into War: The Story of Nine-Tenths Acceptance.” (Figure 3)
36 STWC, Leaflet, #34, “Diplomacy or Highway Robbery? The Story of Chamberlain’s Methods.” (Figure 4)
37 STWC, Leaflet #39, “South African War: Butcher’s Bill, 1900: Presented with Joe C.’s Compliments to John Bull, Esq.” (Figure 5)
38 STWC, Leaflet #20, “More Victims for Moloch: The Demands for Reinforcements.” (Figure 6)
39 STWC, Leaflet #7, “Morituri to Salutant! Dying for Dividends of Dives.” (Figure 7)
40 STWC, Leaflet #8, “Is this a Stock-Jobber’s War? Some Significant Admissions.” (Figure 8)
41 STWC, Leaflet #4, “Naboths’ Vineyard in South Africa.” (Figure 9)
42 STWC, Leaflet #37, “The Meteor Flag of England: Up=to=Date” (Figure 10)
43 STWC, Leaflet #45, “An Artists View of the South African War.” (Figure 11)
44 STWC, Leaflet #36, “The Besetting. Sin of Empires! Nebuchadnezzar’s Pride of Punishment...” By the Rev. Canon Scott-Holland. (Figure 12)
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