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‘Personal contact is worth a ton of text-books’: educational tours of the empire, 1926–39

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0308653042000279669

1743-9329

Marjory Harper,

Australian History and Society

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes In the Studies in Imperialism series, see in particular J.M. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960 (Manchester, 1984); J.M. MacKenzie (ed.), Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester, 1986); and K. Pickles, Female Imperialism and National Identity: Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (Manchester, 2002). See also D. Simpson, ‘The Spirit of a Lion and the Appetite of a Robin: Margaret Best and the School Empire Tours’, Royal Commonwealth Society Library Notes, 226 (April–June 1978), 1–7; J.A. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal (London, 1998); and J. Sturgis and M. Bird, Canada's Imperial Past: The Life of F.J. Ney 1884–1973 (Edinburgh, 2000). See in particular K. Pickles, ‘Exhibiting Canada: Empire, Migration and the 1928 English Schoolgirl Tour’, Gender Place and Culture, 7, 1 (2000), 81–96. J. Parr, Labouring Children: British Immigrant Apprentices to Canada, 1869–1924 (Montreal and London, 1980); and G. Wagner, Children of the Empire (London, 1982). R. Service, ‘The Younger Son’, The Complete Poems of Robert Service (New York, 1940), 52–53. M. Harper, ‘“Abraham and Isaac Ride the Range”: British Images of the American West’, Journal of the West, 40, 1 (Winter 2001), 8–15. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 174–97. A. Maddrell, ‘Empire, Emigration and School Geography: Changing Discourses of Imperial Citizenship, 1880–1925’, Journal of Historical Geography, 22, 4 (1996), 373–87. A.G. Scholes, Education for Empire Settlement: A Study of Juvenile Emigration (London, 1932), 235. The Royal Colonial Institute changed its name to the Royal Empire Society in 1928. A.H. Halsey to The Listener, 6 Jan. 1983, 10, quoted in MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 193. Exhibition programme, quoted in MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 108. See also C. Tait, ‘Brushes, Budgets and Butter: Canadian Culture and Identity at the British Empire Exhibition, 1924–5’, unpublished paper delivered at British World Conference II, University of Calgary, July 2003. L.S. Amery, My Political Life, vol.3, The Unforgiving Years, 1929–40 (London, 1955), 221–22. Manitoba Free Press, 5 Jan. 1910, quoted in Sturgis and Bird, Canada's Imperial Past, 6. J. Sturgis and M. Bird, ‘Full Imperial Measure: Aspects of the Life of Fred Ney 1884–1973’, Canada House Lecture Series, 66, n.d., 7. The Times, 8 Dec. 1938, 12d. The war thwarted Ney's plans to send a group of Canadian students to participate in New Zealand's centennial celebrations in 1940. Sturgis and Bird, ‘Full Imperial Measure’, 7. From Ney's speech, read by his wife, on the party's embarkation, quoted in Teachers' Trails in Canada: An Illustrated Review of the Canadian Tour of the British Educationists' Party: July–September 1925, edited by A.H. Godwin and F.B. Low (London and Toronto, 1925), xi. Teachers' Trails, 11. Ibid., 48–49. R. Hamilton and D. Shields, The Dictionary of Canadian Quotations and Phrases, rev. edn. (Toronto, 1979), 458. Teachers' Trails, 7. Ibid., 27–28, 61–62. Ibid., xvi–xvii. Ibid., 38, 81–82. J.H. Putnam, Schoolmasters Abroad: A 1937 Diary (Toronto, 1937). R. Hood, ‘I've been to England’, University of Saskatchewan Archives, http://scaa/usask.ca/gallery/OEL/. Ibid., letter dated 15 May 1937. Ibid., letter dated 4 July 1937. Leo Amery, quoted in Sturgis and Bird, Canada's Imperial Past, 160, from Ney Papers, vol.17, file 3, n.d. (early 1937). J.D'E. Firth, Rendall of Winchester: The Life and Witness of a Teacher (London, 1954), 196, Rendall quoting from a speech he had heard at Andover, New Hampshire, during a visit to the United States in 1919. The Times, 4 Nov. 1926, 15e. Ibid., 6 Nov. 1926, 8a. Rendall of Winchester, 210, quoting letter from Amery to Firth. School Empire Tour Committee Minutes (hereafter SETC), 1925–1927, 25 Nov. 1925, Royal Commonwealth Society Library (hereafter RCSL). Ibid., 13 June 1926. M.J. Rendall, ‘Youth and the Empire’, United Empire, XIX (1928), 685, 686. Rendall, ‘School Empire Tours’, ibid., XXVIII (1937), 444. Comment by Sir Dick White to D.N. Dilks, University of Leeds, disclosed in letter from Dilks to Donald Simpson, July 1980, in School Empire Tours, ‘Historical’ file, RCSL. United Empire, XXXIII (1941), 22, quoted in Simpson, ‘The Spirit of a Lion’, 3. M.J. Rendall to J. Parr, 21 Feb. 1931, Winchester College Archives, G66/2/30/2; Rendall to Parr, 30 April 1931, ibid., G66/2/30/7. The other contender for the post of advance agent, an Eton Scholar, was competent, ‘but he is not much to look at’, Rendall to Parr, May 1931, ibid., G66/2/30/9. In 1927 Sir Abe Bailey offered £500 to subsidise the participation of five boys from Winchester College, SETC minutes, 29 Sept. 1927. Rendall, ‘Youth and the Empire’, 687; and Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism, 30. School Empire Tours, files, itineraries, RCSL. The boys who went on more than one tour were R.D. Hilton of Tonbridge, who went to India in 1929 and the Caribbean in 1931; P.D. Durtnell of Tonbridge, East Africa in 1930 and Canada in 1932; C.P.R. Bowen-Colthurst of Harrow, Australia in 1931 and South Africa in 1932; W.R. Verdin of Lancing, both Canada and New Zealand in 1932; P.R. Grotian of Dartmouth, both Canada and India in 1933; B.L. Whiteaway of Bryanston, India in 1933 and East Africa in 1934; P.A.L. Chapple of Rugby and Q.H.M. Gage of Eton, both to Canada in 1937 and New Zealand in 1938; and S.A. Spencer of Stowe, New Zealand in 1938 and Canada in 1939. Rendall's memorandum, School Empire Tours, proposals for revival 1947–49; SETC minutes, 16 June, 3 Dec. 1936. G.H. Woolley, Sometimes a Soldier (London, 1963), 136. The Times, 4 Oct. 1932, 7c, referring to a speech by the prime minister of Canada. SETC minutes, 1925–27, recommendations by Woolley (n.d. but preceding 1926 tour to Australia). M.J. Rendall to J. Parr, 22 March 1931, Winchester College Archives, G66/2/30/3. Rendall, ‘School Empire Tours’, 442. Manchester Guardian, 15 April 1939. The Times, 14 April 1939, 8f. Ibid., 30 Dec. 1933, 7a; 6 Jan. 1939, 14c. The Tonbridgian, March 1927. Although boys commonly went on a tour immediately after leaving school, one participant, A.P. Noble, joined the 1932 tour to South Africa three years after leaving Sedbergh School (correspondence from Sedbergh School archivist, Nov. 2003). SETC minutes, 1934–38, 22 Nov. 1934, 6 Feb. 1936; Woolley, Sometimes a Soldier, 135. Memorandum by Rendall, 1947, School Empire Tours, proposals for revival 1947–49. SETC minutes, 1925–27, recommendations by Woolley; ibid., committee meeting of 14 Oct. 1928. M.J. Rendall to J. Parr, 12 June 1931, Winchester College Archives, G66/2/30/14. SETC minutes, 1925–27, 5 June 1930. Firth, Rendall of Winchester, 212. Rendall to Parr, 3 June 1931, Winchester College Archives, G66/2/30/12. SETC minutes, letter from Woolley to the committee, 26 Aug. 1926. John Guise, Official Tour Diary, 14 Aug. 1933, Harold Welch mss, RCSL. Ibid., Malcolm Dowson, 20 Aug. 1933. Ibid., John Guise, 4 Sept. 1933. Ibid., John Guise, 25 Aug. 1933. He did add, however, that such events gave the boys valuable opportunities in public speaking, which the audiences ‘liked immensely’. Six years earlier, a participant in a tour of South Africa recalled that a spell in the Drakensbergs had offered ‘a glorious five days’ rest from mayors and from sight-seeing', R.W., ‘The public schoolboys’ tour in South Africa', The Haileyburian, May 1928. SETC minutes, 8 April 1927. E.T. Goulding, ‘The Head Monitor's Travels’, The Taylorian (June 1928), 147–48. Felix Greene, ‘The School Empire Tour to South Africa’, The Island (the magazine of Sidcot School, Somerset) (1928), 281–85. See also R. Winbush, The Haileyburian, May 1928; Bernard Odhams, writing in the magazine of King's College School, Wimbledon, July 1928 and A.A. Burton, ‘School Empire Tour, 1927–28’, City of London School Magazine, 241 (July 1928), 94–96. Greene subsequently pursued a career as a writer, film-maker and publicist, the BBC's first representative overseas (in New York) in 1936 and an adviser to the Colonial Office. Odhams was killed in action in the Middle East in 1941. Anon., ‘School Empire Tour’, The Wykehamist, 700 (22 May 1928), 489–90. S.M. Courtauld, ‘Public Schools Empire Tour’, The Gresham (1931), 49–50. Letters dated 29 Jan., 14 Feb., 21 Feb., 1 March, 14 March 1937, Eton College Archives, ED/19/1. Young died in action in Egypt on 17 Sept. 1941. The Wykehamist, 777 (24 Oct. 1933), 290–91; ibid., 837 (20 Dec. 1938), 486. R. Marriott, letter to author, 2 Dec. 2003. Woolley, Sometimes a Soldier, 80. Ibid., 82. J. Walter, ‘A Schoolboy's Notes on Australia’, United Empire, XVIII (1927), 349–50. P. Bean and J. Melville, Lost Children of the Empire (London, 1989), 129. Bean and Melville, Lost Children, 156; Belinda Barry, interviewed for Radio 4, ‘The Child Migrants’, Programme 3, 6 Oct. 2003. Woolley, Sometimes a Soldier, 93–94. M. Harper, Emigration from Scotland between the Wars: Opportunity or Exile (Manchester, 1998), 139. John Guise, Official Tour Diary, 25 Aug. 1933, Welch mss. Ibid., 20 Aug. 1933. Ibid., Malcolm Dowson, 22 Sept. 1933. Harold Welch diary, 4 Aug. 1933. Ibid., Welch to his parents and brother, 14 Aug. 1933. Ibid., Welch diary, ‘Impressions of Newfoundland’. John Guise, Official Tour Diary, 2 Sept. 1933, Welch mss. Ibid., Malcolm Dowson, 6 Sept. 1933. George Riding, Aldenham School, Elstree, to Rendall, 2 Aug. 1944, School Empire Tours, files, itineraries. Amery to Rendall, 20 March 1942, School Empire Tours, work of committee, 1942–44, excluding Margaret Best memorial. The Times, 21 Nov. 1942, 5a. This correspondence is found in School Empire Tours: ideas for post-war revival, RCSL. Memorandum by Montague Rendall, ‘School Empire Tours Committee, 1947’, School Empire Tours, proposals for revival 1947–49. Ibid., ? Ling, Acting Secretary General, Dominions Office, to Rendall, 12 March 1948. Simpson, ‘The Spirit of a Lion’, 7. Rendall's memorandum, School Empire Tours, proposals for revival 1947–49. Meeting of 1 July 1927 in minute book of the schoolgirls' oversea tour sub-committee, vol.1, June 1927–May 1930. The Women's Library, Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women (hereafter SOSBW), 1/SOS/1/33. The Times, 21 Feb. 1930, 10b. Downe House School Magazine, Michaelmas term, 1935; Woodford County High School Magazine (Nov. 1934), 35–40; ibid. (1936), 27–32. The Times, 29 July 1938, 10d. Edith Thompson's report to schoolgirls' oversea tour sub-committee, 17 Nov. 1936, SOSBW, 1/SOS/1/34. Pickles, ‘Exhibiting Canada’, 75–90. 21 May 1930, SOSBW, 1/SOS/1/33; 17 Nov. 1936, 9 Nov. 1938, 1/SOS/1/34. 9 Dec. 1927, SOSBW, 1/SOS/1/33. Pickles, ‘Exhibiting Canada’, 93. Prospects in Canada for British Girls. Report of the Headmistresses' Tour 1931 (London, 1931), 44–45. Firth, Rendall of Winchester, 215; and Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism, 33. The Tonbridgian, March 1927, 18. School Empire Tour Committee minutes, 16 June 1938. Ibid., 16 June, 28 Oct. 1938. E. G. Walls Stephens, father of R.E.W. Stephens, a Marlborough boy who went on a tour to Australia in 1931–32, letter to The Times, 7 Jan. 1932, 11d. See also The Times, 7 April 1934, 13b; 6 Jan. 1939, 14c. Rendall's memorandum, 1947, School Empire Tours, proposals for revival, 1947–49. Pickles, Female Imperialism and National Identity, 61. A.W. Kershaw, Orange, New South Wales, letter to author, 1 March 2004; R. Marriott, letter to author, 2 Dec. 2003; Simpson, ‘The Spirit of a Lion’, 5, 7.