Australia's Communities and the Boer War

John McQuilton

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9783319308241
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319308258
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

This book explores an Australian regional community's reaction to, and involvement with, the Boer War. It argues that after the initial year the war became an 'occasional war' in that it was assumed that the empire would triumph. But it also laid the foundations for reactions to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. This is the first exploration of the place of the Boer War in Australian history at the community level. Indeed, even at the national level the literature is limited. It is often forgotten that, despite the claims that Australia became a federation via peaceful means, the colonies and the new nation were, in fact, at war. This study aims to bring back into focus a forgotten part of Australian and imperial history, and argues that the Australian experience of the Boer War was more than the execution of Morant and Hancock.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

John McQuiltonAustralia's Communities and the Boer War10.1007/978-3-319-30825-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: “Dot” Briggs

John McQuilton¹ 

(1)

University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

 

Abstract

In October 1901 in the village of Cudgewa, Rev. Campbell Lahore conducted an in memoriam service for Walter Briggs who was killed in the Boer War. Lahore praised Briggs for his sacrifice for empire, and he savaged the men in the Fifth Victorian Mounted Rifles (VMR) for their apparent cowardice at Wilmansrust. This was of some interest to those attending the service because the Fifth VMR had accounted for the largest intake of regional volunteers for the war.

Keywords

Boer WarWilmansrustVictorian Mounted Rifles (VMR)

End Abstract

In Cudgewa, in the Upper Murray valley, a small obelisk stands in an empty paddock. It is dedicated to Corporal Walter Briggs, who, at the age of 30, had died “fighting for his country” in South Africa. When built, it stood in the school reserve and in the centre of the village. The site had been chosen to remind future generations of what sacrifice in war should mean.

Walter Briggs was a big man, over six feet in height, hence his nickname “Dot”. In February 1900, he had driven his brother, and other successful volunteers for the Fourth Victorian Contingent, from Cudgewa to the Tallangatta railway station in his “express wagon” after a farewell attended by over 200 people. In late 1900, he volunteered for the Fifth Victorian Mounted Rifles (VMR) with his mate, Robert Carlisle, from Granya. ¹ Carlisle was accepted, but Dot was rejected because he was overweight. He paid his own passage to South Africa and enlisted in the South African Constabulary, one of the imperial units set up in the subcontinent to fight the war. He was killed at Heidelberg in Cape Province on 30 August 1901.

The local paper reported that a “pall of gloom” had descended on Cudgewa with the news of his death. ² He was the youngest in the family and a “general favourite”. The district’s Presbyterian minister, Rev. Campbell Lahore, conducted a memorial service in October before a packed congregation. The pulpit was draped in black and partly covered by the Union Jack. Lahore claimed it was noble to love one’s country and those without such affection suffered a “serious defect”. Cudgewa was not alone in its loss, he said: there were vacant chairs in homes across an empire that mourned for “those brave soldier lads who will never return”. Briggs, he told the gathering, had been an exemplar of what it meant to be a British soldier and had died “one of the noblest, most glorious deaths a man can die”. He then turned to a matter that was of some interest in the region: whether the men in the Fifth VMR had been cowards when they fled before, or surrendered to, the enemy at Wilmansrust in June. The Fifth’s defeat was a “painful and humiliating shock”, Lahore claimed. Its men had violated the best traditions of the British Army and had tarnished the recognition that Australian soldiers had garnered during the war. ³ For the district, Lahore’s attack on the Fifth meant Robert Carlisle. For the region, it meant the reputation of its largest single intake of volunteers for the war.

The school has gone, as has the memory of Briggs, his sacrifice and his war. Even less is remembered of the reasons behind Lahore’s savaging of the Fifth.

Dot’s war was the Boer War. Laurie Field described it as the “forgotten war”, ⁴ and the study of the social history of war in Australia bears out the claim. In current historiography, there are only occasional reminders of that war—dissent at home, “Breaker” Morant and monuments that draw little recognition. It has, as Craig Wilcox argued in his masterful analysis of the conflict in South Africa, been “has been lost to sight” ⁵ in histories of Australia. The celebration of the centenary of federation in 2001 made the point rather neatly. Although it was acknowledged that Australia had men fighting in South Africa in 1901, federation was achieved by peaceful means. The nation, however, was “born” in 1915. Yet, the Boer War was Australia’s first experience of a sustained imperial war fought beyond its shores. But what did the war mean at a community level? Using North Eastern Victoria as a prism, this book looks at Australia’s “forgotten war” at home.

Notes

1.

National Archives of Australia (NAA) B5179, Muster (Nominal) Rolls of Victorian Contingents.

 

2.

UM&MH, 12 September 1901.

 

3.

CC, 10 October 1901.

 

4.

L.J. Field, The Forgotten War: Australian Involvement in the South African Conflict of 1899–1902 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1979).

 

5.

Craig Wilcox, Australia’s Boer War: The War in South Africa 1899–1902 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press in Association with the Australian War Memorial, 2002) 87.

 

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

John McQuiltonAustralia's Communities and the Boer War10.1007/978-3-319-30825-8_2

Begin Abstract

2. Portrait of a Region

John McQuilton¹

(1)

University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

The regional economy of North Eastern Victoria was a mixed one. Rifle clubs, initially formed to defend the colony, also filled a social function. The prevailing political orthodoxy in the region was liberalism that found its quintessential expression in the Isaacs brothers, Isaac and John. A mistrust of the metropolis, whether it be Melbourne or London, was part and parcel of regional politics. Two groups were marginalised, the Chinese and the immigrants from northern India and Afghanistan. Sectarianism was an integral part of regional life. The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign was a red letter day for many in the region although not for all.

Keywords

North Eastern VictoriaIsaac IsaacsRifle clubs

End Abstract

In 1899, Victoria’s North East had little notion that the empire would soon call on its men to volunteer for war. Its citizens were far more preoccupied with the ins and outs of regional life, a growing mistrust of the politicians in Melbourne and the upcoming referendum on federation. It was a typical regional community in one sense. Regions sometimes march in step with the national picture: yet more often they reflect accommodation, mediation and sometimes a rejection of external forces because a region is a place where national and international matters intersect with notions of community and identity. They still do.

Regional Life

Although those living in Melbourne may have seen the countryside as a dull place to live when set beside the attractions of the metropolis, the region certainly led a full social life. The towns and the rural districts had their racing clubs. Rutherglen’s Lake Moodemere Regatta attracted rowing competitors from the other colonies and from overseas. Euchre evenings were popular. Hardly a month went by when one community or another did not hold a dance or ball. The Miners’ Sports held in Chiltern and Rutherglen were a social staple for the surrounding communities. The towns had debating and choral societies, brass bands and orchestras, reading and amateur theatre groups. Beechworth even boasted golf links. Companies, ranging from Melbourne’s Blind Institute singers to public lectures and Wild West shows, did good business in the region. The newly invented Cinematographe, however, did poorly when it debuted in the North East. ¹ The 1890s added two new attractions. The first was the chrysanthemum. Competitions for the best bloom were held at the local, district and regional level. Frosts and wandering cows were the deadly enemies of local competitors. The other attraction was cycling. Men and women embraced the new sport with enthusiasm and cycling clubs were found in every town. Cycling, however, was not without its critics. The Rutherglen paper condemned “scorchers” as a menace to pedestrians and society in general. ²

Cricket and football were sporting staples for the summer and winter months, respectively. Cricket moved from season to season with little controversy, but not football. Local columnists, such as Bright’s “Little Mark”, were not above blaming a loss on prejudicial umpiring or the lack of sporting spirit on the part the opposition. There were even allegations of bribery. The Excelsior Football Club, for example, offered a £5 reward in 1897 for anyone who could prove that its players had taken money to lose to Beechworth. The club was back in the news again the following year, accused of “rough play”. Excelsior retorted that this reflected a blind prejudice against miners, although one football fan offered a different explanation. Excelsior’s poor reputation was due to the consumption of “liquid food” before, during and after the match. ³

Rifle clubs dotted the region and were found in both the rural districts and the towns. The clubs had been formed to repel invaders landing on Victoria’s coast, but, as the coast was some distance away, the clubs filled a social rather than a defence function. Colonel Tom Price visited the region to inspect the local clubs and from 1896 members could look forward to two or three days drill at Queenscliff. ⁴

The rising generation (naturally) provoked despair in their elders. Any anti-social behaviour on the part of the region’s young males was roundly denounced as larrikinism. ⁵ Young men under the influence and fighting and swearing in Freeburgh and North Prentice after a football match brought irate letters and editorial condemnation of these “roughs” and a demand for the establishment of that ultimate symbol of status and respectability, a police station. “Hoodlums” ruined a performance by the Lyceum Dramatic Company in Chiltern and disrupted perf...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction: “Dot” Briggs
• 2. Portrait of a Region
• 3. “Skyrocket Patriotism”: October 1899 to December 1900
• 4. Exploring Disloyalty
• 5. Our Boys
• 6. From the Veldt
• 7. Removing the Stain: Wilmansrust
• 8. The Occasional War: January 1901 to August 1902
• 9. Obligations, Monuments and Moving On
• 10. Conclusion
• Backmatter