26networks, ‘Britishness’ and the Anglo-American relationship. The final section relates more recent writing on the British World to previous writing on the imperial economy, especially that on ‘settler colonialism’ and on the ‘dominion’ model of export economy.
Imperial networks
In a study of the relationship between empires, networks and discourses, the historian of Africa, Frederick Cooper, argues powerfully for the value of the network concept in analysing with greater precision long-distance connections over extended periods of time.24 Cooper’s working definition of a network is a good place to begin: I am using network in a loose sense, although I am aware that this word is used in a highly formalised way. My interest is in forms of affiliation and
23 For a striking example of this point, see C. Van Onselen, The Fox and the Flies: The
World of Joseph Silver, Racketeer and Psychopath (Richmond: University of Virginia
Press, 2007), which tells the chilling story of the trafficking of prostitutes, and related
criminal activity, from Britain and France to the United States, southern Africa,
Argentina and Chile, replete as it is with episodes of seduction, rape, deception,
extortion, burglary and murder.
24 F. Cooper, ‘Networks, Moral Discourse and History’, in T. Callaghy, R. Kassimir and
R. Latham (eds.), Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), pp. 23–46 (p. 23).
27Reconfiguring empire: the British World
association that are less defined than a ‘structure’ but more than just a collection of individuals engaging in transactions. Networks are organisations which stress voluntary and reciprocal patterns of exchange . . . A network may or may not have ideological contents; it may consist of people with a set of strong commitments, or it may deepen and reconfigure the commitments participants have; it may be built around a set of norms, yet as its interactions work out areas of commonality and disagreement, it may define and redefine a normative framework.25 Building on this definition, we show how the networks studied in this book had three key characteristics, each of which betrayed their British origins. First, they were voluntary in nature – individuals belonged to them by choice. Voluntary associations, it will be recalled, were a unifying force in British urban society, a defining feature of the Victorian era. Second, these networks bound people together, nurturing as well as reflecting a sense of shared cultural, religious or ideological commitment and purpose among their members. Third, they transcended boundaries – in our case territorial boundaries. Indeed, what is striking about imperial networks is their capacity to transform the transmission of news and opinion across imperial spaces, and to markedly expand people’s mental horizons in the process.26
Imperial networks ranged from familial and communal forms of association to more formal structures such as humanitarian, administrative, scientific and educational bodies. Reconstructing their influence is vital if we are to appreciate how the British World ‘interacted through friendship, acquaintance, travel, business, correspondence, and . . . the sharing of news’.27 It also needs to be emphasised that business and commercial networks cannot be isolated from the other types of network that spanned the British World: economic knowledge moved through a variety of channels, including those along which all sorts of other information passed. For those who participated in them, networks reinforced a sense of belonging to a worldwide British community. In fact, they have been
25 Ibid., p. 24.
26 For how this might work in practice, see Elizabeth Elbourne’s study of the influ-
ence of trans-national networks, including, for example, newspapers, parliamentary
chambers and courtrooms, in informing British policy towards, and shaping ideas
and debates about, Aboriginal peoples: Blood Ground, Colonialism, Missions and the
Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 (Montreal: McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 2002), and ‘Indigenous Peoples and Imperial Networks in
the Early Nineteenth Century: The Politics of Knowledge’, in Buckner and Francis,
Rediscovering the British World, pp. 59–85.
27 S. J. Potter, ‘Communication and Integration: The British and Dominions Press
and the British World, c. 1876–1914’, in Bridge and Fedorowich, The British World,
pp. 190–207 (p. 191). See also Lambert and Lester, ‘Introduction’, esp. pp. 3–13.
28likened to the ‘cultural glue’ that held the British World together.28 They created strong personal and community ties that shaped people’s daily lives. They helped to make the imperial ‘centre’ more permeable – from the mid century, people were able to move in and out of it with increasing ease and regularity. And they opened up channels of communication between the colonies, as settlers developed a wider range of geographical reference and displayed a growing tendency to think of themselves, and their struggles, in relation to settlers elsewhere.29
Migrant networks (discussed in Chapter 3) were powerful vehicles for disseminating British styles of architecture, fashion, fiction, food and music. Rapidly evolving communications meant people could move around the world with greater confidence. Steamships, telegraphs, ocean cables and newspapers took the ‘tyranny’ out of distance. Migrants began to imagine their social and political spaces in new ways, thereby making their migrations a defining aspect of their identity. Knowledge began to circulate more freely too, not least as a result of the press. It is widely recognised that news agencies such as Reuters were among the world’s first trans-national corporations. Yet it was not only Reuters that ushered in a new reciprocity to news distribution. A plethora of papers (national, regional and provincial), in both Britain and the colonies, helped to define the limits for the acceptable integration of Britain and its settler colonies.30 During the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were drawn together by what has been called an ‘imperial press system’. Newspaper enterprises across these societies yoked together the three main geographical bases for British identity – regional, national and imperial – with the emphasis shifting according to the commercial interests of the paper in question. As a result of voluntary co-operation between commercially driven newspaper enterprises, the flow of information and press communication
28 Bridge and Fedorowich, ‘Mapping the British World’, p. 6.
29 A. Lester, ‘British Settler Discourse and the Circuits of Empire’, HWJ 54:1 (2002),
24–48 (p. 28); Bell, ‘Dissolving Distance’, pp. 523–62.
30 See, especially, S. J. Potter, News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial
Press System, 1876–1922 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). For papers pre-
sented on the press, see E. Ihd, ‘Formulating Britishness: Using a colonial newspaper
to establish identity in new South Wales’, paper given at the British World Conference,
University of Melbourne, July 2004; and D. Cryle, ‘Interdependent or Independent?
Australia–British Relations at the Melbourne Imperial Press Conference’, in K.
Darian-Smith, P. Grimshaw, K. Lindsey and S. McIntyre (eds.), Exploring the British
World: Identity-Cultural Production-Institutions (Melbourne: RMIT Publishing, 2004),
pp. 890–907. For an interesting collection of essays on the subject, see J. F. Codell
(ed.), Imperial Co-Histories: National Identities and the British and Colonial Press
(Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003).
29Reconfiguring empire: the British World occurred predominantly within an imperial framework up to and indeed beyond 1914.31 Professional networks were also influential.32 The demand for professionally qualified accountants, academics, doctors, engineers, lawyers, nurses, teachers and others grew rapidly from the 1850s, in response to the pace of socio-economic development in the dominions. Professional people began to organise themselves more effectively, with the aim of securing recognition from the state and advancing the interests of their members.33 Some professional bodies had their headquarters in London and extensive branch networks across the dominions. Others formed more on a national basis but co-operated closely with kindred bodies elsewhere. Professional people, moreover, spearheaded the formation of other types of knowledge-based networks – literary societies, libraries, galleries and museums – that together helped to foster a ‘Britannic’ civic culture.34 In the fields of academia, law, medicine and science, for example, middle-class settlers saw themselves as a part of a wider British community, carrying not only their professional ideals and practices overseas, but, more generally, their beliefs about codes of civilised conduct and the proper ordering of society. Nor was this elite networking an exclusively male affair. By the end of the nineteenth century, women’s organisations were increasingly prominent in the spheres of migration, nursing, philanthropy, and war relief and commemoration.35
31 Codell, Imperial Co-Histories, p. 212.
32 S. Dubow, ‘The Commonwealth of Science: The British Association in South
Africa, 1905 and 1929’, in S. Dubow (ed.), Science and Society in Southern Africa,
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 66–100; R. Morley, ‘Dropping
Off in the Rounding: The Origins and Significance of Affiliations between British
and New Zealand Accounting Partnerships’, in K. Darian-Smith, P. Grimshaw,
K. Lindsey and S. Mcintyre (eds.), Exploring the British World: Identity, Cultural
Production, Institutions. Proceedings of British World Conference III (Melbourne: RMIT
Publishing, 2004), pp. 1003–21; D. Zabiello, ‘The Role of the Architectural Pattern
Book in British Colonial Expansion in the Nineteenth Century’, in Darian-Smith
et al., Exploring the British World, pp. 854–68; and H. Macdonald, ‘ “Subjects for
Dissection”: Regulating Anatomy in a British World’, paper given at the British
World Conference, University of Melbourne, July 2004. See also J.-G. Prevost
and J.-P. Beaud, ‘A Study in Failure: The 1920 Imperial Statistical Conference’, in
Darian-Smith et al., Exploring the British World, pp. 869–89; and Z. Laidlaw, Colonial
Connections, 1814–45: Patronage, the Information Revolution and Colonial Government
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
33 A. S. Thompson, The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from
the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2005), pp. 17–20.
34 For the role of professional networks in transmitting knowledge about the empire,
and how they could foster within the colonies a wider sense of imperial identity, see
especially Saul Dubow, A Commonwealth of Knowledge: Science, Sensibility and Colonial
Identity in South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
35 L. Chilton, ‘A New Class of Women for the Colonies: Female Emigration Societies
and the Construction of Empire’, JICH 31:2 (May 2003), 36–56; K. Pickles, One