Pro-Empire Sentiment in Twentieth-Century Scotland Before Decolonisation

Esther Breitenbach⁶

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Abstract

Focusing on the cities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, this chapter discusses evidence of Scottish support for empire before decolonisation. Case studies of ‘empire societies’, promotion of empire trade and civic celebrations of empire indicate that this was not simply propagandist. Friendship and hospitality were important dimensions of associational life, as was education for citizenship within ‘the British Commonwealth of Nations’. Empire trade was unevenly promoted, depending on local interests or Scottish economic imperatives. Civic celebrations of empire symbolised public recognition of wartime alliances, and economic and cultural links. The white dominions were privileged in discourses of empire, but the post-war multiracial Commonwealth also attracted the interest of some organisations. Scottish enthusiasm for empire was thus differentiated geographically, between organisations, and over time.

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Notes

1.
John M. MacKenzie, ‘David Livingstone: The Construction of the Myth’, in Graham Walker and Tom Gallagher, eds., Sermons and Battle Hymns: Protestant Popular Culture in Modern Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 24–42; ‘The Provincial Geographical Societies in Britain, 1884–1914’, in Morag Bell, Robin Butlin, and Michael Heffernan, eds., Geography and Imperialism 1820–1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 93–124; ‘Empire and National Identities: The Case of Scotland’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, VIII (1998), 215–31; and John M. MacKenzie, ‘“The Second City of Empire”: Glasgow—Imperial Municipality’, in Felix Driver and David Gilbert, eds., Imperial Cities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 215–37.
2.
The support of the ESRC (Award No: RES-062-23-1790) in funding the research, on which this chapter draws, is gratefully acknowledged. The contribution of Lesley Orr, as Research Associate, is also gratefully acknowledged.
3.
Esther Breitenbach, ‘For Workers’ Rights and Self-Determination? The Scottish Labour Movement and the British Empire from the 1920s to the 1960s’, Scottish Labour History 51 (2016), 113–33.
4.
See Edward M. Speirs, The Scottish Soldier and Empire, 1854–1902 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006); Esther Breitenbach, Empire and Scottish Society: The Impact of Foreign Missions at Home c. 1790–c. 1914 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009); John M. MacKenzie, and T. M. Devine, eds., Scotland and the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); and Jim Tomlinson, Dundee and Empire: ‘Juteopolis’ 1850–1939 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014).
5.
Marjory Harper, Scotland No More? The Scots Who Left Scotland in the Twentieth Century (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2012).
6.
See J. O. Springhall, ‘Lord Meath, Youth and Empire’, Journal of Contemporary History 5 (1970), 97–111; Jim English, ‘Empire Day in Britain, 1904–1958’, Historical Journal 49 (2006), 247–76; and Brad Beavan, and John Griffiths, ‘The City and Imperial Propaganda: A Comparative Study of Empire Day in England, Australia, and New Zealand c. 1903–1914’, Journal of Urban History 42 (2015), 377–95. There is no in-depth study of this phenomenon in Scotland; the summary given here draws on searches of the Aberdeen Journal, Dundee Courier, the Scotsman and Glasgow Herald between 1900 and 1950.
7.
Victoria League, The Victoria League in Scotland (1957); and Aberdeen Journal, 25 May 1909.
8.
For critical responses see, for example, reports in the Scotsman, 2 June 1908; Dundee Courier, 3 March 1910; Scotsman, 18 January 1910; Scotsman, 15 May 1917; Scotsman, 16 July 1925; and Scotsman, 28 June 1938.
9.
Exceptions were an ‘all-youth’ parade in Aberdeen in 1945 and an ‘Empire Day youth and sports pageant’ at Pittodrie Park, Aberdeen in 1947. See Aberdeen Journal, 28 May 1945; and 24 May 1947.
10.
I. G. C. Hutchison, ‘Scottish Unionism Between the Two World Wars’, in C. M. M. Macdonald, ed., Unionist Scotland 1800–1997 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1998), 73–99.
11.
Formed in 1920 by former Women’s Social and Political Union activists Flora Drummond and Elsie Bowerman, it aimed to recruit working-class women. It has been little researched. Scotsman, 18 July 1927, 25 March 1927, and 2 and 9 May 1928; and David Mitchell, The Fighting Pankhursts (London: Jonathan Cape, 1967), passim.
12.
See, for example, Aberdeen Journal, 12, 14, and 19 April, 1926. Mitchell indicates that Drummond incorporated ‘Empire’ into the Guild’s title ‘as a protest against the growing and regrettable tendency to sneer at patriotism and worship the mad mirage of international working-class brotherhood’. Mitchell, Fighting Pankhursts, 164. Stephen Constantine has similarly noted ‘imperialism’ as signifying opposition to socialism in this period. See Stephen Constantine, ‘“Bringing the Empire alive”: The Empire Marketing Board and Imperial Propaganda, 1926–33’, in John M. MacKenzie, ed., Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 192–231.
13.
I am grateful to Dr. Linda Fleming for information about empire pageants. See www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/.
14.
Donside Institutes, Souvenir of Empire Pageant, Tough: 1 January 1925. Alford: 22 August 1925; http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/927/ [accessed 30 May 2017]; Scotsman, 4 November 1937; and Dundee Courier, 20 May 1939.
15.
Glasgow Herald, 1 June 1938.
16.
http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/927/ [accessed 30 May 2017].
17.
As argued by Andrew S. Thompson, ‘The Language of Imperialism and the Meanings of Empire: Imperial Discourse in British Politics, 1895–1914’, Journal of British Studies 36 (1997), 147–77.
18.
John M. MacKenzie’s Propaganda and Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986) was the starting point for an ever-expanding literature.
19.
MacKenzie, ‘The Second City of Empire’; Sheryllyne Haggerty, Anthony Webster, and Nicholas J. White, eds., The Empire in One City? Liverpool’s Inconvenient Imperial Past (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008); Beavan, and Griffiths, ‘The City and Imperial Propaganda’; and Brad Beaven, Visions of Empire: Patriotism, Popular Culture and the City, 1870–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012).
20.
The English-Speaking Union, also designated an ‘empire society’, had a presence in Scotland, but did not play a significant role.
21.
MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire. These organisations were listed in Post Office directories; Scottish branches have not been the subject of in-depth study.
22.
MacKenzie, ‘Provincial Geographical Societies’.
23.
Victoria League in Scotland, Annual Report, 1915, 2, National Library of Scotland [NLS], Acc. 13058/7.
24.
Eliza Riedi, ‘Women, Gender, and the Promotion of Empire: The Victoria League, 1901–1914’, Historical Journal 45 (2002), 569–99.
25.
Victoria League in Scotland; and Dundee Courier, 6 May 1918.
26.
For example, Lady Wallace, the Countess of Moray, Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, Lady Susan Gordon Gilmour, Lady Grainger Stuart and her daughter Alice. Victoria League, Victoria League in Scotland.
27.
Matthew Hendley stresses the Victoria League’s non-partisan character, noting that in the interwar years some Labour Party figures, such as Ethel Snowden, were on its London Executive Committee. Matthew Hendley, Organized Patriotism and the Crucible of War: Popular Imperialism in Britain, 1914–1932 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012).
28.
Glasgow Herald, 14 February 1918; and Dundee Courier, 6 May 1918.
29.
Scotsman, 25 November 1926 and 20 November 1930; and Victoria League Annual Reports, 1927, 1931. NLS: Acc. 13058/7.
30.
Victoria League Annual Reports for 1921, 1924, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935. NLS: Acc. 13058/7.
31.
The Victoria League reformulated its objectives to include the spreading of ‘Knowledge of the different parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire’, the organisation of ‘mutual Hospitality’, and securing ‘a Welcome for British Subjects throughout the Commonwealth and Empire’. Victoria League Annual Report, 1947. NLS: Acc. 13058/7.
32.
The annual report gave some membership figures: for example, eighty members in Galloway and thirty-six in Roxburghshire. Victoria League Annual Report, 1950. NLS: Acc. 13058/7; and Aberdeen Press and Journal, 20 July 1950.
33.
Victoria League Annual Report, 1965. NLS: Acc. 13058/7.
34.
The League still exists as the Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship. Its activities in Scotland appear to consist of awarding grants for ‘the kinds of causes the League has always endorsed, ones that offer a warm welcome to overseas visitors to Scotland and help those visitors connect to and understand our culture’. www.vlscotland.org.uk [accessed 28 May 2017].
35.
A Royal Charter was granted in 1922.
36.
Royal Over-Seas League, The Royal Over-Seas League 1910–1960 (London, 1960), 10.
37.
Much of the account of ROSL’s activities here is based on the Edinburgh ROSL office’s archive, consulted by Lesley Orr.
38.
This continued the practice established at earlier premises in North Charlotte Street. The ROSL provided the ‘first mixed club’ in the city. Scotsman, 29 March 1929.
39.
Scotsman, 6 May 1932.
40.
Glasgow Herald, 21 May 1936 and 6 May 1936; and Smith, Royal Over-Seas League. The Glasgow premises closed in 1966. Dundee information derived from listings in Dundee and District Post Office directories.
41.
Glasgow Herald, 21 May 1936.
42.
ROSL Annual Report, 1943.
43.
Scotsman, 24 May 1947.
44.
Smith, Royal Over-Seas League, 109.
45.
See Scotsman, 27 October 1909, 20 December 1910, 4 June 1913, 24 July 1915, 11 August 1915, and 1 August 1917.
46.
Scotsman, 18 January 1916, 7 November 1916, 15 November 1916, 4 February 1920, 11 February 1920, 18 February 1920, 28 February 1920, 3 March 1920, and 11 December 1925.
47.
Edinburgh Branch Annual Report, 1954. Miscellaneous papers from branches: Royal Commonwealth Society Archive, Cambridge University Library [hereafter RCS Archive].
48.
Scottish Branch Annual Report, 1969. RCS Archive.
49.
Scottish Branch Annual Report, 1969. RCS Archive.
50.
Information about the Commonwealth Institute, Scotland, communicated in interview with Professor Emeritus George Shepperson, 17 March 2011.
51.
James Porter, ‘Empire to Commonwealth: A Cultural Dimension’, The Round Table 96 (2007), 441.
52.
Constantine, ‘Bringing the Empire Alive’, 222.
53.
Chambers of Commerce in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, for example, published journals, yearbooks and occasional publications.
54.
Journal of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and the Leith Chamber of Commerce, 3 July 1924 and 3 October 1924.
55.
Scotsman, 8 May 1925 and 12 May 1925; and Dundee Chamber of Commerce Yearbook, 1926.
56.
Constantine, ‘Bringing the Empire Alive’; and see coverage in Aberdeen Journal, 7 February 1927, 6 December 1927, and 18 July 1928; Dundee Courier, 22 October 1929; and Scotsman, 2 December 1927 and 17 July 1928.
57.
Scotsman, 27 July 1927.
58.
Scotsman, 2 May 1929.
59.
Scotsman, 19 November 1929. This exhibition was held under the auspices of the Edinburgh Trades and Labour Council. See Scotsman, 20 November 1929.
60.
At the Film Guild, the EMB films were paired somewhat incongruously with the German Expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Scotsman, 6 March 1931 and 23 January 1932.
61.
Dundee Courier, 20 September 1932; and Scotsman, 6 December 1932.
62.
Scotsman, 29 May 1931. See also MacKenzie, ‘The Second City of Empire’; Angus Mackenzie, ‘Self-Help and Propaganda: Scottish National Development Council, 1931–1939’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies 30 (2010), 123–45.
63.
Glasgow Civic and Empire Exhibition. Official Catalogue. Glasgow Corporation, 1931.
64.
Glasgow Herald, 28 May 1931.
65.
Dundee Courier, 26 March 1931 and 3 November 1931.
66.
Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, The Bonds of Trade (1928), 2.
67.
Scottish Chambers of Commerce, Trade and Commerce Scotland and the Empire (1934), 3. The participating Chambers were Aberdeen, Dundee, Dunfermline, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Greenock, Kirkcaldy, Leith, and South of Scotland. A search of the Google newspapers archive indicated further such publications in 1936, 1939, and 1940.
68.
The Journal claimed it could be ‘safely stated that certain of the colliery companies have sufficient coal to maintain their present rates of production for three or four hundred years’. Scottish Chambers of Commerce, Trade and Commerce, 42.
69.
See, for example, Journal of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, April 1935; and Mackenzie, ‘Self-Help and Propaganda’.
70.
Perilla and Juliet Kinchin, Glasgow’s Great Exhibitions (Wendlebury, Bicester, Oxon: White Cockade, 1988); Alastair Borthwick, The Empire Exhibition Fifty Years On: A Personal Reminiscence (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1988); Bob Crampsey, The Empire Exhibition of 1938: The Last Durbar (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1988); MacKenzie, ‘Second City of the Empire’; and Sarah Britton, ‘Urban Futures/Rural Pasts: Representing Scotland in the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition’, Cultural and Social History 8 (2011), 213–32.
71.
MacKenzie, ‘Second City of the Empire’.
72.
As stated in 1936 by Cecil Weir, convener of the Exhibition Committee. Glasgow Herald, 6 October 1936.
73.
Britton, ‘Urban Futures/Rural Pasts’.
74.
See Glasgow Herald, 6 October 1936; and Britton, ‘Urban Futures/Rural Pasts’.
75.
Kinchin and Kinchin, Glasgow’s Great Exhibitions.
76.
STUC Annual Report, 1938, 63. The Glasgow Trades Council proposed that the STUC approach the TUC about a Trade Union Pavilion at the Exhibition. The STUC’s commemorative brochure, Scottish Trade Union Congress Souvenir: Empire Exhibition Glasgow 1938, gave an account of the history and work of the STUC.
77.
Britton, ‘Urban Futures/Rural Pasts’; Borthwick, Empire Exhibition Fifty Years On.
78.
Empire Exhibition Official Guide (1938).
79.
Britton, ‘Urban Futures/Rural Pasts’.
80.
Britton, ‘Urban Futures/Rural Pasts’; and Kinchin and Kinchin, Glasgow’s Great Exhibitions.
81.
Empire Exhibition Scotland 1938: Official Catalogue (1938), 202. See also Kinchin and Kinchin, Glasgow’s Great Exhibitions; and Crampsey, Empire Exhibition.
82.
Peace Pavilion Empire Exhibition Scotland (1938), 3.
83.
Glasgow Herald, 13 June, 11 July, 15 August, 19 September, 24 September, and 17 October 1938. Sarah Britton has provided an account of the ILP exhibition in ‘“Come and See the Empire by the All-Red Route”: Anti-Imperialism and Exhibitions in Interwar Britain’, History Workshop Journal 69 (2010), 68–89. The Scout pageant is referred to in Crampsey, Empire Exhibition.
84.
Britton, ‘Urban Futures/Rural Pasts’.
85.
Donaldson Atlantic Line, A Welcome to the Homecoming Scot, Empire Exhibition Scotland (1938), 11.
86.
MacKenzie, ‘The Second City of Empire’.
87.
J. D. Mackie, ‘Building of the Empire: Great Part Played by Scotsmen’, Glasgow Herald—Empire Exhibition Special Supplement, 28 April 1938.
88.
Glasgow Herald, 1 June 1938.
89.
In Aberdeen its origins dated to the twelfth century, through the City’s Burgesses of Guild.
90.
Information compiled from Freedom of the City of Edinburgh list (undated print-out, previously available on the Council’s website); Glasgow City Council, Freedom of the City Recipients, www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=15982 [accessed 20 June 2016]; Freedom of the City of Aberdeen, Aberdeen City Council (undated print-out, previously available on the Council’s website); and Dundee City Council, Lockit Buik, (Honorary) Burgess of the First Class, 1900–1971. I am grateful to the Dundee City Archivist for the latter.
91.
Aberdeen Journal, 28 August 1901 and 10 April 1902.
92.
Aberdeen Journal, 27 September 1928.
93.
Aberdeen Journal, 5 June 1937.
94.
Glasgow Herald, 7 May 1936.
95.
As noted in the Glasgow Herald, 7 May 1936.
96.
Scotsman, 28 April 1916, 12 April 1917, and 20 November 1930.
97.
Dundee Courier, 18 October 1934.
98.
Dundee Courier, 18 October 1934.
99.
Scotsman, 11 April 1917 and 18 May 1918.
100.
Scotsman, 11 April 1917.
101.
Dundee Courier, 19 October 1934.
102.
Dundee Courier, 20 October 1934.
103.
Scotsman, 29 April 1911.
104.
Aberdeen Journal, 21 September 1935.
105.
Scotsman, 4 October 1944. The first Indian to be given the Freedom of Edinburgh was Dwarkanath Tagore in 1842. See Scotsman, 31 August 1842.
106.
The latter was unable to attend the ceremony, and his role was given little coverage.
107.
Judith M. Brown, ‘India’, in Judith M. Brown and William Roger Louis, eds., Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume IV: The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 430.
108.
Scotsman, 10 January 1931.
109.
Scotsman, 29 June 1934.
110.
The Lord Provost’s referred to Smuts’ visit perhaps being ‘the starting point for the erection of the long-delayed new University College’. Dundee Courier, 20 October 1934.
111.
Scotsman, 11 June 1935.
112.
Scotsman, 30 June 1934.
113.
Robert D. Anderson, Michael Lynch, and Nicholas Phillipson, The University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), 132.
114.
Scotsman, 14 February 1930.
115.
Andrew Thompson, ‘Introduction’, in Andrew Thompson, ed., Britain’s Experience of Empire in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
116.
Tomlinson quotes the Dundee Courier complaining that the government failure to protect the jute industry was ‘not the way to stimulate Empire sentiment’. Quoted in Tomlinson, Dundee and the Empire, 136.
117.
MacKenzie, ‘The Second City of Empire’.
118.
John Darwin, ‘A Third British Empire? The Dominion Idea in British Politics’, in Judith M. Brown and William Roger Louis, eds., Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume IV: The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 64–87.
119.
Thompson, ‘Language of Imperialism’, 176.

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Esther Breitenbach

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Department of History, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
Stephanie Barczewski
School of History, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Martin Farr

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Breitenbach, E. (2019). Pro-Empire Sentiment in Twentieth-Century Scotland Before Decolonisation. In: Barczewski, S., Farr, M. (eds) The MacKenzie Moment and Imperial History. Britain and the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24459-0_11

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Published: 12 November 2019
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