The Democratization of Manliness at the Turn of the Century, 1890–1920

Abstract

In the years between 1890 and 1920 the ideals of manliness in boys’ papers began to shift. As we have seen, the Victorian hero was aristocratic, adventurous and arrogant. Although some examples of his type persisted, Edwardian heroes tended to reside lower on the social scale. Pit boys, engine-drivers and factory lads began to find their likenesses held up as examples of heroic manliness. The very definition of manly behaviour was therefore changing. Whereas the Victorian ideal of masculinity had been defined by an arrogant superiority based on class position and innate ability, Edwardian heroes had a less assured hold on masculinity throughout their stories. They were encouraged to think not of themselves, but of the community in which they operated, whether that meant the family, the school or the neighbourhood. In the Edwardian story papers, masculinity was no longer seen as something that resided naturally in only one segment of the population, the aristocracy; instead, its acquisition was the result of hard work and the acceptance of society’s rules. These new heroes also occupied a wider range of class positions, from skilled workers to young men in business. Although physical bravery remained a cornerstone of manly behaviour, some new manly stances were emphasized. These included sacrificing one’s own goals for the sake of the community, whether this was by giving up the chance at military glory in the Boer War or Great War, or a career with the railway for a skilled worker. Thus was masculinity democratized and broadened after a period of focus on the elites.

Going away to school had a ring about it that connected me with the heroes of the stories in the halfpenny and penny boys’ papers, which, though written for boys of our class, dealt entirely with the doings of boys at schools of the Rugby and Winchester type.

Thomas Burke (b.1886)¹

I craved for Greyfriars, that absurd Public School, as I craved for pudding.

V. S. Pritchett (b.1900)²

With nothing in our school that called for love or allegiances, Greyfriars became for some of us our true Alma Mater, to whom we felt bound by a dreamlike loyalty. The ‘mouldering pile,’ one came to believe, had real existence: of that boys assured one another. We placed it vaguely in the southern counties — somewhere between Winchester and Harrow. It came as a curious shock to one who revered the Old School when it dawned upon him that he himself was a typical sample of the ‘low cads’ so despised by all at Greyfriars. Class consciousness had broken through at last. Over the years these simple tales conditioned the thought of a whole generation of boys. The public school ethos, distorted into myth and sold among us weekly in penny numbers, for good or ill, set ideas and standards. This our own tutors, religious and secular, had signally failed to do. In the final estimate it may well be found that Frank Richards during the first quarter of the twentieth century had more influence on the mind and outlook of young working-class England than any other person, not excluding Baden-Powell.

Robert Roberts (b.1905)³