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ABSTRACT
In the inter-war years, the politicization of ‘race’, especially in Nazi Germany during the 1930s, produced a dilemma for race scientists in Britain. For the most part deeply unsympathetic to the Nazi regime, they nevertheless found it difficult to dismiss the concept of ‘race’ when analysing and classifying the peoples of the world. Kushner argues that the leading geographer and anthropologist H. J. Fleure provides an intriguing paradigm in the British case. He was a strong and genuine opponent of the Nazi regime who made great efforts to help its Jewish victims, both by providing refugees with support and by giving lectures and writing articles attacking antisemitism and the concept of ‘Aryanism’. Even so, Fleure never fully abandoned race science, even after the Second World War. The failure of even progressive thinkers such as Fleure to leave behind racial categorization, according to Kushner, had a lingering impact after 1945. It led to confusion in the use of terminology well into the twentieth century and beyond, enabling the continuation and revival of race science in a direction opposite to that intended by Fleure and others who found racism morally repugnant.
Notes
1Harry Goulbourne, Race Relations in Britain since 1945 (London: Macmillan 1998), ix–x, 26–8.
2Robert Miles, Racism after ‘Race Relations’ (London: Routledge 1993), 148. More generally, see Karim Murji and John Solomos (eds), Racialization: Studies in Theory and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005).
3Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain, 1800–1960 (London: Macmillan 1982), xvi–xvii.
4Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain, 1800–1960 (London: Macmillan 1982), x.
5Elazar Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992).
6For Fleure, see Alice Garnett, ‘Herbert John Fleure’, Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society, vol. 16, 1970, 253–78; J. A. Campbell, ‘Some sources of the humanism of H. J. Fleure’, University of Oxford School of Geography Research Papers, no. 2, 1972; Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 59–65; and Paul Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986), 110–12.
7Garnett, ‘Herbert John Fleure’, 253.
10H. J. Fleure, The Peoples of Europe (London: Oxford University Press 1922), 8–9.
8For example, Fleure's The Races of Mankind (London: Ernest Benn 1927) was in its third impression by 1930.
9T. W. Freeman, A History of Modern British Geography (London: Longman 1980), 111.
11H. J. Fleure, The Peoples of Europe (London: Oxford University Press 1922), 11.
12H. J. Fleure, The Races of England and Wales: A Survey of Recent Research (London: Benn Brothers 1923), 84.
13Franz Boas, ‘Changes in the bodily form of descendants of immigrants’, American Anthropologist, vol. 14, no. 3, 1912, quoted in Kenan Malik, The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1996), 152 and 281n8; H. J. Fleure and T. C. James, ‘Geographical distribution of anthropological types in Wales’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 46, January–June 1916, 37, in response to Franz Boas, Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants (New York: Columbia University Press 1912).
14Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science, 166.
15Fleure, The Races of England and Wales, 74, 84. On Boas, see George W. Stocking, Jr, The Ethnographer's Magic and Other Essays in the History of Anthropology (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1992), 95–123; George W. Stocking, Jr, Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1982), ch. 7; and Malik, The Meaning of Race, 150–6.
16Fleure, The Races of Mankind, 6–8.
17Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 59–60.
18Fleure, The Races of Mankind, 5–6.
19Campbell, ‘Some sources of the humanism of H. J. Fleure’, 14.
20H. J. Fleure, ‘Nordic race and culture and German nationality’, German Life and Letters, vol. 1, 1936–7, 171–81. It is interesting that this article is among the papers kept by the British Jewish historian of science, and campaigner on behalf of Jewish refugees, Charles Singer, who was one of the major forces behind We Europeans (see below) and the fight against race prejudice, suggesting some degree of interaction between Fleure and those directly working against Nazi antisemitism (University of Southampton Libraries, Special Collections, Charles Singer Papers, MS94/4).
21H. J. Fleure, ‘Racialism and toleration’, in E. Ashworth Underwood (ed.), Science, Medicine and History: Essays on the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice Written in Honour of Charles Singer, 2 vols (London: Oxford University Press 1953), ii.406.
22Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 286–7.
23Royal Anthropological Institute and the Institute of Sociology, Race and Culture (London: Le Play House Press 1936); Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 289.
24Pitt-Rivers was a pro-Nazi and closely connected to British fascist and antisemitic circles who was interned by the British government during the Second World War. On Ruggles Gates and his antisemitism and racism, see Greta Jones, Science, Politics and the Cold War (London and New York: Routledge 1988), 74, 119–22, and Gavin Schaffer, ‘“‘Scientific’ racism again?” Reginald Gates, the Mankind Quarterly and the question of race in science after the Second World War’, Journal of American Studies, vol. 41, no. 2, 2007, 253–78.
28H. J. Fleure's contribution in Race and Culture, 7–8.
25Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 294.
26Pitt-Rivers's contribution in Race and Culture, 16; Julian S. Huxley and A. C. Haddon, We Europeans: A Survey of Racial Problems (London: Jonathan Cape 1935), 188, 222. For the fullest treatment of We Europeans, see Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 296–308. See also Gavin Schaffer, ‘“Like a baby with a box of matches”: British scientists and the concept of “race” in the interwar period’, British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 38, no. 3, 2005, 307–24 (312, 317, 322–3).
27Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 296, 306.
29Fleure, ‘Nordic race and culture and German nationality’, 176.
30H. J. Fleure, ‘Race and its meaning in Europe’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 24, 1940, 234.
31H. J. Fleure, ‘Race and its meaning in Europe’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 24, 238–9.
32H. J. Fleure, ‘Race and its meaning in Europe’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 24, 244–5.
34Garnett, ‘Herbert John Fleure’, 264.
35H. J. Fleure, ‘What the International Club stands for’, in The International Club: Tenth Anniversary 1948 (Manchester: International Club 1948) (a copy is held at the Manchester Central Reference Library, Local Studies Unit).
33The apologetic approach can also be seen in his ‘Nordic race and culture and German nationality’, 176–7.
36Oral history of members of the International Club provided by Bill Williams. I am extremely grateful to Bill for sharing his knowledge of this organization.
37Garnett, ‘Herbert John Fleure’, 264.
38Fleure, ‘What the International Club stands for’.
39For details of the Manchester Resolution and Fleure's role in it, see the Barash Papers at the Manchester Central Reference Library, M533/11/1, 3, 10, 18, 25.
40Fleure, ‘Race and its meaning in Europe’, 245–9.
41Fleure, ‘Race and its meaning in Europe’, 245–9.
42Fleure, ‘Race and its meaning in Europe’, 249.
43Fleming's report reproduced in Constance and Harold King, ‘The Two Nations’: The Life and Work of Liverpool University Settlement and Its Associated Institutions 1906–1937 (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool/ London: Hodder & Stoughton 1938), 128. For additional comment, see R. M. Fleming, A Study of Growth and Development: Observations in Successive Years on the Same Children (London: HMSO 1933), 76–7, and Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics, 131.
44Muriel E. Fletcher, Report on an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and Other Ports (Liverpool: Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children 1930).
45Ibid. See also Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics, 132–3; Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 62.
46H. J. F[leure], ‘Cross-breeds’, Man, vol. 30, no. 162, December 1930, 229. See also Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 63. For Fleure's continuing influence on Fleming's work, see Fleming, A Study of Growth and Development, 5, 12, 56.
47Neil Evans, ‘Regulating the reserve army: Arabs, Blacks and the local state in Cardiff 1919–45’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 4, no. 2, July 1985, 68–115; Laura Tabili, ‘We Ask for British Justice’: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1994), ch. 6. For the local impact of the 1930 report, see Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2005), 28–31, 36–7.
48Fleure, ‘Cross-breeds’, 229.
49H. J. Fleure, ‘The Institute and its development: presidential address’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 76, 1946, 2–3.
50Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics, 118.
51Fleure, ‘The Institute and its development’, 2–3.
52Fleure and James, ‘Geographical distribution of anthropological types in Wales’, 37.
53Fleure, ‘Cross- breeds’, 229.
54Garnett, ‘Herbert John Fleure’, 266.
55Schaffer, ‘“‘Scientific’ racism again?”’, 266.
56Letter from H. J. Fleure to Reginald Ruggles Gates, 16 June 1958: King's College, London, Ruggles Gates Papers, Liddell Hart Archive, 1/19, quoted in Schaffer, ‘“‘Scientific’ racism again?”’, 266–7.
57Jones, Science, Politics and the Cold War, 74.
58H. J. Fleure and Elwyn Davies, ‘Physical character among Welshmen’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 88, 1958, 45–95, esp. 94–5.
59Campbell, ‘Some sources of the humanism of H. J. Fleure’, 34.
60Fleure, ‘Racialism and toleration’, 401–8, esp. 402.
61Sian Jones, ‘Discourses of identity in the interpretation of the past’, in Paul Graves-Brown, Sian Jones and Clive Gamble (eds), Cultural Identity and Archaeology: The Construction of European Communities (London: Routledge 1996), 62–80.
62The description is by A. W. Brian Simpson, In the Highest Degree Odious: Detention without Trial in Wartime Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1992), 217–18. Pitt-Rivers, a cousin of Churchill, was arrested in June 1940 and not released until 1942. See also Richard Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, the Right Club and British Anti-Semitism 1939–40 (London: Constable 1998), 65, 269. For further comment on his influence within anthropological circles, see Gavin Schaffer, ‘“Like a baby with a box of matches”’, 313.
63Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, 169. See also Schaffer, ‘“Like a baby with a box of matches”’, 312–15.
64Marek Kohn, The Race Gallery: The Return of Racial Science (London: Vintage 1996), 53–4; Ashley Montagu, Statement on Race: An Annotated Elaboration and Exposition of the Four Statements on Race Issued by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization [1951], 3rd edn (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 1972). Schaffer, ‘“‘Scientific’ racism again?”’, provides the fullest account of Ruggles Gates and Mankind Quarterly but see also Jones, Science, Politics and the Cold War, 119–22, both of which highlight Ruggles Gates's conspiratorial antisemitism and biologically based anti-black racism.
65Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (New York: Free Press 1994); for a critique of the debate, see Steven Fraser (ed.), The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America (New York: Basic Books 1995).