Terrifying and Powerful, Fertile and Homely: Flora Shaw and ‘England’ in Representations of the Imperial Landscape, 1890–1904

ABSTRACT

In 1892, The Times journalist Flora Shaw, recovering from influenza, set off for Cape Town. Shaw expanded this tour, on her own initiative, going inland in South Africa, and making a tour of Australia as well. These articles were intended to act as a report on the political and economic state of the empire. They were also a platform for Shaw to advance her desire for a more integrated Greater Britain by utilising literary methods of travel writing, and vividly describing the empire in order to advocate emigration. This article builds upon work on imperial representation to consider how emigration to the settler colonies could be presented to a British economic and political elite in the readership of The Times. Shaw used these ‘imagined geographies of empire’ and the representation of imperial landscapes as devices for presenting the colonies as excitingly different areas to Britain. But she also used associative description and language around these landscapes to make the colonies appear more familiar. Placing these descriptions within imperial travel writing, as well as the ideas of Greater Britain, this article argues that the associations of landscape in the empire were used to represent it as terrifying and yet homely.

KEYWORDS:

• Landscape
• The Times
• empire
• colonialism
• representation
• Flora Shaw

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge and thank their supervisors James Thompson and Richard Sheldon as well as members of the Modern British History Research Group, particularly Amy Edwards and Hugh Pemberton, at the University of Bristol for their useful and insightful comments and criticism.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 November 13th, 1904. Bodleian Library, The University of Oxford, MSS Lugard 4/1/11.

2 See Helly, and Callaway, “Crusader for Empire: Flora Shaw/Lady Lugard,” 79–97. Helly, and Callaway, “Journalism as Active Politics,” 50–66. and Helly. “Flora Shaw and the Times,” 110–28. In addition to these there is the dated and fond biography by Bell, Flora Shaw the daughter of the Manager at The Times when Shaw was Colonial Editor, Charles Moberly Bell. This contains much useful information as well as quoting from lost diaries.

3 Bell, Flora Shaw, 100.

4 The route of this tour, plotted from her articles and letters home was as follows:

South Africa 1892 (Cape Town – Kimberly – Vereeniging – Johannesburg – Pretoria – Bloemfontein – Maseru, Basutoland – Port Elizabeth – (by sea) East London – King William’s Town – East London – (by sea) Durban – Pietermaritzburg – Durban & (by sea) to Melbourne.

Australia (Hobart – Melbourne – Brisbane – Mackay – Rockhampton – Blackall – Brisbane – Toowoomba – Sydney – Melbourne – Hopetown –Moroopna – Adelaide – Broken Hill – Sydney).

New Zealand – (Dunedin – Wellington – Auckland – Hawaii) (Despite visiting, New Zealand did not warrant any published letters in The Times).

Canada.1898 (Skagway, Alaska – Lake Bennett –Dawson – The Klondike – Calgary, Alberta – Winnipeg – Edmondton – Athabasca Landing – The Mackenzie District).

5 Flora Shaw – Louise Shaw, 8 April 1893, The University of Oxford, Weston Library, MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 590, 1/1/100.

6 Bell, Flora Shaw, 119–20.

7 Onslow, Women of the Press in Nineteenth Century Britain, 21.

8 The History of The Times, Vol. III The Twentieth Century Test, 1884–1912 (London: The Times, 1947), 162.

9 Schneer, London: 1900, 133–34.

10 Flora Shaw’s letter series, and all her articles for The Times, were unsigned. Even when her Letters from South Africa were published as, The Times Special Correspondent, Letters from South Africa (London: Macmillan and Co. 1893), they remained anonymous. Nevertheless, especially in the years after publication as Shaw wrote a fortnightly ‘Colonies’ column, worked as Colonial Editor, gave lectures and appeared before the Parliamentary committee on the Jameson Raid, Shaw’s identity after the publication of the first series of articles was not a secret.

11 Bell, Flora Shaw, 13.

12 This use partially reflects prevailing attitudes, but it also arguably reflects her consciousness of the likely readership of her articles in the English economic and political elite.

13 For her background and place in London society see, Schneer, London: 1900, 133–46.

14 In fact, if each series of letters is considered: those from South Africa – I, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII. (7 of 8) begin with descriptions of landscape. In Australia it is – I, III, IV, VII, X, XI, XII (7 of 15) In Canada in 1898 – I, II, III, VI, VII, IX, X (7 of 10). For her final series for The Times in 1902 in South Africa, all three articles begin with descriptions of the landscape.

15 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, Apr. 8, 1893, 15. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZdj8. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

16 Pratt, Imperial Eyes is the classic imperial example. This has inspired numerous responses linked to rhetoric and travel writing such as Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire & Travel Writing and Empire.

17 Daniels, Fields of Vision, 8 and passim. Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness, 189–92. Williams, The Country and the City, 121.

18 Said, Orientalism, 4–5.

19 Foster, Washed with Sun.

20 Although Porter, The Absent-minded Imperialists; has downplayed the level of this imperialism, from 1880 the evidence appears to be against him. See, MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire; and MacKenzie, ed., Imperialism and Popular Culture A middle path charted by Thompson, Empire Strikes Back? is perhaps the most plausible.

21 Mitchell, “Imperial Landscape,” 13.

22 Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 265.

23 Barrell, The Dark Side of the Landscape, 5.

24 Barrell, Dark Side of the Landscape, 1.

25 McAleer, Representing Africa, 62 and Tillotson, The Artificial Empire, 29.

26 Nora, “Between Memory and History,” , 7–24.

27 Pite, Hardy’s Geography, 3. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 39–40.

28 Foster, Washed with Sun, 123.

29 Schwarz, Memories of Empire Vol I, 211 and Schwarz, “The Romance of the Veld,” 76–86.

30 Youngs, “Introduction,” 4.

31 Daniels, Fields of Vision, 5–6.

32 Kumar, The Making of English National Identity, 211.

33 Marsh, Back to Land, 27 and Brace, “Finding England Everywhere,” 94.

34 Readman, Storied Ground, 15.

35 Mandler, “Against ‘Englishness’,” 155–75.

36 Williams, Country and the City, 120.

37 The literature on the British World is now vast. The British World is often seen as inaugurating this shift in perception. Studies, examining very different aspects of this, which take the British world as their referent include, Darwin, The Empire Project and Potter, Broadcasting Empire.

38 Buzard, “Portable Boundaries,” 17.

39 For instance, in her speech on ‘The Australian Outlook’ at the Royal Colonial Institute in 1894, speaking about ‘the Bush’, Shaw argued that ‘the life is necessarily rough, though everything is as new as in three-year old agricultural settlements it must needs be, there is nothing which need prevent an English or Australian gentleman from sending out his son with confidence to earn his living.’, Report of Proceedings Vol. XXV 1893–4, 150.

40 Constantine, “British Emigration to the Empire-Commonwealth Since 1880,” 20.

41 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” The Times, Jan. 12, 1893, 12. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZeGX. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

42 The classic account of the political press in the nineteenth century remains, Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain Vol. I The Nineteenth Century, 412.

43 Flora Shaw Papers, Bodleian Library, The University of Oxford, Flora Shaw – Lulu, August 24th, 1892, MSS. Brit Emp. S. 590 1/1/34.

44 Bell, Flora Shaw, 123.

45 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, July 14, 1893, 3. The Times. Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZd55. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

46 Neumann, “Churchill and Roosevelt in Africa,” 1371–88. Helly, and Callaway, “Constructing South Africa in the British Press, 1890–1892,” 132.

47 Blake, “A Woman’s Trek: Does Gender make a Difference?,” 19–34.

48 As such, Flora Shaw fits in with some of the work done on Victorian women travellers, but only from an oblique angle. See, Birkett, Spinsters Abroad; Mills, Discourses of Difference; Anderson, Women and the Politics of Travel, 1870–1914.

49 Anderson, Women and the Politics of Travel, 24.

50 Bassnett, “Travel Writing, the Empire and British Studies”, 10–11.

51 The first is from “Letters from South Africa.” The Times, July 22, 1892, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKJF6. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. The second is from a letter to her sister, Flora Shaw – Lulu, 24th August 1892. Bodleian Library, The University of Oxford. MSS. Brit Emp. S. 590/1/1

52 Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, 231–40.

53 Daniels, Fields of Vision, 5.

54 Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain.

55 Flora Shaw, Diary in Australia, 15 Oct, 1892, Bodleian Library, The University of Oxford, MSS Brit Emp. S. 590/6/7.

56 Mancuso, “Reflections of the ‘Roving Britishers’,” 301–19, 302.

57 Johnston, “Greater Britain,” 33 & 42.

58 Smith, Chosen Peoples, 134–37.

59 Morphy, “Colonialism, History and the Construction of Place,” 239.

60 Mitchell, “Preface to the Second Edition of Landscape and Power,” vii.

61 Foster, Washed with Sun, 214.

62 (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters from South Africa.” The Times, July 22, 1892, 4. The Times. Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKJF6. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, I, 2.

63 Flora Shaw – Louise Shaw, 1st June & 21st May 1893. Bodleian Library, The University of Oxford, MSS. Brit Emp. S. 590. 1/1/126 & 119.

64 Shaw, Letters from South Africa, 89.

65 Flora Shaw – Lulu, 24th August 1892. Bodleian Library, The University of Oxford. MSS. Brit Emp. S. 590/1/1.

66 Abinger is the parish in Surrey where Flora Shaw rented one room within and later acquired the lease to the whole cottage.

67 Bell, Flora Shaw, 116.

68 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Canada.” Times, Aug. 27, 1898, 6. The TimesDigital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4Ha7M1. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

69 New York Times, October 31, 1898.

70 Shaw, “The Klondike,” 186–235, 197. https://archive.org/details/cihm_15527/page/n3 Accessed Nov. 21, 2018.

71 Flora Shaw – Charles Moberly Bell, March 17th, 1898, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MSS Brit Emp. S 590. 4/5/1-2.

72 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, Jan. 31, 1893, 3. The Times. Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZcf2. Accessed Jan. 30, 2017.

73 See for instance her Diary in Australia, Bodleian Library, The University of Oxford, MSS Brit Emp. 590. 14th October 1892, 6/7/7. See also Bell, Flora Shaw, 128.

74 The debate, and repeated Australian attempts to prove the health of the climate, are described by Woodcock, “‘Our Salubrious Climate’,” 176–93.

75 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, Jan. 31, 1893, 3. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZcf2. Accessed Jan. 2017.

76 Shaw, “The Australian Outlook,” 225–52.

Flora Shaw was the first woman to address the society, as was noted in the discussion following her speech, see p. 249. https://archive.org/details/no3journalofroyalco25royauoft/ Accessed Nov. 20, 2018.

77 “THE AUSTRALIAN OUTLOOK.” Standard, Jan. 1894, 3. British Library Newspapers, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4DZg71. Accessed Jan. 13, 2017. See Shaw, “The Australian Outlook, 232.

78 Shaw, “The Australian Outlook,” 234.

79 Belich, Replenishing the Earth, 148–62.

80 “Trop De Zèle!” Punch, Jan. 20, 1894, 26. Punch Historical Archive, 1841–1992.

81 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, Jan. 31, 1893, 3. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZcf2. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

82 Shaw, “Klondike,” 196–97.

83 Ibid., 188.

84 Schwarz, White Man’s World, 261, 289. Harris, Private Lives, Public Spirit, 6.

85 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, Apr. 5, 1893, 13. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZeS7. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

86 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, Jan. 7, 1893, 12. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZc36. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

87 (From our Correspondent.). “Letters From South Africa.” Times, 12 Aug. 1892, 3. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKSL9. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, IV, 45.

88 “The Transvaal Uitlander”, The Times, 1st, 2nd & 4th Jan. 1896 & (From an occasional Correspondent.). “The Orange River Colony.” Times, Feb. 25, 1902, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4PCng8. Accessed 17 Feb. 2017, (From an occasional Correspondent.). “The Dutch Of Cape Colony.” Times, Feb. 11, 1902, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4PCmb2. Accessed 17 Feb. 2017. (From an occasional Correspondent.). “Johannesburg To-Day.” Times, Feb. 27, 1902, 8. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4MnZr4. Accessed 13 Feb. 2017.

89 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, July 14, 1893, 3. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZd55. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017. This was the foundation of BHP Billiton, still one of the largest mining corporations in the world.

90 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, July 14, 1893, 3. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZd55. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

91 Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 8.

92 FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.” Times, July 28, 1892, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKPx0. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, II, 19.

93 FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.” Times, July 28, 1892, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKPx0. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, II, 13 & 15.

94 FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.” Times, July 28, 1892, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKPx0. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, II, 13.

95 FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.” Times, July 28, 1892, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKPx0. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, II, 19.

96 O Helly and Callaway, “Constructing South Africa,” 138.

97 FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.*.” Times, July 28, 1892, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKPx0. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, II, 20.

98 FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.*.” Times, July 28, 1892, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKPx0. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.

Shaw, Letters from South Africa, II, 18.

99 FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.*.” Times, July 28, 1892, 4. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKPx0. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, II, 19.

100 (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.” The Times, 22 July 1892, 4. The Times

Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKJF6. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, I, 4.

101 Nanni, The Colonisation of Time, 3.

102 Shaw, Letters from South Africa, VI, 78. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.” Times, Sept. 2, 1892, 10. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKUs5. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017.

103 (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From South Africa.” Times, Sept. 2, 1892, 10. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4GKUs5. Accessed 25 Jan. 2017. Shaw, Letters from South Africa, VI, 8–79.

104 (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.). “Letters From Australia.” Times, Dec. 27, 1892, 10. The Times Digital Archive, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4HZaR0. Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.

105 Ryan, Picturing Empire.