(Dis)located Olympic patriots: sporting connections, administrative communications and imperial ether in interwar New Zealand

Abstract

During the interwar period (1919–1939), protagonists of the early New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) worked to renegotiate and improve the country's international sporting participation and involvement in the International Olympic Committee. To this end, NZOC effectively used its locally based administrators and well-placed expatriates in Britain to variously assert the organization's nascent autonomy, independence and political power, progress Antipodean athlete's causes and counter any potential doubt about the nation's peripheral position in imperial sporting dialogues. Adding to the corpus of scholarship on New Zealand's ties and tribulations with imperial Britain, both in and beyond sport (e.g. Beilharz and Cox, 2007, “Settler Capitalism Revisited,” Thesis Eleven 88: 112–124; Belich, 2001, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000, Auckland: Allen Lane; Belich, 2007, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century, Auckland: The Penguin Group; Coombes, 2006, Rethinking Settler Colonialism: History and Memory in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa, Manchester: Manchester University Press; MacLean, 2010, “New Zealand (Aotearoa),” In Routledge Companion to Sports History, edited by Steve W. Pope and John Nauright, 510–525, London: Routledge; Phillips, 1984, “Rugby, War and the Mythology of the New Zealand Male,” The New Zealand Journal of History 18 (1): 83–103; Phillips, 1987, A Man's Country: The Image of the Pakeha Male, Auckland: Penguin Books; Ryan, 2004, The Making of New Zealand Cricket, 1832–1914, London: Frank Cass; Ryan, 2005, Tackling Rugby Myths: Rugby and New Zealand Society 1854–2004, Dunedin: University of Otago Press; Ryan, 2007, “Sport in 19th-Century Aotearoa/New Zealand: Opportunities and Constraints,” In Sport in Aotearoa/New Zealand Society, edited by Chris Collins and Steve Jackson, 96–111, Auckland: Thomson), I will examine how the political actions and strategic location of three key NZOC agents (specifically, administrator Harry Amos and expatriates Arthur Porritt and Jack Lovelock) worked in their own particular ways to assert the position of the organization within the global Olympic fraternity. I argue that the efforts of Amos, Porritt and Lovelock also concomitantly served to remind Commonwealth sporting colleagues (namely Britain and Australia) that New Zealand could not be characterized as, or relegated to being, a distal, subdued or subservient colonial sporting partner. Subsequently, I contend that NZOC's development during the interwar period, and particularly the utility of expatriate agents, can be contextualized against historiographical shifts that encourage us to rethink, reimagine and rework narratives of empire, colonization, national identity, commonwealth and belonging.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. New Zealand's associations with the Olympic Movement tentatively began in 1892 when there was a brief, and much mythologized, interaction in Paris between leading New Zealand amateur athletics administrator Leonard Cuff and eventual renovator of the modern Olympic Movement Baron Pierre de Coubertin. An eventual consequence of this meeting was Cuff's co-option onto the inaugural IOC. Yet, the co-option did not give immediate rise to the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC). See, variously, Henniker and Jobling (1989), Jobling (2000), Kohe (2010), Little and Cashman (2001) and Letters and Jobling (1996). To note also, the Committee originally began as the Olympic Council of New Zealand. Over the course of its existence, however, NZOC has undergone a number of name changes to reflect the authority and remit of the organization, and its associations with various British Empire sporting competitions. Today, the organization still retains its title as the NZOC and reference initials NZOC. See Kohe (2011) for a chronology of these changes.

^2. Although formally established on 18 October 1911, the effective cessation of most national and international Olympic business during World War One meant that the IOC did not officially get around to recognizing NZOC, and accepting its important separation from the Australasian union, until 1919. Nevertheless, three New Zealand athletes had competed as part of an Australasian team at the 1908 Olympic Games (in which Harry Kerr become the country's first Olympic medallist winning bronze in the 3500-metre walk). Three New Zealanders competed again for Australasia in the 1912 Olympic Games. One of the members of this latter team was the national, Australasian and Wimbledon tennis champion Anthony Wilding. Between 1907 and 1914, Wilding's athletic success abroad had helped raise the country's sporting profile and reaffirm imperial ties between Britain, New Zealand and Australia. See Kohe (2010), Palenski and Maddaford (1983), Palenski and Romanos (2000), Romanos (2006, 2008) and Richardson and Richardson (2005) for further details.

^3. Such exchanges, of course, involved not only amateur athletics, but also other sports, including rugby union and league, and cricket. See Palenski (2012) and Ryan (2004, 2005, 2007).

^4. New Zealand Amateur Athletics Association (NZAAA), Official Minute Book (vol. 2) (Hereafter NZAAA Minute Book), 11 September 1914, Athletics New Zealand Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, 43.

^5. NZAAA, NZAAA Minute Book, 23 November 1914, 50.

^6. NZAAA, NZAAA Minute Book, 23 November 1914, 50.

^7. Richardson and Richardson's (2005) work on the multi-Wimbledon Champion Anthony Wilding (who incidentally was killed at the battle of Ypres) provides a particularly good overview of the context and consequences for the nation's athletes during this period.

^8. NZOC, and its allied association the NZAAA, for example, maintained an active calendar of sport events throughout the country, and, in particular, were diligent in demonstrating support for Australian and American (and occasional British) allies by fostering sporting competition and participating in military athletic championships within the country. NZOC, Official minute book, 1912–1932 (hereafter NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932), NZOC Olympic Studies Centre, Wellington, New Zealand.

^9. This was largely due to Chairman Arthur Marryatt maintaining correspondence with Australian IOC member and amateur athletic administrator Richard Coombes, and IOC members in Britain and Europe during the War. Support for the war was also a good public advertisement for NZOC in particular as their official minutes were regularly published in mainstream press.

^10. For example, although NZOC and the NZAAA had made some changes to amateur sport policies (e.g. there were exemptions for physical education teachers, coaches and blue-collar business sport teams).

^11. Notwithstanding Grant's assessment, it need to be recognized that at the time the country's financial sector was comparably weaker than other areas of the country's economy. However, eventually, as a consequence of countries shifting investments to the Britain – one of the only available free markets – New Zealand's primary export industry revenues (namely in dairy and agriculture) did plummet (Belich 2001; Grant 1997, 138; Molloy 2007; Olssen 1995).

^12. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932.

^13. New Zealand Olympic Committee, Communication to the International Olympic Committee, Lausanne, 13 July 1931.

^14. New Zealand Olympic Commitee, Personal communication Baillet-Latour, Wellington: NZOC, 19 February 1934.

^15. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932.

^16. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932.

^17. To summarize, Marryatt was initially replaced by local educationalist Joseph Firth (tenure 1923–1927), then respected military hero Bernard Freyberg (tenure 1928–1930), and later, lawyer and expatriate, Cecil Wray (tenure 1931–1934). Despite possibly the best intentions of assisting NZOC with some of the tyrannies of distance it faced, and maintaining the visible profile of New Zealand in transnational sporting discussions, all three of these appointments were ineffectual.

^18. Harry Amos, Personal Correspondence to Freyberg, 22 March 1930, Lausanne, IOC files.

^19. Harry Amos, Personal Correspondence to Freyberg, 6 April 1930, Lausanne, IOC files. NZOC also exchanged similar dialogue with fellow IOC members Joseph Firth and Cecil Wray. In addition, and perhaps recognizing the benefits of soliciting expatriates, Amos and his colleagues had initially viewed Wray as ‘a very suitable man’ who ‘would do full justice to the position’ (NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932, 30 August 1930, 164). Yet, Wray lasted just three years, during which time his influence on the IOC and NZOC was negligible.

^20. Previously the role had been taken up by associated in Australian and/or Britain, or coaches and chaperones. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932. As was customary at the time, Amos' wife's role was to serve as chaperone to the team's female member.

^21. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932, 26 June 1929, 154.

^22. The organization's balance at the time was approximately £1245. As such, Amos also worked hard to ensure NZOC's meagre economic resources remained financial stable. Such stability was vital not only the continued participation of New Zealand athletes abroad, but necessary to demonstrate the organization's professional capabilities. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932, 26 June, 1929, 154.

^23. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932; NZOC, Official Minute Book, 1933–1964 (hereafter NZOC Minute Book 1933–1964); NZOC Olympic Studies Centre, Wellington, New Zealand.

^24. As a reflection of his tireless work for the organization in 1952 the IOC awarded Amos a prestigious Olympic diploma in recognition for both his administrative nous and enduring support for amateurism. http://library.la84.org/OlympicInformationCenter/OlympicReview/1952/BDCE34/BDCE34d.pdf, accessed September 19, 2014.

^25. At the time, Porritt was only the second New Zealand Rhodes recipient.

^26. Porritt went on to repeat this role at the 1928 and 1936 Olympic Games and 1934 British Empire Games.

^27. Harry Amos, Personal Correspondence to IOC President Comte Henri de Baillet-Latour, 19 February 1934, Lausanne, IOC files.

^28. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932.

^29. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1933–1964.

^30. See Daley (2012) for an insightful discussion of the complicated cultural nuances and historical significance of one of these icons and a broader critique of the construction of the national imagination.

^31. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1933–1964, 3 October 1936, 168.

^32. NZOC, NZOC Minute Book 1912–1932.

^33. For some of the most interesting examples, see Ballantyne (2012), Belich (2009), Burton (2003), Gibbons (2003), Lambert and Lester (2006) and Thompson and Fedorowich (2013). In important contradistinction, however, are resistant stances to the paradigm shift that have been variously offered by respected New Zealand scholars such as Fairburn (1989) and the late Munz (1971, 1984). To this can be added Fergusson's (2008) broader sweeping and controversial neocolonial work Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World that holds fast to the central authority of Imperial forces within transnational and global historiography.

^34. However, Beilharz and Cox provide useful assessments of assumptions about settler capitalism in Antipodean colonies, and the need to be critical of some of the characteristics of the dialectical relationship between New Zealand and its colonizer.

^35. Palenski (2012) offers further examination of the ways in which aspects of this identity were forged in other sporting, and non-sport, contexts. For extended discussion, see the range of perspectives and debates presented in Byrnes' (2009) edited book The New Oxford History of New Zealand. Byrnes' introduction and several other chapters therein attend to the argument that the country's historiographical trends need to better consider post-national approaches. The point has been articulated further within the sport context by Maclean (2010) in his piece on sport history/historiography in New Zealand. In keeping with the desire to rethink the country's position within Imperial scholarship, Maclean asserts that in a quest for meaning and legitimacy New Zealand sport and its histories have been concomitantly inwardly and outwardly looking.

^36. Consider, for example, traditional allegiance/alliances, and positioning and politicizing the country's Commonwealth and sporting identities externally and internally.

^37. With the onset of the Empire Games in 1930, and the consequential administrative restructuring of NZOC, Amos' work in redefining the organizations working relationships with its colonial forebears and partners would become even more valuable.