'But We are Concerned with a Greater Imperium': The New Zealand Protestant Missionary Movement and the British Empire, 1870-1930

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Morrison
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
Late Nineteenth

AbstractUsing a largely 'non-metropole' perspective, this article seeks to shed further light on New Zealand's Protestant missionary movement in the decades of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It argues that New Zealand missionaries and their supporters, in the period of 'high imperialism', held a range of both positive and negative positions towards the Empire. The article outlines the general contours of New Zealand Protestant missionary thinking about the British Empire, contours that reflected wider 'British' opinion of the period. However, it also argues that patterns of geographical and organisational affiliation both supported and confounded this thinking, which was complicated by the intersection of localised and globalising influences. The article considers certain missionary 'sites' of operation and influence as well as denominational and other factors. It situates its argument both in the context of debate over historiographical paradigms for settler societies like New Zealand, and in recent attempts to locate discussion of mission and imperialism within more discretely defined temporal and geographical parameters. En partant d'une perspective largement «non-métropolitaine,» cet article vise à éclairer d'une lumière nouvelle le mouvement missionnaire protestant néo-zélandais durant les dernières décennies du 19e siècle et le début du 20e siècle. Il montre que les missionnaires néo-zélandais et leurs soutiens adoptèrent, durant la période de l'«impérialisme triomphant,» une série d'attitudes à la fois positives et négatives en relation à l'Empire. L'article dessine les contours de la pensée du mouvement missionnaire néo-zélandais par rapport à l'Empire, et montre en quoi elle était le reflet de l'opinion «britannique» de l'époque. Cependant, l'implantation géographique et les affiliations organisationnelles des missionnaires, si elles étaient parfois en adéquation avec cette pensée, la contredisaient également, à l'interface entre influence locales et globales. L'article considère enfin certains «sites» missionnaires d'activité et d'influence ainsi que des facteurs confessionnels et autres. Il se situe à la fois au sein de débats historiographiques a propos des sociétés de colons comme la Nouvelle Zélande, et dans les tentatives récentes de recentrer la discussion à propos de la mission et de l'impérialisme dans une temporalité et un espace définis par des paramètres plus fins.

scholarly journals Ladies of Empire: Governors' Wives in New Zealand, 1887-1926

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sarah Burgess
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Official ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Public Office ◽  
Public Figure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Late Nineteenth

<p>Across the years 1887 to 1926, at a time when the British Empire was at its height, nine governors and their wives took up vice-regal office in New Zealand. This study is concerned with the public enactment of the position of vice-regal wives’ in New Zealand in these years. It explores what it meant for a woman to be a public figure with a prominent profile and at the same time a wife within a marriage during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In doing so, the thesis looks at three distinct aspects of vice-regal life, as played out in public: official vice-regal ceremony and social life; involvement in voluntary welfare and women’s imperialist organisations; and the display of vice-regal life through governors’ wives’ appearance and the furnishing of Government House. Of key concern is the way in which these aspects of vice-regal life are conveyed to the public through newspapers, and so Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity is considered as a way to think about the position occupied by governors’ wives.  As women married to men in public office, governors’ wives occupied a particular position and space within the British Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The position was defined and created through marriage and through the enactment of the duties of vice-regal office. Governors' wives were present at vice-regal ceremonies and social events as both witnesses and wives; they involved themselves with voluntary welfare and imperialist organisations with a particular focus on women as mothers and contributors to Empire; and through their dress and the decoration of Government House governors’ wives presented a display of their suitability for holding vice-regal office. The enactment of these duties over the period from 1887 to 1926 was remarkably consistent. Alongside this a degree of change occurred in the recognition afforded to governors’ wives in the fulfilment of vice-regal office.</p>

scholarly journals Restless Spirit, Resolute Conviction: The Life and Times of Joseph ‘Ivo’ Evison

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stephen Robert John Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Career ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Many ◽  
Do So

<p>At first glance, Joseph Evison's life was a confusion of convictions and contradictions, played out in the pages of the many newspapers he edited and wrote for in New Zealand and Australia. A late nineteenth-century Freethinker, he would go on to edit a Catholic newspaper, just as he would readily criticise the British Empire, in spite of serving in its army and navy. Despite his obvious intricacies, historians have not been kind to Evison, reducing him to a mere one line curiosity, implying that he shifted causes to follow the money or because he was a simple contrarian at heart. However, Evison's unsettled nature means a study of his life and ideologies adds to a number of other histories including those of Freethought, Catholicism, conservatism, colonial settlers, empire, transmission of ideas, reader culture and biographical studies. This thesis therefore attempts to chronicle Evison's life, before arguing that his changing causes was down to deep-seated secularist and libertarian convictions, which left him always fighting for what he perceived as the underdog, against both the state and the Protestant majority. To do so, it not only studies his writing, which remains vibrant and engaging even today, but also his editing style at various newspapers and his speeches during a short-lived political career.</p>

scholarly journals Restless Spirit, Resolute Conviction: The Life and Times of Joseph ‘Ivo’ Evison

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Stephen Robert John Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Career ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Many ◽  
Do So

<p>At first glance, Joseph Evison's life was a confusion of convictions and contradictions, played out in the pages of the many newspapers he edited and wrote for in New Zealand and Australia. A late nineteenth-century Freethinker, he would go on to edit a Catholic newspaper, just as he would readily criticise the British Empire, in spite of serving in its army and navy. Despite his obvious intricacies, historians have not been kind to Evison, reducing him to a mere one line curiosity, implying that he shifted causes to follow the money or because he was a simple contrarian at heart. However, Evison's unsettled nature means a study of his life and ideologies adds to a number of other histories including those of Freethought, Catholicism, conservatism, colonial settlers, empire, transmission of ideas, reader culture and biographical studies. This thesis therefore attempts to chronicle Evison's life, before arguing that his changing causes was down to deep-seated secularist and libertarian convictions, which left him always fighting for what he perceived as the underdog, against both the state and the Protestant majority. To do so, it not only studies his writing, which remains vibrant and engaging even today, but also his editing style at various newspapers and his speeches during a short-lived political career.</p>

scholarly journals Ladies of Empire: Governors' Wives in New Zealand, 1887-1926

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sarah Burgess
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Official ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Public Office ◽  
Public Figure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Late Nineteenth

<p>Across the years 1887 to 1926, at a time when the British Empire was at its height, nine governors and their wives took up vice-regal office in New Zealand. This study is concerned with the public enactment of the position of vice-regal wives’ in New Zealand in these years. It explores what it meant for a woman to be a public figure with a prominent profile and at the same time a wife within a marriage during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In doing so, the thesis looks at three distinct aspects of vice-regal life, as played out in public: official vice-regal ceremony and social life; involvement in voluntary welfare and women’s imperialist organisations; and the display of vice-regal life through governors’ wives’ appearance and the furnishing of Government House. Of key concern is the way in which these aspects of vice-regal life are conveyed to the public through newspapers, and so Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity is considered as a way to think about the position occupied by governors’ wives.  As women married to men in public office, governors’ wives occupied a particular position and space within the British Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The position was defined and created through marriage and through the enactment of the duties of vice-regal office. Governors' wives were present at vice-regal ceremonies and social events as both witnesses and wives; they involved themselves with voluntary welfare and imperialist organisations with a particular focus on women as mothers and contributors to Empire; and through their dress and the decoration of Government House governors’ wives presented a display of their suitability for holding vice-regal office. The enactment of these duties over the period from 1887 to 1926 was remarkably consistent. Alongside this a degree of change occurred in the recognition afforded to governors’ wives in the fulfilment of vice-regal office.</p>

Antipodean Aftershocks: Group Settlement of Hebridean and non-Hebridean Britons in Western Australia following World War One

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-203
Author(s):  
Roy Jones ◽  
Tod Jones
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
The Sun ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
A Site

In the speech in which the phrase ‘land fit for heroes’ was coined, Lloyd George proclaimed ‘(l)et us make victory the motive power to link the old land up in such measure that it will be nearer the sunshine than ever before … it will lift those who have been living in the dark places to a plateau where they will get the rays of the sun’. This speech conflated the issues of the ‘debt of honour’ and the provision of land to those who had served. These ideals had ramifications throughout the British Empire. Here we proffer two Antipodean examples: the national Soldier Settlement Scheme in New Zealand and the Imperial Group Settlement of British migrants in Western Australia and, specifically, the fate and the legacy of a Group of Gaelic speaking Outer Hebrideans who relocated to a site which is now in the outer fringes of metropolitan Perth.

Tautai

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
British Empire ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
Indigenous Resistance ◽  
World Government ◽  
Pacific History ◽  
The World

This is a biography of Ta’isi O. F. Nelson, the Sāmoan nationalist leader who fought New Zealand, the British Empire and the League of Nations between the world wars. It is a richly layered history that weaves a personal and Pacific history with one that illuminates the global crisis of empire after World War One. Ta’isi’s story weaves Sweden with deep histories of Sāmoa that in the late nineteenth century became deeply inflected with colonial machinations of Germany, Britain, New Zealand and the U. S.. After Sāmoa was made a mandate of the League of Nations in 1921, the workings and aspirations of that newly minted form of world government came to bear on the island nation and Ta’isi and his fellow Sāmoan tested the League’s powers through their relentless non-violent campaign for justice. Ta’isi was Sāmoa’s leading businessman who was blamed for the on-going agitation in Sāmoa; for his trouble he was subjected to two periods of exile, humiliation and a concerted campaign intent on his financial ruin. Using many new sources, this book tells Ta’isi’s untold story, providing fresh and intriguing new aspects to the global story of indigenous resistance in the twentieth century.

Ein föderales Imperium?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Rummel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
The Other ◽  
The 19Th Century

The previously ignored model of Greek colonisation attracted numerous actors from the 19th century British empire: historians, politicians, administrators, military personnel, journalists or anonymous commentators used the ancient paradigm to advocate a global federation exclusively encompassing Great Britain and the settler colonies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Unlike other historical templates, Greek colonisation could be viewed as innovative and unspent: innovative because of the possibility of combining empire and liberty and unspent due to its very novelty, which did not contain the ‘imperial vice’ the other models had so often shown and which had always led to their political and cultural decline.

Anglican Emigrant Chaplaincy in the British Empire and Beyond,c.1840–1900

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 314-327
Author(s):  
Rowan Strong
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Direct Involvement ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Church

In the 1840s the Church of England, through the agency of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), established an official chaplaincy to emigrants leaving from British ports. The chaplaincy lasted throughout the rest of the nineteenth century. It was revitalized in the 1880s under the direction of the SPCK in response to a surge in emigration from Britain to the colonies. This article examines the imperial attitudes of Anglicans involved in this chaplaincy network, focusing on those of the 1880s and 1890s, the period of high imperialism in Britain. It compares these late nineteenth-century outlooks with those of Anglicans in the emigrant chaplaincy of the 1840s, in order to discern changes and continuities in Anglican imperialism in nineteenth-century Britain. It finds that, in contrast to the imperialist attitudes prevalent in Britain during the late nineteenth century, Anglicans in this chaplaincy network focused more on the ecclesiastical and pastoral dimensions of their work. Indeed, pro-imperial attitudes, though present, were remarkably scarce. It was the Church much more than the empire which mattered to these Anglicans, notwithstanding their direct involvement with the British empire.

scholarly journals The Bell Telephone Historical Collection and Late Nineteenth-Century Canadian Urban History: A Preliminary Report

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrell A. Norris
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Return On Investment ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Quebec City ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Voice Transmission ◽  
Telephone Exchange ◽  
Central Canada ◽  
Late Nineteenth

In 1878, the first telephone exchange in the British Empire was put into service at Hamilton, Ontario. By 1891, the Bell Telephone Company of Canada had completed a long-distance network exceeding 6400 kilometres, including an unbroken link along Central Canada's "Main Street," between Quebec City and Windsor. The company's operations in 1891 embraced 22,000 subscribers and more than 200 exchanges. The spread of the long-distance network was halting at first, owing to the meagre capital resources of the company and the relatively poor return on investment given just a few thousand subscribers in the entire system. Also, much of the initial capital investment was quickly rendered obsolete, because of technical improvements in voice transmission over copper metallic circuits, which by the mid-1880s had begun to replace and augment existing long-distance links by iron wire. This research note discusses the development of the long-distance telephone network in Central Canada, its evolving pattern of telephone exchanges, the spread of telephone adoption, and the intensity with which the long-distance system was used in its formative phase. The research was completed under the auspices of the Historical Atlas of Canada/Atlas Historique du Canada.

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