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Y320: From Colonialism to Independence: The British Empire 1857–1965

The impact of imperial power on the periphery and Britain: jingoism and the impact of Empire on Britain

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  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on jingoism, the debate over the British public and Empire, exhibitions, schools and youth movements, the arts, Empire in domestic politics, and the Empire’s contribution to and profitability for the British economy.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Define jingoism and say where the word came from.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Define jingoism.

    Model answer

    The word came from a music hall song of 1878 during the Russo-Turkish crisis and described aggressive popular patriotism that demanded a warlike foreign policy; its most famous display was the hysterical street celebration of the relief of Mafeking in 1900, which added the verb mafficking to the language.

  2. 2

    How have historians disagreed about the impact of Empire on the British public?

    Model answer

    John MacKenzie argued that imperial imagery saturated schoolbooks, advertising, exhibitions, music hall and juvenile fiction and shaped a genuinely imperial popular culture; Bernard Porter replied that most Britons were largely indifferent, that imperial content in daily life has been over-read by historians looking for it, and that Empire mattered intensely to a small governing class rather than to the working population.

  3. 3

    What part did exhibitions play in promoting the Empire?

    Model answer

    From the Great Exhibition of 1851 through the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 to the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924 and 1925, which drew tens of millions of visitors, exhibitions displayed colonial products, model villages and sometimes colonial people themselves, presenting Empire as a source of prosperity and as a spectacle for family entertainment.

  4. 4

    How did schools and youth organisations promote imperial identity?

    Model answer

    Geography and history teaching centred on the red areas of the map, popular texts such as Our Island Story and the adventure novels of Henty carried the message, and Empire Day was celebrated in schools from the early 1900s; the Boys' Brigade, and from 1908 Baden-Powell's Scouts followed by the Girl Guides, combined outdoor training with duty, discipline and imperial service.

  5. 5

    How did the arts reflect and promote Empire?

    Model answer

    Kipling and Rider Haggard supplied the poetry and adventure fiction of imperial duty and exotic conquest, Conrad's Heart of Darkness offered a darker verdict on the civilising mission, painting and statuary commemorated imperial heroes, the music halls sold patriotic songs to mass audiences, and by the 1930s cinema was carrying imperial romance to millions in films such as Sanders of the River.

  6. 6

    How did the Empire shape metropolitan politics?

    Model answer

    Disraeli made Empire a Conservative cause in his Crystal Palace speech of 1872 and had Victoria proclaimed Empress of India in 1876, imperial questions split the Liberals over Ireland and the Boer War, Chamberlain's campaign for tariff reform from 1903 divided the Conservatives and helped produce the Liberal landslide of 1906, and anxiety about the physical condition of army recruits drove the national efficiency debate and early welfare reform.

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