Emily Hobhouse
Encyclopedia
Emily Hobhouse was a British
welfare campaigner, who is primarily remembered for bringing to the attention of the British public, and working to change, the poor conditions inside the British concentration camps in South Africa
built for Boer
women and children during the Second Boer War
.
, near Liskeard
in Cornwall
, she was the daughter of Reginald Hobhouse an Anglican rector
and the first Archdeacon of Bodmin, and sister of Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
, the noted social liberal
. Her mother died when she was 20, and she spent the next fourteen years looking after her father who was in poor health. When her father died in 1895 she went to Minnesota
to perform welfare work amongst Cornish mineworkers living there, the trip having been organised by the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury
. There she became engaged to John Carr Jackson and the couple bought a ranch
in Mexico
but this did not prosper and the engagement was broken off. She returned to England
in 1898 after losing most of her money in a speculative venture.
Her wedding veil (that she never wore) hangs in the head office of the "Oranje Vrouevereniging" (Orange Women's Society) in Bloemfontein
, the first women's welfare organisation in the Orange Free State
, as a symbol of her commitment to the uplifting of women.
broke out in South Africa
in October 1899, a Liberal
MP, Leonard Courtney, invited Hobhouse to become secretary of the women's branch of the South African Conciliation Committee, of which he was president.
Hobhouse wrote
She set up the Distress Fund for South African Women and Children and sailed for the Cape Colony
on 7 December 1900 to supervise its distribution. She wrote later:
When she left England, she only knew about the concentration camp at Port Elizabeth, but on arrival found out about the many other camps (34 in total).
Hobhouse had a letter of introduction
to the governor, Alfred Milner, from her aunt, the wife of Lord Arthur Hobhouse
, himself the son of Henry Hobhouse
, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office
under Sir Robert Peel
, and who knew Milner. From him she obtained the use of two railway trucks, subject to the army commander, Lord Kitchener's, approval. She received Kitchener's permission two weeks later, although it only allowed her to travel as far as Bloemfontein
and take one truck of supplies for the camps, about 12 tons.
was sent to inspect the camps.
Overcrowding in bad unhygienic conditions due to neglect and lack of resources were the causes of a mortality rate that in the eighteen months during which the camps were in operation reached a total of 26,370, of which 24,000 were children under sixteen and infants, i.e. the rate at which the children died was some 50 a day.
The following extracts from the report by Emily Hobhouse make very clear the extent of culpable neglect by the authorities:
Late in 1901 the camps ceased to receive new families and conditions improved in some camps; but the damage was done. Thomas Pakenham writes of Kitchener's
policy turn:
Charles Aked, a Baptist minister in Liverpool, said on 22 December 1901, Peace Sunday: "Great Britain cannot win the battles without resorting to the last despicable cowardice of the most loathsome cur on earth—the act of striking a brave man's heart through his wife's honour and his child's life. The cowardly war has been conducted by methods of barbarism... the concentration camps have been Murder Camps." Afterwards, a crowd followed him home and broke the windows of his house.
on 24 January 1901 and was shocked by the conditions she encountered:
What most distressed Hobhouse was the sufferings of the undernourished children. Diseases such as measles
, bronchitis
, pneumonia
, dysentery
and typhoid had invaded the camp with fatal results. The very few tents were not enough to house the one or more sick persons, most of them children.
In the collection Stemme uit die Verlede ("Voices from the Past"), she recalled the plight of Lizzie van Zyl
, a child who died at the Bloemfontein camp.
When she requested soap for the people, she was told that soap is an article of luxury. She nevertheless succeeded, after a struggle, to have it listed as a necessity, together with straw, more tents and more kettles in which to boil the drinking water. She distributed clothes and supplied pregnant women, who had to sleep on the ground, with mattresses, but she could not forgive what she called
Hobhouse also visited camps at Norvalspont, Aliwal North
, Springfontein
, Kimberley
and Orange River
.
she received scathing criticism and hostility from the British government and many of the media, but eventually succeeded in obtaining more funding to help the victims of the war. The British Liberal
leader at the time, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
, denounced what he called the "methods of barbarism". The British government eventually agreed to set up the Fawcett Commission to investigate her claims, under Millicent Fawcett
, which corroborated her account of the shocking conditions.
Hobhouse returned to Cape Town
in October 1901, was not permitted to land and eventually deported five days after arriving, no reason being given. She then went to France
where she wrote the book The Brunt of the War and Where it Fell on what she saw during the war.
generals she learned from them that the distress of the women and children in the concentration camps had contributed to their final resolution to surrender to Britain
. She saw it then as her mission to assist in healing the wounds inflicted by the war and to support efforts aimed at rehabilitation and reconciliation. With this object in view, she visited South Africa again in 1903. She decided to set up Boer home industries and to teach young women spinning
and weaving
when she returned once more in 1905.
Ill health, from which she never recovered, forced her to return to England in 1908.
She travelled to South Africa again in 1913 for the inauguration of the National Women's Monument
in Bloemfontein
but had to stop at Beaufort West
due to her failing health.
and protested vigorously against it. She organised the writing, signing and publishing in January 1915 of the "Open Christmas Letter
", addressed "To the Women of Germany
and Austria
". Through her offices, thousands of women and children were fed daily for more than a year in central Europe
after this war. South Africa
contributed liberally towards this effort, and an amount of more than £17,000 was collected by Mrs. President Steyn
(who was to remain a life long friend) and sent to Hobhouse for this purpose.
, which now forms part of Porthminster Hotel. In this hotel a commemorative plaque, situated within what was her lounge, was unveiled by the South African High Commissioner Mr Kent Durr as a tribute to her humanitarianism and heroism during the Anglo Boer War.
Hobhouse died in London
in 1926 and her ashes were ensconced in a niche in the National Women's Monument
at Bloemfontein
, where she was regarded as a heroine; her memorial service was the greatest granted to a non–South African. Her death was not reported by any Cornish newspaper.
The southernmost town in Eastern Free State
is named Hobhouse
, after her, as is a submarine
: the SAS Emily Hobhouse
, one of the South African Navy
's three Daphné class submarine
s, the submarine was later renamed Umkhonto.
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
welfare campaigner, who is primarily remembered for bringing to the attention of the British public, and working to change, the poor conditions inside the British concentration camps in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
built for Boer
Boer
Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State,...
women and children during the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
.
Early life
Born in St IveSt Ive
St Ive is a village and civil parish in south-east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. St Ive should not be confused with St Ives, the well-known seaside town in the west of Cornwall...
, near Liskeard
Liskeard
Liskeard is an ancient stannary and market town and civil parish in south east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.Liskeard is situated approximately 20 miles west of Plymouth, west of the River Tamar and the border with Devon, and 12 miles east of Bodmin...
in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, she was the daughter of Reginald Hobhouse an Anglican rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
and the first Archdeacon of Bodmin, and sister of Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse was a British liberal politician and sociologist, who has been considered one of the leading and earliest proponents of social liberalism. His works, alongside that of writers such as T.H. Green and John A. Hobson, occupy a seminal position within the canon of New...
, the noted social liberal
Social liberalism
Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding...
. Her mother died when she was 20, and she spent the next fourteen years looking after her father who was in poor health. When her father died in 1895 she went to Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
to perform welfare work amongst Cornish mineworkers living there, the trip having been organised by the wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
. There she became engaged to John Carr Jackson and the couple bought a ranch
Ranch
A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...
in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
but this did not prosper and the engagement was broken off. She returned to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1898 after losing most of her money in a speculative venture.
Her wedding veil (that she never wore) hangs in the head office of the "Oranje Vrouevereniging" (Orange Women's Society) in Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...
, the first women's welfare organisation in the Orange Free State
Orange Free State
The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
, as a symbol of her commitment to the uplifting of women.
Second Anglo-Boer War
When the Second Boer WarSecond Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
broke out in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in October 1899, a Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
MP, Leonard Courtney, invited Hobhouse to become secretary of the women's branch of the South African Conciliation Committee, of which he was president.
Hobhouse wrote
It was late in the summer of 1900 that I first learnt of the hundreds of BoerBoerBoer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State,...
women that became impoverished and were left ragged by our military operations… the poor women who were being driven from pillar to post, needed protection and organized assistance.
She set up the Distress Fund for South African Women and Children and sailed for the Cape Colony
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
on 7 December 1900 to supervise its distribution. She wrote later:
I came quite naturally, in obedience to the feeling of unity or oneness of womanhood... it is when the community is shaken to its foundations, that abysmal depths of privation call to each other and that a deeper unity of humanity evinces itself.
When she left England, she only knew about the concentration camp at Port Elizabeth, but on arrival found out about the many other camps (34 in total).
Hobhouse had a letter of introduction
Letter of introduction
The letter of introduction, along with the visiting card, was an important part of polite social interaction in the 18th and 19th centuries. It remains important in formal situations, such as an ambassador presenting his credentials, and in certain business circles.In general, a person would not...
to the governor, Alfred Milner, from her aunt, the wife of Lord Arthur Hobhouse
Arthur Hobhouse
Sir Arthur Lawrence Hobhouse was a long-serving English local government Liberal politician, who is best remembered as the architect of the system of National parks of England and Wales....
, himself the son of Henry Hobhouse
Henry Hobhouse (MP)
Henry Hobhouse was an English landowner and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1906....
, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
under Sir Robert Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...
, and who knew Milner. From him she obtained the use of two railway trucks, subject to the army commander, Lord Kitchener's, approval. She received Kitchener's permission two weeks later, although it only allowed her to travel as far as Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...
and take one truck of supplies for the camps, about 12 tons.
Conditions in the camps
She had persuaded the authorities to let her visit several camps and to deliver aid—her report on conditions at the camps, set out in a report entitled “Report of a Visit to the Camps of Women and Children in the Cape and Orange River Colonies”, was delivered to the British government in June 1901. As a result, a formal commission was set up and a team of official investigators headed by Millicent FawcettMillicent Fawcett
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, GBE was an English suffragist and an early feminist....
was sent to inspect the camps.
Overcrowding in bad unhygienic conditions due to neglect and lack of resources were the causes of a mortality rate that in the eighteen months during which the camps were in operation reached a total of 26,370, of which 24,000 were children under sixteen and infants, i.e. the rate at which the children died was some 50 a day.
The following extracts from the report by Emily Hobhouse make very clear the extent of culpable neglect by the authorities:
In some camps, two, and even three sets of people, occupy one tent and 10, and even 12, persons are frequently herded together in tents of which the cubic capacity is about 500 c.f.
I call this camp system a wholesale cruelty… To keep these Camps going is murder to the children.
It can never be wiped out of the memories of the people. It presses hardest on the children. They droop in the terrible heat, and with the insufficient unsuitable food; whatever you do, whatever the authorities do, and they are, I believe, doing their best with very limited means, it is all only a miserable patch on a great ill. Thousands, physically unfit, are placed in conditions of life which they have not strength to endure. In front of them is blank ruin… If only the English people would try to exercise a little imagination–picture the whole miserable scene. Entire villages rooted up and dumped in a strange, bare place.
The women are wonderful. They cry very little and never complain. The very magnitude of their sufferings, their indignities, loss and anxiety seems to lift them beyond tears… only when it cuts afresh at them through their children do their feelings flash out.
Some people in town still assert that the Camp is a haven of bliss. I was at the camp to-day, and just in one little corner this is the sort of thing I found –
The nurse, underfed and overworked, just sinking on to her bed, hardly able to hold herself up, after coping with some thirty typhoid and other patients, with only the untrained help of two Boer girls–cooking as well as nursing to do herself.
Next tent, a six months’ baby gasping its life out on is mother’s knee. Two or three others drooping sick in that tent.
Next, a girl of twenty-one lay dying on a stretcher. The father, a big, gentle Boer kneeling beside her; while, next tent, his wife was watching a child of six, also dying, and one of about five drooping.
Already this couple had lost three children in the hospital and so would not let these go, though I begged hard to take them out of the hot tent.
I can’t describe what it is to see these children lying about in a state of collapse. It’s just exactly like faded flowers thrown away. And one has to stand and look on at such misery, and be able to do almost nothing.
It was a splendid child and it dwindled to skin and bone... The baby had got so weak it was past recovery. We tried what we could but today it died. It was only 3 months but such a sweet little thing… It was still alive this morning; when I called in the afternoon they beckoned me in to see the tiny thing laid out, with a white flower in its wee hand. To me it seemed a “murdered innocent”. And an hour or two after another child died.
Another child had died in the night, and I found all three little corpses being photographed for the absent fathers to see some day. Two little wee white coffins at the gate waiting, and a third wanted. I was glad to see them, for at SpringfonteinSpringfonteinSpringfontein is a small mixed farming town in the Free State province of South Africa.The town was established in 1904 on the farm Hartleydale, which was part of the farm Springfontein. The name Springfontein, which is Afrikaans for "jumping spring", stems from the existence of a spring on the...
, a young woman had to be buried in a sack, and it hurt their feelings woefully.
It is such a curious position, hollow and rotten to the heart’s core, to have made all over the State large uncomfortable communities of people whom you call refugeeRefugeeA refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
s and say you are protecting, but who call themselves prisoners of war, compulsorily detained, and detesting your protection.
They are tired of being told by officers that they are refugees under “the kind and beneficient protection of the British”. In most cases there is no pretence that there was treachery, or ammunition concealed, or food given or anything. It was just that an order was given to empty the country.
Though the camps are called refugee, there are in reality a very few of these–perhaps only half-a-dozen in some camps. It is easy to tell them, because they are put in the best marquees, and have had time given to them to bring furniture and clothes, and are mostly self-satisfied and vastly superior people. Very few, if any of them, are in want.
Those who are suffering most keenly, and who have lost most, either of their children by death or their possessions by fire and sword, such as those reconcentrated women in the camps, have the most conspicuous patience, and never express a wish that their men should be the ones to give way. It must be fought out now, they think, to the bitter end.
It is a very costly business upon which England has embarked, and even at such a cost hardly the barest necessities can be provided, and no comforts. It is so strange to think that every tent contains a family, and every family is in trouble–loss behind, poverty in front, sickness, privation and death in the present. But they are very good, and say they have agreed to be cheerful and make the best of it all.
The Mafeking camp folk were very surprised to hear that English women cared a rap about them or their suffering. It has done them a lot of good to hear that real sympathy is felt for them at home, and so I am glad I fought my way here, if only for that reason.
The tents
Imagine the heat outside the tents and the suffocation inside! ...the sun blazed through the single canvas, and the flies lay thick and black on everything; no chair, no table, nor any room for such; only a deal box, standing on its end, served as a wee pantry.
In this tent live Mrs B’s five children (three quite grown up) and a little KaffirKaffir (racial term)The word kaffir, sometimes spelled kaffer or kafir, is an offensive term for a black person, most common in South Africa and other African countries...
servant girl. Many tents have more occupants.
Mrs M. ...has six children in camp, all ill, two in the tinCorrugated galvanised ironCorrugated galvanised iron is a building material composed of sheets of hot-dip galvanised mild steel, cold-rolled to produce a linear corrugated pattern in them...
hospital with typhoid, and four sick in the tent.
A terrible evil just now is the dew. It is so heavy, and comes through the single canvas of the tents, wetting everything… All the morning the gangways are filled with the blankets and odds and ends, regularly turned out to dry in the sun. The doctor told me today he highly disapproved of tents for young children, and expected a high mortality before June.
Hygiene
Soap has been unattainable and none given in the rations. With much persuasion, and weeks after requisitioning, soap is now given occasionally in very minute quantities–certainly not enough for clothes and personal washing.
We have much typhoid and are dreading an outbreak, so I am directing my energies to getting the water of the Modder RiverModder RiverThe Modder River is a river in South Africa that forms part of the border between the Northern Cape and the Free State provinces.Modder River may also refer to:* Modder River, Northern Cape - A small town in the Northern Cape....
boiled. As well swallow typhoid germs whole as drink that water–so say doctors.
Yet they cannot boil it all, for – first, fuel is very scarce; that which is supplied weekly would not cook a meal a day…and they have to search the already bare kopjes for a supply. There is hardly a bit to be had. Second, they have no extra utensil to hold the water when boiled. I propose, therefore, to give each tent a pail or crock, and get a proclamation issued that all drinking water must be boiled.
The "cruel system"
Above all one would hope that the good sense, if not the mercy, of the English people, will cry out against the further development of this cruel system which falls with crushing effect upon the old, the weak, and the children. May they stay the order to bring in more and yet more. Since Old Testament daysBabylonian captivityThe Babylonian captivity was the period in Jewish history during which the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon—conventionally 587–538 BCE....
was ever a whole nation carried captive?
Late in 1901 the camps ceased to receive new families and conditions improved in some camps; but the damage was done. Thomas Pakenham writes of Kitchener's
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC , was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway...
policy turn:
No doubt the continued 'hullabaloo' at the death-rate in these concentration camps, and Milner's belated agreement to take over their administration, helped changed K's mind [some time at the end of 1901]. By mid-December at any rate, Kitchener was already circulating all column commanders with instructions not to bring in women and children when they cleared the country, but to leave them with the guerrillas... Viewed as a gesture to Liberals, on the eve of the new session of Parliament at Westminster, it was a shrewd political move. It also made excellent military sense, as it greatly handicapped the guerrillas, now that the drives were in full swing... It was effective precisely because, contrary to the Liberals' convictions, it was less humane than bringing them into camps, though this was of no great concern to Kitchener.
Charles Aked, a Baptist minister in Liverpool, said on 22 December 1901, Peace Sunday: "Great Britain cannot win the battles without resorting to the last despicable cowardice of the most loathsome cur on earth—the act of striking a brave man's heart through his wife's honour and his child's life. The cowardly war has been conducted by methods of barbarism... the concentration camps have been Murder Camps." Afterwards, a crowd followed him home and broke the windows of his house.
Bloemfontein Concentration Camp
Hobhouse arrived at the camp at BloemfonteinBloemfontein
Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...
on 24 January 1901 and was shocked by the conditions she encountered:
"They went to sleep without any provision having been made for them and without anything to eat or to drink. I saw crowds of them along railway lines in bitterly cold weather, in pouring rain–hungry, sick, dying and dead. Soap was an article that was not dispensed. The water supply was inadequate. No bedstead or mattress was procurable. Fuel was scarce and had to be collected from the green bushes on the slopes of the kopjes (small hills) by the people themselves. The rations were extremely meagre and when, as I frequently experienced, the actual quantity dispensed fell short of the amount prescribed, it simply meant famine."
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
, bronchitis
Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...
, pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
, dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
and typhoid had invaded the camp with fatal results. The very few tents were not enough to house the one or more sick persons, most of them children.
In the collection Stemme uit die Verlede ("Voices from the Past"), she recalled the plight of Lizzie van Zyl
Lizzie van Zyl
Lizzie Van Zyl was a child inmate of Bloemfontein camp who died from typhoid fever during the Second Boer War. Activist Emily Hobhouse used her death as an example of the hardships the Boer women and children faced in the British concentration camps during the war.-References:...
, a child who died at the Bloemfontein camp.
"She was a frail, weak little child in desperate need of good care. Yet, because her mother was one of the "undesirables" because her father neither surrendered nor betrayed his people, Lizzie was placed on the lowest rations and so perished with hunger that, after a month in the camp, she was transferred to the new small hospital. Here she was treated harshly. The English disposed doctor and his nurses did not understand her language and, as she could not speak English, labelled her an idiot although she was mentally fit and normal. One day she dejectedly started calling for her mother, when a Mrs Botha walked over to her to console her. She was just telling the child that she would soon see her mother again, when she was brusquely interrupted by one of the nurses who told her not to interfere with the child as she was a nuisance".
When she requested soap for the people, she was told that soap is an article of luxury. She nevertheless succeeded, after a struggle, to have it listed as a necessity, together with straw, more tents and more kettles in which to boil the drinking water. She distributed clothes and supplied pregnant women, who had to sleep on the ground, with mattresses, but she could not forgive what she called
Crass male ignorance, helplessness and muddling… I rub as much salt into the sore places in their minds… because it is good for them; but I can't help melting a little when they are very humble and confess that the whole thing is a grievous and gigantic blunder and presents almost insoluble problems, and they don't know how to face it…
Hobhouse also visited camps at Norvalspont, Aliwal North
Aliwal North
Aliwal North is a town in central South Africa on the Orange River, Eastern Cape Province. Aliwal North is the seat of the Maletswai Local Municipality which falls within the Ukhahlamba District Municipality....
, Springfontein
Springfontein
Springfontein is a small mixed farming town in the Free State province of South Africa.The town was established in 1904 on the farm Hartleydale, which was part of the farm Springfontein. The name Springfontein, which is Afrikaans for "jumping spring", stems from the existence of a spring on the...
, Kimberley
Kimberley, Northern Cape
Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...
and Orange River
Orange River
The Orange River , Gariep River, Groote River or Senqu River is the longest river in South Africa. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean...
.
Fawcett Commission
When she returned to EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
she received scathing criticism and hostility from the British government and many of the media, but eventually succeeded in obtaining more funding to help the victims of the war. The British Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
leader at the time, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman GCB was a British Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and Leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 1908. He also served as Secretary of State for War twice, in the Cabinets of Gladstone and Rosebery...
, denounced what he called the "methods of barbarism". The British government eventually agreed to set up the Fawcett Commission to investigate her claims, under Millicent Fawcett
Millicent Fawcett
Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, GBE was an English suffragist and an early feminist....
, which corroborated her account of the shocking conditions.
Hobhouse returned to Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
in October 1901, was not permitted to land and eventually deported five days after arriving, no reason being given. She then went to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
where she wrote the book The Brunt of the War and Where it Fell on what she saw during the war.
Rehabilitation and reconciliation
After Hobhouse had met the BoerBoer
Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State,...
generals she learned from them that the distress of the women and children in the concentration camps had contributed to their final resolution to surrender to Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. She saw it then as her mission to assist in healing the wounds inflicted by the war and to support efforts aimed at rehabilitation and reconciliation. With this object in view, she visited South Africa again in 1903. She decided to set up Boer home industries and to teach young women spinning
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
and weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
when she returned once more in 1905.
Ill health, from which she never recovered, forced her to return to England in 1908.
She travelled to South Africa again in 1913 for the inauguration of the National Women's Monument
National Women's Monument
The Women's Monument or Vrouemonument in Bloemfontein, South Africa, is a monument commemorating the suffering of some 27,000 Boer women and children who died in British concentration camps during the Boer War. The Monument is a Provincial Heritage Site in the Free State.The monument was designed...
in Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...
but had to stop at Beaufort West
Beaufort West
Beaufort West is a town in the Western Cape province in South Africa. It is the largest town in the arid Great Karoo region, and forms part of the Beaufort West Local Municipality, with 37 000 inhabitants in 2001....
due to her failing health.
Later life
Hobhouse was an avid opponent of the First World WarWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and protested vigorously against it. She organised the writing, signing and publishing in January 1915 of the "Open Christmas Letter
Open Christmas Letter
The Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British women suffragists at the end of 1914 as the first Christmas of World War I approached...
", addressed "To the Women of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
". Through her offices, thousands of women and children were fed daily for more than a year in central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
after this war. South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
contributed liberally towards this effort, and an amount of more than £17,000 was collected by Mrs. President Steyn
Martinus Theunis Steyn
Martinus Theunis Steyn was a South African lawyer, politician, and statesman, sixth and last president of the independent Orange Free State from 1896 to 1902....
(who was to remain a life long friend) and sent to Hobhouse for this purpose.
South African reverence
She became an honorary citizen of South Africa for her humanitarian work there. Unbeknown to her, on the initiative of Mrs R. I. Steyn, a sum of £2,300 was collected from the Afrikaner nation and with that Emily purchased a house in St Ives, CornwallSt Ives, Cornwall
St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a shift in commercial...
, which now forms part of Porthminster Hotel. In this hotel a commemorative plaque, situated within what was her lounge, was unveiled by the South African High Commissioner Mr Kent Durr as a tribute to her humanitarianism and heroism during the Anglo Boer War.
Hobhouse died in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1926 and her ashes were ensconced in a niche in the National Women's Monument
National Women's Monument
The Women's Monument or Vrouemonument in Bloemfontein, South Africa, is a monument commemorating the suffering of some 27,000 Boer women and children who died in British concentration camps during the Boer War. The Monument is a Provincial Heritage Site in the Free State.The monument was designed...
at Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...
, where she was regarded as a heroine; her memorial service was the greatest granted to a non–South African. Her death was not reported by any Cornish newspaper.
The southernmost town in Eastern Free State
Free State
The Free State is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bloemfontein, which is also South Africa's judicial capital. Its historical origins lie in the Orange Free State Boer republic and later Orange Free State Province. The current borders of the province date from 1994 when the Bantustans...
is named Hobhouse
Hobhouse, Free State
Hobhouse is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa, named after welfare campaigner Emily Hobhouse. Maize, wheat, cheese and livestock are produced here.-External links:*...
, after her, as is a submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
: the SAS Emily Hobhouse
SAS Umkhonto
The submarine SAS Umkhonto , formerly the SAS Emily Hobhouse, was the second of three French-built Daphné class submarines ordered by the South African Navy in 1968. Laid down in December 1968 and launched October 24, 1969 and commissioned into the South African Navy under the command of Lt Cdr...
, one of the South African Navy
South African Navy
The South African Navy is the navy of the Republic of South Africa.-Formation:The South African Navy can trace its official origins back to the SA Naval Service, which was established on 1 April 1922....
's three Daphné class submarine
Daphne class submarine
The Daphné class was a type of diesel-electric patrol submarines built in France between 1958 and 1970 for the French Navy and for export.-History:...
s, the submarine was later renamed Umkhonto.
External links
- Article about Emily Hobhouse's role on an Anglo-Boer War Memorial site
- http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mbeki/2004/tm0308.htmlSpeech given by President Thabo MbekiThabo MbekiThabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
in 2004 quoting Emily Hobhouse] - Biography of Hobhouse on "Special South Africans" site
- Emily Hobhouse Memorial Page on FindaGrave